Guillermo del Toro recently stopped by Konbini Video, France’s answer to the Criterion Closet, only better. The video, uploaded yesterday, is a real treat for film lovers.
While del Toro touches on many topics, he highlights several key influences, including Mad Max, Freaks, Planet of the Apes, Taxi Driver, The Devils, Notorious, Vertigo, and Los Olvidados. He also defends his jury’s decision to award Dheepan the Palme d’Or in 2015 and shares a story about working, for insurance reasons, as assistant director on William Friedkin’s final film, The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial.
If you’re curious about which films Guillermo del Toro ranks among the greatest ever made, here’s his top 10 list from the 2022 Sight & Sound poll:
- Barry Lyndon
- Goodfellas
- City Lights
- Close Encounters of the Third Kind
- Bride of Frankenstein
- 8½
- Nazarin
- No Country for Old Men
- Shadow of a Doubt
- The Magnificent Ambersons
In his chat with Konbini, Guillermo del Toro had high praise for James Cameron’s Avatar—though not quite to the level of Michael Mann, who listed Cameron’s film among his top 10 greatest ever in Sight & Sound. Still, del Toro didn’t hold back, using the “M” word himself. He’s also one of the few people who’ve already seen the upcoming third installment, Fire and Ash.
I’ve seen the three Avatars. They are absolute masterpieces. I know where it’s going and I think it’s going to surprise a lot of people […] I can’t say anything about [the third] but I can say there are very few Americans that have created an entire mythology. You have [George] Lucas. You have the entire ‘Wizard of Oz’ mythology with Frank Baum. Jim is creating that with ‘Avatar’ and he’s going to take you places.
This isn’t the first time del Toro has celebrated Cameron’s work. After seeing The Way of Water, he called it “a staggering achievement,” describing it as “chock-full of majestic vistas and emotions at an epic, epic scale — a master at the peak of his powers.”
As for Cameron, he’s been confidently hyping Avatar: Fire and Ash, calling it the best film in the series so far. He’s said the movie is packed with so many ideas that it might even run longer than the last entry, which already stretched to three hours and twelve minutes. Reportedly, Cameron’s wife, Suzy, saw an early cut late last year and was so moved that she was “bawling her eyes out” for nearly four hours after the screening.
Avatar: Fire and Ash, the third chapter in Cameron’s long-running saga, is set to hit theaters on December 19, 2025.