Victor Frankenstein Trailer and Frankenstein Films Ranked

The Victor Frankenstein trailer sold a fresh angle on an old story: James McAvoy as the obsessed medical student, Daniel Radcliffe as the assistant who is not a hunchback, and a pair of friends running science into necromancy. The film itself, directed by Paul McGuigan from a script by Max Landis, opened in the United States on November 25, 2015. This page takes the trailer's promise as a starting point and ranks the film against six other Frankenstein movies, so a reader can see where it lands.

The method is fixed: story and structure 35, performances 25, craft 25, rewatch value 15; full rewatch before any placement; lists reviewed quarterly and within 30 days of a new release. Each film gets a score from 0 to 10 on each criterion: story and structure, performances, craft, and rewatch value. Those scores are weighted into a total out of 100, with story counting most. The scores are the publication's editorial judgment, informed by the public record of each film and its standing, not an average of other critics.

The film's path to the screen was bumpy. It was first set for October 17, 2014, moved to January 16, 2015, then to October 2, 2015, and finally to November 25, 2015, per the film's Wikipedia page. The first official trailer arrived on August 18, 2015. When a Victor Frankenstein trailer finally promised a new spin on Mary Shelley's tale, the big visible change was Igor himself: the film's hero cures his hunchback and names him.

What the trailers and the finished film share is the cast around the two leads: Jessica Brown Findlay as Lorelei, Andrew Scott as Inspector Turpin, Charles Dance as Baron Frankenstein and Mark Gatiss as Dettweiler. Principal photography ran from November 25, 2013, to March 20, 2014, mostly in the United Kingdom, at Longcross Studios, Twickenham Film Studios and Chatham Historic Dockyard.

The ranking below keeps its focus on the finished films. Shelley's story reached the screen early, with a 1910 short from Edison Studios, so the field is very long, and this list covers only seven theatrical movies that a general reader is likely to compare. Television versions such as Showtime's Penny Dreadful, which gave Victor Frankenstein a role in a larger Gothic ensemble, sit outside it.

Seven films, seven decades of different ideas about what a creature and its maker should be. Each entry below gives the credits, the case for the placement, and the weak spot.

1. Bride of Frankenstein (1935)

James Whale's sequel is the best film in the series. Boris Karloff returns as the creature, Colin Clive as Henry Frankenstein, and Ernest Thesiger as Dr. Pretorius, and Elsa Lanchester plays both the Bride and Mary Shelley in the opening scene. It gets the top spot because it improves on its predecessor in every column: sharper humor, more feeling for the creature and a climax that people still quote.

2. Young Frankenstein (1974)

Mel Brooks's parody is close behind and wins the rewatch column outright. Gene Wilder plays Dr. Frederick Frankenstein, Marty Feldman is Igor, and Peter Boyle plays the monster. The picture is shot in black and white and borrows the look of the Universal originals, so the jokes work inside a real Gothic setting. It loses points only on craft, since a parody leans on the films it mocks.

3. Frankenstein (1931)

The Whale original is the one every later film answers. Colin Clive plays Henry Frankenstein, Karloff plays the creature and Dwight Frye plays Fritz. Jack Pierce's makeup gave the monster the flat-headed shape that became the popular image of the character. It scores slightly below its sequel because the story is thinner and the pacing creakier.

4. The Curse of Frankenstein (1957)

Terence Fisher's film for Hammer was the studio's first Frankenstein picture and a color reinvention of the Universal template. Peter Cushing plays Baron Victor Frankenstein as a cold, brilliant man and Christopher Lee plays the creature. It is a good midpoint: it puts the maker at the center, where earlier films had focused on the monster.

5. Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994)

Kenneth Branagh directed and played Victor, with Robert De Niro as the creature and Helena Bonham Carter as Elizabeth. Steph Lady and Frank Darabont wrote the script, and the film opened on November 4, 1994. The title promises fidelity to the book, and the production design and costumes are lavish. The performances run hot, though, and the rewatch score reflects that.

6. Victor Frankenstein (2015)

This is where the film from the trailer lands. McAvoy plays Victor, Radcliffe plays Igor Straussman, Jessica Brown Findlay plays Lorelei and Andrew Scott plays Inspector Turpin. The setting is 1860s London, and the film retells the story from the assistant's point of view: Victor rescues Igor from a circus, cures his deformity and gives him a name. A creature called Gordon escapes during a demonstration, and a second, called Prometheus, is built with a friend's money.

The central idea is a good one. A story told through the assistant opens up the book's familiar beats, and McAvoy and Radcliffe have the energy to carry it. The execution is where the picture loses ground. The Rotten Tomatoes page cited on the film's Wikipedia entry lists 26 percent approval from 138 reviews, and several critics called the plotting muddled or incoherent. It is still a fun, fast 110 minutes for viewers who want a buddy comedy dressed as horror.

The lesson of the ranking is straightforward. The 2015 film's setup was stronger than its payoff, and every film above it is more confident about what it wants to be. A trailer can promise a new angle, but the finished film has to deliver the whole story, and the best Frankenstein pictures all do.

Why Victor Frankenstein scores where it does

On story, the film gets a 4. The plot builds toward the animation of Prometheus, a humanoid being funded by Victor's classmate Finnegan, but when it finally lives during a storm it lacks sentience, kills Turpin and is destroyed by the pair. The emotional question of a created being that thinks and suffers never gets a turn, so the climax is a fight and not a tragedy. That is a large departure from the book.

Performances earn a 6. McAvoy and Radcliffe have the double-act energy the trailers promised, and the film closes on Victor writing to Igor from hiding and calling him his greatest creation. Craft also gets a 6: an 1860s London with a circus, a university and a Scottish estate, shot mostly in British studios and locations, looks the part. Rewatch value is a 4, because once the central gimmick of the assistant's point of view has landed, little remains to revisit.

The honest summary is that the film is more watchable than its critical standing suggests, and less ambitious than its own trailer.

7. I, Frankenstein (2014)

Stuart Beattie wrote and directed this action picture, based on the digital graphic novel by Kevin Grevioux, with Aaron Eckhart as Adam, Bill Nighy as Naberius and Yvonne Strahovski as Terra Wade. It opened in the United States on January 24, 2014. It uses the creature's name and little else from Shelley, and the story, a war between gargoyles and demons, would be at home in any supernatural action movie. It finishes last because it has the least to say about the source.

Where the newest version fits

Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein, with Oscar Isaac as Victor and Jacob Elordi as the creature, played in select theaters on October 17, 2025, and reached Netflix on November 7, 2025. It is not scored here, since the table covers earlier versions, but it is the film most readers will want to compare against the 2015 take. Del Toro wrote, directed and produced it, and Mia Goth is in the cast as Elizabeth Lavenza. Where Victor Frankenstein tells the story through the assistant, the 2025 film returns to the maker and the creature, which makes the two a useful pair for anyone curious about how far the premise can bend.