Guillermo del Toro won Best Director Golden Globe for The Shape of Water

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

Guillermo del Toro's CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON-inspired love story THE SHAPE OF WATER received some strong competition from the dark dramedy THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI at the Golden Globes ceremony last night. Nominated in seven categories, THE SHAPE OF WATER lost to THREE BILLBOARDS in four of them – in the supporting actor category, BILLBOARDS' Sam Rockwell won over SHAPE's Richard Jenkins; BILLBOARDS took the best screenplay award; BILLBOARDS' Frances McDormand won best actress instead of SHAPE's Sally Hawkins; and when it came down to Best Film (Drama), that award went to THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI, too.

Outside of the THREE BILLBOARDS vs. THE SHAPE OF WATER competition, I, TANYA's Allison Janney took the supporting actress award that SHAPE's Octavia Spencer had been nominated for.

It may have had five losses, but THE SHAPE OF WATER did win in two categories, besting THREE BILLBOARDS in the process. SHAPE's Alexandre Desplat took the best score award over BILLBOARDS' Carter Burwell… and in the Best Director category, SHAPE's Guillermo del Toro beat BILLBOARDS' Martin McDonagh.

Taking the stage to accept the first Golden Globe of his career, del Toro delivered an emotional speech about his years of making creature features, and even gave a shout-out to Lon Chaney.

Since childhood I have been faithful to monsters. I have been saved and absolved by them, because monsters I believe are patron saints of our blissful imperfection, and they allow and embody the possibility of failing and live. For 25 years I have handcrafted very strange little tales made of motion, color, light, and shadow. In three precise instances, these strange stories, these fables, have saved my life. Once with DEVIL'S BACKBONE, once with PAN'S LABYRINTH, and now with SHAPE OF WATER, because as directors, these things are not just entries in a filmography. We have made a deal with a particularly inefficient devil that trades three years of our lives for one entry on IMDb. And these things are biography and they are alive."

Around that point, the orchestra started trying to play del Toro off the stage, but he asked them for a little more time, since it had taken him 25 years to get there. He went on to thank his cast and crew, finishing with:

I thank you, my monsters thank you, and somewhere Lon Chaney is smiling upon all of us."

Starring Sally Hawkins, Doug Jones, Michael Shannon, Octavia Spencer, Richard Jenkins, and Michael Stuhlbarg, THE SHAPE OF WATER is about

Elisa (Hawkins), a lonely mute woman who is trapped in a life of silence and isolation within the hidden high-security government laboratory where she works. Her life is changed forever when she and her co-worker Zelda (Spencer) discover a secret classified experiment.

The Golden Globe nominations and del Toro's win bode well for THE SHAPE OF WATER's chances at the Oscars, even though we already know that the film won't be competing in the Best Makeup category.