Cronos

The directional debut from Guillermo del Toro, (Hellboy, Blade 2, The Devil's Backbone), Cronos won the Critics' Week Award at the 1993 Cannes Film Festival before going on to win nine Mexican Academy Awards.

Combining a surreal and distinctive take on the classic vampire yarn with an allegory about US/Mexican relations, Cronos concerns elderly antique dealer Jesus Gris (Federico Luppi) who, with his eight-year-old granddaughter Aurora (Tamara Shanath), discovers an ancient artifact that once belonged to a 16th-century alchemist. Unbeknownst to Gris, the device - which resembles an ornate mechanical beetle - houses an immortal parasite that will grant eternal life to its host. The cost? An extreme aversion to daylight and an agonising thirst for human blood. Hot on the trail of the device is a dying millionaire (Claudio Brook) and his brutish nephew (Ron Perlman, Hellboy).