The Shape of Water
2017 film by Guillermo del Toro
The Shape of Water is a 2017 period romantic dark fantasy film directed and produced by Guillermo del Toro, who co-wrote the screenplay with Vanessa Taylor. It stars Sally Hawkins, Michael Shannon, Richard Jenkins, Doug Jones, Michael Stuhlbarg, and Octavia Spencer. Set in 1962 Baltimore, Maryland, and inspired by Creature from the Black Lagoon, the film follows a mute cleaner at a high-security government laboratory who falls in love with a captured humanoid amphibian creature and decides to help him escape from death at the hands of an evil colonel. Filming took place on location in Ontario, Canada, from August to November 2016.
The Shape of Water was screened as part of the main competition in the 74th Venice International Film Festival, where it premiered on August 31, 2017, and was awarded the Golden Lion. It was also screened at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival. It began a limited release in two theaters in New York City on December 1, 2017, before expanding wide on December 22, and grossed $195 million worldwide.
The Shape of Water was widely acclaimed by critics, who lauded its acting, screenplay, direction, visuals, production design, cinematography, and musical score. The American Film Institute selected it as one of the top ten films of 2017. The film was nominated for a leading thirteen awards at the 90th Academy Awards, winning four, including Best Picture and Best Director, and received numerous other accolades; it was the second fantasy film to win Best Picture, after The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003).
The public source identifies “The Shape of Water” as 2017 film by Guillermo del Toro. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Shape, Water and film.
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Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q26698156. VIAF identifies the subject as 4151715581613780199. The Library of Congress control number is no2018007503. 4 of 8 selected statements include explicit references; 5 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2017, 1962, 2016 and 2003.
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This entry incorporates text from “The Shape of Water” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.