Entertainment
Craving More ‘Frankenstein’? This Oscar-Nominated Horror Epic Just Found a Streaming Home
Frankenstein is more alive than ever these days. The Bride!, Maggie Gyllenhaal‘s take on the Mary Shelley mythos, is hitting theaters next week, while Guillermo del Toro‘s more traditional adaptation of the novel debuted on Netflix late last year — and is up for nine Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Actor for the movie’s monster, Jacob Elordi. And while the Academy Awards have traditionally not been a welcoming place for horror, another Frankenstein movie got a nod from the Academy back in 1994, and you can catch it at its new streaming home.
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein followed in the wake of Francis Ford Coppola‘s phantasmagorical Bram Stoker’s Dracula, which was a hit with critics and audiences in 1992. Coppola was a producer on Frankenstein, which was armed with a surefire creative team: Kenneth Branagh, already well-regarded for his Shakespeare adaptations, was set to star and direct, while the script was by Frank Darabont, whose adaptation of The Shawshank Redemption hit theaters a month earlier. The cast included Oscar nominees Tom Hulce, Ian Holm, and Helena Bonham Carter, and featured Robert De Niro in the showy role of the monster. De Niro’s grisly makeup, which greatly diverges from the popular conception of the flat-topped, bolt-necked monster, was nominated for an Academy Award, but lost to Ed Wood.
What Other Frankenstein Movies Have Been Nominated for Oscars?
While 1931’s iconic Frankenstein might have won an Oscar for Best Makeup, the category wasn’t introduced until the 1980s. The first Frankenstein film to get an Oscar nod was 1935’s Bride of Frankenstein, which earned a nomination for Best Sound Recording. Another Frankenstein movie wouldn’t be nominated until 1974, when Mel Brooks‘ Universal horror homage Young Frankenstein was nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Sound, both of which it lost. A Frankenstein movie of sorts, Gods and Monsters is the real-life story of the later years of Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein director James Whale; Ian McKellen earned a nod for Best Actor for his portrayal of Whale, while Lynn Redgrave was recognized for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Whale’s housemaid. The film actually won Best Adapted Screenplay, a first for a Frankenstein movie, for writer/director Bill Condon.
While Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein largely follows the book faithfully for much of its runtime, it takes a wild swerve in its final reel into a twisted homage to Bride of Frankenstein. Critical opinions were mixed, resulting in a 42% Rotten rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and it earned $112 million USD at the box office on a $45 million budget. Darabont was disappointed with the film, as well: he later called it “the best script I ever wrote and the worst movie I’ve ever seen.”
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is streaming on HBO Max as of March 1, 2026. Stay tuned to Collider for future updates.
- Release Date
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November 4, 1994
- Runtime
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123 minutes