Guillermo del Toro‘s Frankenstein just earned nine Oscar nominations, and now two of Netflix‘s most prominent directors are using its success to relitigate the oldest streaming debate in Hollywood. At a recent Netflix Q&A, del Toro and David Fincher made their case for why the platform deserves to be considered legitimate cinema–a conversation that feels less theoretical when one of them is holding a fistful of Academy recognition.
“People are trying to define Cinema right now,” del Toro said. “Is it the size of the screen, or the size of the ideas?” Fincher, never one for subtlety, added: “It’s not the length of the thing, it’s not the width of it…”
Why Frankenstein’s Success Strengthens the Netflix Cinema Argument
The numbers make their argument easier. Frankenstein ranked among Netflix’s top five most-viewed films in its first five weeks while simultaneously selling out nearly 1,000 theatrical screenings globally. Netflix is now re-releasing the film for a limited one-week run later this month–a hybrid strategy that would have seemed contradictory five years ago.
Fincher’s praise was characteristically precise: “The movie is exquisite. But it’s not just beautiful. Because ‘just beautiful’ is a cop-out. You have a film that is an example of a hand-crafted personal expression. It is outstanding in that respect.”
The list of industry supporters reads like an Oscar voter roll call: Coppola, Scorsese, Cuarón, Cooper, Fennell, DuVernay, and half a dozen more.
The Conflict of Interest Nobody’s Mentioning About Del Toro and Fincher
Here’s the elephant in the room: both filmmakers have lucrative Netflix deals. Fincher has been all-in with the platform for over a decade–House of Cards, Mindhunter, Love, Death + Robots, Mank, The Killer, and the upcoming The Adventures of Cliff Booth. He’s previously declared that “Netflix is the Future of Cinema.”
Del Toro, to his credit, maintains a more nuanced position. He’s said Frankenstein was designed to “work in both sizes”–intimate at home, epic in a cinema–while acknowledging it’s “too early to speculate” on what streaming’s dominance means for cinematic culture long-term.
After twenty years of watching this debate evolve, I’ve noticed a pattern: filmmakers tend to defend whatever distribution model is currently funding their vision. That doesn’t make their arguments wrong–but it does make their timing convenient.
FAQ: Del Toro Fincher Netflix and the Future of Cinema
Does Frankenstein’s Oscar success prove Netflix films can compete with theatrical releases?
It proves Netflix films can earn nominations–which we already knew from Roma, Mank, and The Power of the Dog. Whether audiences perceive them as equally “cinematic” remains genuinely unresolved, regardless of what Academy voters decide.
Why are del Toro and Fincher the ones making this argument?
Because they’re the ones with Netflix deals and Oscar-caliber work to point to. The filmmakers struggling to get mid-budget dramas made at traditional studios aren’t being invited to Q&As to discuss cinema’s future.
Del Toro’s framing–“the size of the ideas” over “the size of the screen”–is elegant, and I don’t entirely disagree with it. But I keep thinking about the filmmakers who don’t have Netflix’s resources behind them, who are watching this debate from the outside. Their perspective on what counts as cinema might look different. I’d genuinely like to hear from someone who’s lost a theatrical deal to streaming economics–that conversation would be more interesting than two winners explaining why their platform is legitimate.
