Director Guillermo del Toro is gearing up to compete in the Best Picture and eight other categories at the upcoming Oscars, representing his latest film Frankenstein. Del Toro won his first Academy Award several years ago, and did so without compromising on his love for the fantasy genre. The Mexican filmmaker remains devoted to broken characters, whom he has spotlighted time and again in his cinema. And this unwavering devotion eventually earned him the audience and the industry’s respect. Frankenstein was nominated in nine categories at the 98th Academy Awards, but in 2017, a movie that del Toro directed was nominated for a leading 13 nominations. It went on to become only the second fantasy film ever to win the Best Picture honor, after Peter Jackson‘s The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. The movie has recently seen a surge in interest on the HBO Max streaming service.

The film in question, The Shape of Water, was produced on a reported budget of $19 million and went on to gross nearly $200 million at the global box office. It was headlined by Sally Hawkins, with Michael Shannon, Richard Jenkins, Octavia Spencer, Doug Jones, and Michael Stuhlbarg in supporting roles. Set in the 1960s during the Cold War, the film followed a mute woman who finds and develops an intimate relationship with a sea creature. The Shape of Water was critically acclaimed, of course, but it has its detractors. While it holds a “Certified Fresh” 92% score on the aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the contrarian critic Rex Reed described it as “a loopy, lunkheaded load of drivel.”

‘The Shape of Water’ Drowned Several Blockbusters on Streaming

According to FlixPatrol, The Shape of Water was among the most-watched movies on the domestic HBO Max charts, when the leaderboard was topped by If I Had Legs I’d Kick You — the darkly comic thriller about a mother dealing with the pressures of existence. The Shape of Water outperformed four blockbusters — John Wick, John Wick: Chapter 2, Twilight, and The Notebook. Del Toro followed it up with his blank-check project, the psychological drama Nightmare Alley, which underperformed at the box office but earned a Best Picture nomination as well. He bounced back with his first stop-motion film, Pinocchio, which earned him a Best Animated Feature Oscar.

You can watch The Shape of Water at home. Stay tuned to Collider for more updates.