Every Guillermo Del Toro Movie Ranked Worst To Best

The film that started it all, Cronos is a directorial debut with staggeringly few faults, and some thirty years after its release it serves as a reminder that del Toro would never be one to flinch from a challenge or shrink from the loftiness of his goals. All told, it's the work of a young director already working at full steam.

The story is simple, following an ageing antiques dealer who's granted eternal life by a mysterious artefact, only to learn that his newfound immortality comes with the loss of his humanity, and it aches with del Toro's themes of humanity and monsters, life and inevitable death.

Cronos is a vampire movie unlike any you'll ever see, as sympathetic as it is scary and contemplative, and though he wasn't even thirty when he made it, it's also del Toro at his best. Or at least it would be, if he didn't keep finding new ways to outdo himself.