Guillermo del Toro receives BFI Fellowship from Cate Blanchett at the BFI Chair’s Dinner
The event was attended by leading filmmakers and talent including J. J. Abrams, John Waters, Rian Johnson, J. A. Bayona, Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg, David Bradley, Burn Gorman and more.
Mexican filmmaker Guillermo del Toro received the BFI’s highest honour, the BFI Fellowship, at the annual BFI Chair’s Dinner, hosted by BFI Chair Jay Hunt at the Rosewood London on Wednesday night. The BFI Fellowship was presented to del Toro by Academy Award-winning actor Cate Blanchett, herself a BFI Fellow since 2015, and star of del Toro’s Nightmare Alley (2021) and Pinocchio (2022).
Film industry guests and talent in attendance with Hunt and BFI Chief Executive Ben Roberts included: J.J. Abrams, Belén Atienza, J. A. Bayona, Sanjeev Bhaskar, Cate Blanchett, David Bradley, Burn Gorman, Sir Christopher Frayling, Kate Hawley, Anwen Hurt, Elizabeth Karlsen, Hakan Kousetta, Richard Kwietniowski, Peter Lord, Ian Mackinnon, Kim Morgan, Simon Pegg, Nabhaan Rizwan, Joanna Scanlan, Peter Saunders, Gary Ungar, John Waters, Stephen Woolley, Edgar Wright, Rian Johnson and more.
“For a man that has tried for 30 years to make the brutal and the beautiful sit together, I have never made a movie I would not die for,” says del Toro. “I was born in Mexico, geographically, spiritually, physically, but my soul has belonged to many parts of the world over the years, including England, and the UK has given me so much. The BFI is guarding not just British film, but guarding film as an art form and keeping that faith aligned. That is why this honour is so immense. I believe in the British Film Institute as a beacon of culture, in a time where we are told culture is not important.”
On presenting the BFI Fellowship, Blanchett said: “Wildly entertaining, often hilarious and frequently terrifying, Guillermo del Toro’s film offer a vision of what we have to guard against, while reminding us of what we have to fight for and protect – love; beauty; the life of the spirit; the touch of the human hand. Guillermo’s artistry has never been more urgent and more essential.”
“Tonight Guillermo del Toro is recognised with a BFI Fellowship as a beacon of creative excellence,” says Hunt. “He has consistently championed British talent and his collaborations here speak to the strength of our wider screen industries and the skilled people who power them. In an industry that chases trends, he has remained unmistakably, stubbornly, gloriously himself. He has shown that fantasy can interrogate history, that horror can expose injustice, and that monsters can illuminate what it means to be human.”
The BFI Fellowship recognises del Toro’s extraordinary contribution to film and the distinctive artistry that defines his work across both animation and live action. From Hellboy (2004) to his Academy Award-winning masterpieces Pan’s Labyrinth (2006), The Shape of Water (2017) and Pinocchio (2022), and most recently his multi-Academy Award and BAFTA-winning adaptation of Frankenstein (2025), del Toro has created richly imaginative cinematic worlds that fuse dark fantasy, horror and monsters with complex emotional storytelling.
The BFI Fellowship forms part of a wider BFI celebration of del Toro’s work throughout May, including a major season curated by del Toro at BFI Southbank and BFI IMAX. He will also take part in a public career conversation at BFI Southbank on Friday 8 May and deliver a Masterclass to a group of young, aspiring filmmakers from the BFI Film Academy. As part of the celebrations, del Toro will also make a special visit to the BFI National Archive, reflecting a longstanding relationship with the BFI and a deep connection to British film. As a young projectionist in Mexico, he sourced prints from the BFI National Archive, including for Mexico’s first screening of Michael Powell’s Peeping Tom, and has continued to draw inspiration from British cinema throughout his career.
BFI Distribution will also re-release del Toro’s debut feature Cronos (1992), recently remastered in 4K by the BFI and Les Films du Camelia, overseen by del Toro, in cinemas across the UK and Ireland from Friday 15 May.
Del Toro joins the distinguished ranks of other BFI Fellows including David Lean, Bette Davis, Akira Kurosawa, Ousmane Sembène, Elizabeth Taylor, Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger, Orson Welles, Thelma Schoonmaker, Derek Jarman, Martin Scorsese, Satyajit Ray, Yasujiro Ozu and, most recently, Tom Cruise, Christopher Nolan, Laura Mulvey, Tilda Swinton, Barbara Broccoli, Michael G. Wilson and Spike Lee.