The Shape of Water · reception & legacy

2017 · Guillermo del Toro

How The Shape of Water has been received, argued over, and remembered.

The arc

Rode a wave from Venice Golden Lion to 13 Oscar nominations and a Best Picture win — then hit the fast backlash that awaits most winners, now often ranked among the softer recent Best Picture choices while del Toro loyalists keep defending it as his tenderest film.

What's debated

The eternal 2017 rematch: did the fish-romance really deserve to beat Get Out, Lady Bird, Call Me by Your Name and Phantom Thread — or was it the safe 'love letter to cinema' pick?

Its footprint

It lives online as 'the fish sex movie' — a meme shorthand the internet ran with instantly — while the Amphibian Man himself became an unlikely romantic icon of the 'monster boyfriend' era.

Where it stands

A Best Picture winner cinephiles treat as mid-tier del Toro — warmly rewatched by his fans, eye-rolled by the beat-Get-Out crowd — rather than a settled classic.

★ Did you know? Del Toro first pitched the film to Sally Hawkins at a Golden Globes party in 2014 — by his own admission he was drunk — telling her he was writing a movie for her where she'd fall in love with a fish man.

Named by the director

Influences Guillermo del Toro has publicly named — the director's own word, distinct from the inferred lines of influence.

Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954) — Del Toro has said that watching it as a child he longed for the creature and the heroine to end up together — The Shape of Water is his declared attempt to finally give that romance a happy ending.