Award-winning director and Death Stranding NPC Guillermo del Toro’s film The Shape of Water will soon join The Criterion Collection. The new 4K Blu-ray edition releases November 26 and is available to preorder now for $35 at Amazon, a 30% discount from its $50 list price. A love story at its core–albeit a weird romance tale involving an alienated woman and a humanoid amphibian–the film brilliantly showcases del Toro’s distinctive style and detail-oriented approach to building a believable world. Arguably del Toro’s best film, The Shape of Water won Best Picture and Best Director at the 2018 Academy Awards.
While you wait to rewatch The Shape of Water, we’d recommend checking out the official novelization co-authored by del Toro. It’s available now in hardcover for $31 and Kindle for $13. It’s worth noting a new paperback edition of The Shape of Water’s official novelization is slated for release next May.
The Shape of Water releases just one week prior to Criterion’s big 40th anniversary celebration. A 40-film box set dubbed CC40 releases November 19. The set carries an $800 list price, but you can preorder it from Amazon for $560.
$35 (was $50)
If you’re unfamiliar with the Criterion Collection, then you’re in for a treat. Each film in this series is presented as its maker would want it seen, turning them into the ultimate director’s cut. They’re also loaded with tons of extra content, giving you more insight into the development of each movie, and you can typically find a wide selection of movies covered here. Everything from classics and avant-garde movies to Hollywood blockbusters, B-movie horror, and weirder stuff has been highlighted in the past. A category that The Shape of Water easily fits into!
Here’s a closer look at what you’re getting on this director-approved version of the film:
- 4K digital master, supervised by director Guillermo del Toro
- 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack
- One 4K UHD disc of the film presented in HDR
- One standard Blu-ray with the film and special features
- New conversation between del Toro and filmmaker David Lowery
- A Fairy Tale for Troubled Times, a documentary highlighting the film’s production design, performances, special effects, and score
- Prologue and Anatomy of a Scene: The Dance
- Shaping the Waves: An interview with illustrator James Jean
- Masterclass from 2017 on the film’s technical aspects, featuring del Toro and other crew members
- Trailers
- English subtitles
- English descriptive audio
- An essay by film critic Carlos Aguilar
The Shape of Water will be the fifth del Toro film in the Criterion Collection. You can get the other four films, including Pinocchio and Pan’s Labyrinth, for big discounts at Amazon. Sadly, del Toro’s greatest cinematic masterpiece isn’t on this list yet, but it should only be a matter of time before Pacific Rim gets the Criterion Collection treatment. Okay, probably not, but Pacific Rim is del Toro’s biggest box office hit, and you should still watch it on 4K Blu-ray because it’s a lot of fun.
Guillermo del Toro Criterion Collection
If you’re looking for even more details on The Shape of Water, there are some informative books you can grab now. Guillermo del Toro’s The Shape of Water: Creating a Fairy Tale for Troubled Times is a beautiful hardcover book that explores the art and the filmmaking journey behind the film.
Authors Daniel Kraus and del Toro adapted The Shape of Water into an excellent full-length novel. Novelizations–films turned into books–aren’t nearly as common as they once were, as opposed to the ultra-common book-to-film adaptation pipeline. Good novelizations are even rarer, but del Toro and Kraus created a novel that complements and builds on the world of the film. The hardcover edition of The Shape of Water is available now for $31, but there’s also a new $20 trade paperback edition releasing May 20, 2025. Your cheapest option is the Kindle ebook for $13.
The Shape of Water isn’t the only del Toro film to receive a novelization. He joined forces with award-winning author Cornelia Funke and illustrator Allen Williams to turn Pan’s Labyrinth into a novel that’s arguably as good as the film. If you like art books, you can also get a behind-the-scenes look at the making of del Toro’s version of Pinocchio.
Fans of del Toro’s films should also check out his trilogy of vampire novels co-authored with Chuck Hogan. The Strain was turned into a pretty good FX show that ran from 2014 to 2017, but the novels are (like usual) better than the adaptation.
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