Filmmaker Baz Luhrmann and actor Austin Butler are getting some big praise from another big name in the industry. For a new article at Variety, some of today’s most notable directors share the movies they consider to be the best films of 2022. For Guillermo del Toro, Elvis is high atop the list due to the extraordinary work put in by both Luhrmann and Butler.

“It was like a concert — it was experiential, peppered with details and perfectly observed mannerisms and hidden clues,” says del Toro. “Austin Butler and Baz showcase Elvis’ world shaking, transformative talent, his joy, his soul, his sadness — actor and director working in tandem to re-embrace and re-energize the power and danger that Elvis possessed.”

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He added, “There is incredible control when composing a Baroque piece of cinema like Elvis — incredible control of the tools of audiovisual storytelling: staging, lensing, moving the camera, controlling the cutting rhythms, and using sound design and music with virtuoso precision. And sustaining that pitch when is needed and being able to ease on the gas or ramp up when it is not.”

Guillermo del Toro also notes his appreciation for Luhrmann’s work with other actors in the past, feeling that the director has gotten “legendary” performances out of Leonardo DiCaprio, Nicole Kidman, Ewan McGregor, and others. With Elvis, del Toro says Luhrmann has “launched a superstar” with Butler creating the definitive portrait of Elvis Presley. But what might be most important in Elvis’ success was the unique style Luhrmann brings to the table as a director, del Toro suggests.

“The secret element in a Baz film is Baz himself: The undomesticated autonomy he has, the unwavering, indefatigable faith and relentless work ethic that has made him a maestro, and in fact, the single purveyor of his style of films,” says del Toro. “The impossible paradox of energy and total control goes hand-in-hand with another one: the fact that by making the most personal body of work, he has reached the universal truth and the soul of filmgoers everywhere. Against all odds he believed in, and delivered, once more, a film that had audiences returning to theatres after the pandemic. Such is the power and purity of Baz — our only Baz and his belief in Truth, Beauty, Freedom — and, above all else: Love. Love of Cinema, Love of Emotion and Love of Love.”

Elvis Has Been a Big Hit

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Luhrmann penned the script for Elvis with Sam Bromell, Craig Pearce, and Jeremy Doner. While the film features Austin Butler as Elvis, it also serves to tell the story of Colonel Tom Parker with Tom Hanks in the role. The film also stars Olivia DeJonge, Helen Thomson, Richard Roxburgh, Kelvin Harrison Jr., David Wenham, and Kodi Smit-McPhee.

You can stream Elvis on HBO Max. You can watch the official trailer for the movie below.