Guillermo del Toro’s three-decade-old debut feature is not scheduled to screen at the Sundance Film Festival until Tuesday night, but the acclaimed Mexican director is already making waves at the annual event.
“Cronos,” a 1992 horror movie filmed in Mexico, will screen tonight at the Ray Theatre in Park City, a city in Utah that hosts the Sundance Film Festival every January.
The film — “regarded by many as an early masterpiece,” according to The Guardian — will screen as part of the “Park City Legacy” program of Sundance, which is said to celebrate “the festival’s rich history … through archival screenings of iconic films from previous editions.”
Ahead of the screening, Netflix hosted a party in honor of del Toro, a 61-year-old Guadalajara native known for films such as “Blade II,” “The Shape of Water,” “Pinocchio” and “Frankenstein,” a 2025 movie nominated for nine Academy Awards, including best picture.
Elijah Wood, an actor best known for “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy, the filmmaking duo known as “The Daniels” and Oscar-nominated filmmaker Geeta Gandbhir were among the guests.
Del Toro took center stage at the Sundance shindig, held at a Park City home, and in the process made several nods to his Mexican heritage.
¡Muy mexicano! 🇲🇽
Guillermo del Toro sorprende con mariachi, tortillas y tacos en celebración de #Netflix 🪇🌮Durante una celebración organizada por Netflix en honor a Guillermo del Toro, el cineasta sorprendió a los asistentes al cantar clásicos rancheros con un grupo de… pic.twitter.com/wPK5ZG6BhJ
— Cuarto Poder (@CuartoPoderMX) January 27, 2026
Backed by a mariachi band, the Oscar-winning director “delivered nearly a full concert with at least seven songs, even coming back for an encore as the crowd enthusiastically chanted, ‘Uno más,” according to a report by The Hollywood Reporter.
Among the songs he sang were “México Lindo y Querido,” a classic ranchera song, and “La Bamba,” a traditional Mexican folk song that belongs to Veracruz’s son jarocho genre.
Del Toro also stepped into the kitchen during the party to assist in the preparation of a dinner menu provided by Holbox, a Michelin Guide-rated Mexican seafood restaurant in Los Angeles.
Video footage shows the filmmaker using a tortilla press to turn balls of masa (dough) into perfectly formed tortillas, which he later used to prepare tacos.
Cronos at Sundance
A newly restored 4K version of “Cronos” will screen at the Ray Theatre at 8:45 p.m. local time. Del Toro will be in attendance for an extended Q&A session with filmgoers.
The Hollywood Reporter noted that “Cronos” tells the story of an alchemist (in Veracruz) “who creates a device that can give its user eternal life.”
“Four centuries later, the alchemist, now a ghostly white, is killed by debris from a falling building. Enter an unsuspecting antique dealer who comes across the device, only to discover it can restore his youth, even if immortality comes with gruesome consequences,” the publication wrote.
In a review published last year, The Guardian’s film critic Peter Bradshaw wrote that “Cronos” is “a macabre body-horror comedy, perhaps more intriguing than frightening, with a hint of steampunkiness.”
The film, starring Ron Perlman and Federico Luppi, has “a distinctive authorial signature, the work of a very individual film-maker,” Bradshaw wrote.
“Cronos” was filmed in Mexico City over a period of eight weeks in 1992, the newspaper Reforma reported. It cost around US $2 million to make and was partially funded by del Toro himself.
“The film was finished using my credit card, and just as I was paying the last installment, it was declined because I had exceeded my limit, but I didn’t care because we had already finished,” the filmmaker told Reforma.
“I was also on the verge of losing my house because we bet everything we had on this production, but it was worth it because it has been enthusiastically received around the world,” del Toro said.
With reports from Reforma, El Universal and The Hollywood Reporter
