Guillermo del Toro has won the Academy Award for Best Director for The Shape of Water marking the fourth time in the past five years that a Mexican filmmaker has won the statuette in the category after Alfonso Cuarón for Gravity in 2014, and Alejandro González Iñárritu for Birdman in 2015 and The Revenant in 2016.
Del Toro's win confirms the supremacy of the Mexican filmmakers in Hollywood. With 13 nominations, The Shape of the Water was the most Oscar nominated film and Del Toro was the favorite to win the Academy Award after similar wins at the Golden Globes and the Directors Guild Award. The Shape of Water also won awards for Best Production Design and Best Original Score.
Famously nicknamed the 'Three Amigos'—after the three of them had earned nominations at the 2006 Oscars—Del Toro, Cuarón and Iñárritu have demonstrated their growing hegemony in the American film industry.
Other Latino winners of the evening included the Chilean film A Fantastic Woman by Sebastián Lelio for Best Foreign Language Film and the Mexican-inspired film Coco for Best Animated Film.
The winners of the 90th Academy Awards were announced this evening at a ceremony in Hollywood, California.
