Guillermo Del Toro’s Shape of Water has emerged to be this year’s frontrunner in the 90th Academy Awards with 13 major nominations including Best Picture, Best Actress – Sally Hawkins, Best Supporting Actress – Octavia Spencer, Best Supporting Actor – Richard Jenkins, Best Director – Guillermo Del Toro, Best Original Score – Alexandre Desplat, Best Orignal Screenplay – Guillermo Del Toro and Vanessa Taylor , Best Cinematography – Dan Laustsen, Best Costume Design – Luis Sequiera, Best Film Editing – Sidney Wolinsky, Best Sound Mixing – Glen Gaulthier, Christian Cooke and Brad Zoern, Best Sound Editing – Nathan Robitaille and Nelson Ferreira and Best Production Design - Paul Austerberry, Shane Vieau and Jeff Melvin.
The Shape of Water is set in a secret government laboratory at the height of the Cold War, where a visually dazzling, emotionally daring feat of the imagination erupts. Del Toro mixes many genres from lush musicals to suspenseful noir, the film particularly revisits and reinvigorates the enduring allure of the monster movie playing upon our most primal emotions of fear, abandonment and danger but also curiosity, awe and desire.