15 More ‘Frankenstein’ Movies to Watch After the Guillermo del Toro Version

When you watch Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein, you can tell it comes from a place of passion. The Oscar-winning filmmaker has been thinking about adapting the legendary 1818 novel by Mary Shelley for a very long time and, thanks to Netflix, he finally got his shot.

But how did del Toro get to that place? Well, Frankenstein has been a part of popular culture for not just his whole life, but well before that, too. There have been hundreds of different adaptations of the story across all media, each with its own take on a scientist creating a new person by putting together pieces of dead ones. Some are more direct adaptations. Others focus on specific aspects. And, for many of us, they’ve shaped what we think of the characters, the story, and more.

Once you’ve seen the latest adaptation of Frankenstein, maybe you want to go back and see where it all came from. io9 has covered variations on Shelley’s tale in the past, but below, we’ve come up with 15 movies that will help paint a picture of the story’s cinematic history. Movies that can help begin a full Frankie immersion, just like Guillermo del Toro.

Frankenstein (1931)

Not the first Frankenstein movie ever (that honor goes to one released in 1910), but the first with sound and the first from Universal Pictures. James Whale directs and Boris Karloff stars in what most consider the most iconic and long-lasting adaptation of the material to date.

Bride of Frankenstein (1935)

Largely considered the greatest film made featuring the Frankenstein monster, Bride of Frankenstein is a direct sequel to the 1931 film. Whale again directs, and Karloff again stars, but he’s joined by Elsa Lanchester as “the Monster’s Mate.” The addition of that character works wonders to deepen and enhance the themes of the series.

Son of Frankenstein (1939)

And if you’re going to watch the first two films, you might as well watch the third in the original trilogy. It’s Boris Karloff’s last foray as the monster, but it focuses more on Ygor, played by another horror icon, Bela Lugosi (who, by this time, had also played Dracula). While Universal’s version of the series continued with other actors, most feel this is the last to maintain the level of quality of the previous two.

Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943)

A few years after Son, Lugosi stayed in the franchise but moved over to the role of Frankenstein’s monster, while Lon Chaney Jr. reprised his role from The Wolf Man. This one is significant today because of the star power of its lead actors, as well as its lead characters. It’s an early, crucial example of the Frankenstein story and characters starting to break out of the original story.

Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948)

While the Frankenstein characters were, understandably, more regularly used in horror or thrillers, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein was one of the most famous and successful forays of bringing the story into different genres. It was a huge hit at the time and spawned basically a whole other branch of the Universal Monsters franchise. Glenn Strange plays the monster.

Curse of Frankenstein (1957)

Since the Frankenstein novel had been out since the 1800s, it wasn’t a story or characters exclusively owned by Universal. Other companies got in the mix too, with one of the most famous examples of this series by Hammer Films. Curse of Frankenstein was the first Hammer film in the series, and in it, Christopher Lee plays the Creature, and Peter Cushing is the doctor. This version is best known for pushing the horror elements beyond the previous iterations

Frankenstein Conquers the World (1965)

Also referred to by its original title, Frankenstein vs. Baragon, this Japanese production from Toho, the company behind Godzilla, shows the true malleability of the story, reimagining Frankenstein’s monster as a giant kaiju creature.

Young Frankenstein (1974)

Maybe one of the most famous Frankenstein movies of all time is this Mel Brooks adaptation that features Gene Wilder as the doctor and Peter Boyle as the monster. It’s a smart, silly spin on the story that remains so popular and relevant; a new TV iteration is currently in the works called Very Young Frankenstein.

The Monster Squad (1987)

Sorry, not sorry. This is my list, so I had to put on the version of Frankenstein that I most directly grew up with. This 1987 horror comedy stars not just Tom Noonan as Frankenstein’s monster but also features Dracula, the Wolf Man, the Creature from the Black Lagoon, and the Mummy as the villains against a group of monster-obsessed kids. Plus, Frankenstein’s monster gets to be the hero in it. It may not be a classic, but I love both this movie and its interpretation of the character.

Frankenweenie (2012)

If Frankenstein can be a horror movie, a comedy, and a sci-fi movie, it can be a stop-motion animated film about a dog too. With Frankenweenie, legendary director Tim Burton takes a short film he directed back in 1984 and turns it into a full-blown feature. It’s not the best Burton movie by any stretch, but it’s a great example of just how far this story has come on film in the past 100 years.

But also…

Not all Frankenstein stories have to have Frankenstein in them. Movies like Edward Scissorhands, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, RoboCop, Re-Animator, and Weird Science all use the basic bones of the story in different ways, showing that over 200 years after the release of the last book, anything is possible with this story. We’d recommend each and all of them as ways to see how the story has inspired generations.

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