Anthony Hopkins has some big, bold things to say about Michael Bay and Transformers

Anthony Hopkins has raised eyebrows by calling Michael Bay "a genius".

That's not all - he's ranked the Transformers director among the best of all time.

"He's the same ilk as Oliver Stone and Spielberg and Scorsese," Hopkins reportedly told Yahoo.

"Brilliance. Savants, really, they are. He's a savant."

Hopkins is doing press rounds for the fifth Transformers film from Bay, The Last Knight, in which he stars alongside Mark Wahlberg.

Mark Wahlberg in Transformers: Age of Extinction.

But the Westworld star didn't stop his praise there, calling Bay's first four Transformers films "genius".

"[They are] terrific," he said.

"They were created by a genius."

Bay's films, films full of musclebound men, scantily clad women, threadbare plots, robots and explosions, are often panned for catering to teenage boys.

Megan Fox in a scene from Transformers 2.

Bay recently revealed that he'd be bowing out of the Transformers franchise after The Last Knight.

But he also claimed 14 story ideas for future films had been storyboarded.

Transformers: The Last Knight is released on June 22.