Monsters and movies have always had close ties, but as much as a good werewolf flick may hit the spot, there is only one king of the monsters, and his name isGodzilla. This towering, tokyo-trampling terror has been kicking forseventyyears now. During the decades he has been around, it is safe to say that he has undergone a few changes.
There are basically two versions of Godzilla. One is a big goofball who’ll protect humanity by wresting ne’er-do-well kaiju, and the other is a horrifying monster who is unknowable and extraordinarily dangerous. Both bring different things to the table. The more terrifying Godzilla is often used as a metaphor for real existential threats to mankind, while goofy Godzilla will dropkick a rival monster from a kilometer away. Needless to say, both types of Godzilla have a place in our hearts.
Keep in mind that there are nearly40Godzilla movies. So, just making this list, even if the movie is lower on it, means we think highly of that film!
10Godzilla: King Of The Monsters (2019)
We were very close to not including an American Godzilla film on this list. However, at the end of the day, the Kaiju-on-Kaiju action in King of the Monsters is just too damn good to deny this entry. As is often the case with the best action-first Godzilla films, we get a large cast of giant monstrosities. We’ve got Rodan, we’ve got King Ghidorah, and, of course, we’ve got Mothra.It is a great cast of some of the best Kaiju ever featured in a Godzilla film!
And the fights doNOTdisappoint. They are filled with heroism, sacrifice, and are, in general, some of the best fights featured in a Godzilla film. Yes, we’d go that far. But there is a reason Godzilla: Kings of the Monsters is at the bottom of our list… the human stuff sucks. It suckssobad. This isn’t a problem that exclusively affects the American-made movies—a number of Godzilla films suffer from the human characters being uninteresting—but boy, the American films areparticularlybad on this front. Still, once the titans start tussling, you will forget all about those yammering humans and just bathe in the spectacle.
We weren’t brave enough to put the Mathew Broderick film on this list (nor does it really belong on it), but we do think the human characters were sorta fun in that one. Definitely better than King of the Monsters’s roster. It may be a bad movie, but viewed with the right mindset, it is dumb fun.
9Godzilla Vs King Ghidorah (1991)
Godzilla vs King Ghidorah is a perfect example of what happens when a Godzilla movie just goes for it. Some movies tackle time travel with a great deal of trepidation, attempting to side-step those tricky paradoxes (and usually failing), but not Godzilla vs King Ghidorah; this is a movie that is all about embracing absurdity. The human cast gets a lot of play here, which isn’t often a good thing, but it is a cast that features a knock-off terminator, and time travelers, so it manages to keep thingsprettyinteresting.
The plot features a cast of human characters zipping in and out of the past, the present, and the future. There are preemptive Kaiju killings, Kaiju revivals, they turn Ghidorah into a robot, and allegiances (both Kaiju and human) switch multiple times. It is a giant load of nonsense, and we aren’t even getting into the most absurd elements! But for how dumb Godzilla Vs. King Ghidorah may be—and it isverydumb—it is alsohighlyentertaining! It keeps you guessing, you’ll never know where the film is going next. Top that all off with somegreatfights between Godzilla and Ghidorah and you have an absolute classic. Godzilla Vs. King Ghidorah is an excellent example of a silly, fun Godzilla movie.
8Godzilla, Mothra And King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack (2001)
As we mentioned in the intro, most Godzilla films fall into one of two camps. However, Giant Monsters All-Out Attack is a Godzilla movie that straddles the line in a fascinating way. On one hand, it is action-heavy, features multiple Kaiju, and is laced with preposterous plotlines. On the other hand, it features an extremely menacing iteration of Godzilla. The film makes sure we see that lives are being lost, and emphasizes that they are the lives of innocents.
Like the more “serious” Godzilla films, there is a subtext here as well. Godzilla is on a rampage because he has been possessed by victims of the Pacific War who are taking revenge on Japan due it its refusal to acknowledge the atrocities they committed. Bonkers? Absolutely. However, the wartime atrocities committed by Japan are rarely addressed by Japanese media, which makes that plot point extremely brave.
Despite that bold angle, the bulk of this movie features Godzilla duking it out with a whole host of notable Kaiju. This is an action-heavy Godzilla film. And the script is absolutely absurd. So, it isn’t ultimately the most cohesive film in the world. We also don’t love the heavy usage of CGI. However, despite all that, the movie features some great fights and is guaranteed to keep you entertained!
7Mothra Vs. Godzilla (1964)
If you want to talk about cinematic universes, you shouldn’t start withMarvel’s Avengers, you should begin with Toho’s Godzilla. After Godzilla Vs. King Kong set the world on fire, Toho decided that they needed another monster mash-up, so they sent Mothra to do battle with the King of Monsters. While Godzilla and Mothra would become allies down the line, their first encounter was a one-on-one affair.
Mothra, and her unwavering goodness, carries this film. Without her characterization, this would be a pretty enjoyable, but standard Godzilla film. She steps up to defend humanity against Godzilla, despite humanity treating her so incredibly poorly (which, if we are being honest, is sorta what we do). Part of the fun is that she isn’t a brawn-first fighter, she fights Godzilla tactically. This dynamic makes for a great finale between the two. But more than anything, Mothra is incredibly brave and selfless, which is demonstratedbeautifullyin her final battle with Godzilla.
So many kaiju, even the “good” ones, are inscrutable; we don’t know their motivations. But not Mothra. She is the tireless defender of mankind and is a symbol of generosity, kindness, and courage. Those elements of her character shine through in Mothra Vs. Godzilla.
1993’s Godzilla Vs. Mothra is also a great flick, and, once again, sees Mothra just being awesome. Battra makes his debut in this one, and is a fun foil to Mothra. He ultimately proves to be similarly courageous, as well. TheGamer stands with Battra.
6Godzilla Vs. Mechagodzilla (1972)
We have a lot to say about most of the entries on this list, but we can keep things short and sweet with this one. Mechagodzilla is cool. Love it or hate it,rivals that are similar to the protagonistfrequently make for some of the best antagonists. Mechagodzilla isthatrival.
Sure, Mechagodzilla has its own bag of tricks, but he also does a lot of the same things that Godzilla does, but better. In fact, this is the movie that features one of the most one-sided ass-kickings of Godzilla to ever grace the silver scrren. It is a reversal of what we would later see in Final Wars. Great fights, and a great enemy kaiju… it is everything you want in this type of Godzilla flick.
5The Return Of Godzilla (1984)
While the return-to-form approach of modern Godzilla films has been received quite well, The Return of Godzilla was the first film that attempted to reboot the franchise and take it back to its roots. In fact, it is a direct sequel to the first film (ignore everything that came in between). This is immediately obvious with itshorrifyingopening, which sees the film’s protagonist (Goro Maki) investigate a ship filled with the bodies of fishermen who have been torn to pieces (many still in their beds) by mutated Sea Lice. It is a grisly, tense scene and sets the tone for the rest of the film.
Some people hate on the Return of Godzilla’s opening. We won’t hear it. TheGamer stands with mutated Sea Lice!
Unfortunately, while The Return of Godzilla is a valiant attempt to take the series back to its roots, it was rejected by fans (at the time). This led directly to the series returning to the Showa-style silliness of Godzilla drop-kicking rival kaiju. The Return of Godzilla is an excellent Godzilla film and deserves better than to be forgotten. Thankfully, over the decades, more and more fans recognize The Return of Godzilla’s greatness.
4Godzilla: Final Wars (2004)
Look, the top three movies on this list are some of the more weighty films in the franchise, so, before we get into those, we felt like we needed to give one of the dumbest Godzilla films a little shine. For decades, Godzilla movies had become about silly spectacle, and Final Wars may just be the king of that type of Godzilla film. Final Wars is packed with Kaiju: Anguirus, Ebirah, Hedorah, King Caesar, Kumonga, Kamacuras, Rodan… they are all here! Naturally, this means of a ton of great fights. Even ifGodzilla is so buff here that he makes short work of some of them.
The American-made Godzilla from 1998 also appears and is destroyed within seconds.Hilarious.
Don’t get us wrong, Final Wars is very, very,VERYstupid. The human angle is utter nonsense. It sees the return of the Xiliens, so youknowthe plot is going to be pants. But Final Wars knows this! It is completely aware of how dumb it is. It is a fun, stupid movie that acts as a celebration of the campy style of Godzilla film. It may be a bad good movie, but it is anamazingstupid movie.
3Gojira (1954)
The first Godzilla movie has a tremendous amount going for it. While it is seventy years old at this point, there are elements from this film that have carried forward all the way to today’s Godzilla. Godzilla’s iconic roar was established in the first film, as an example. And Akira Ifukube’s score is still, to this day, incredible. Additionally, many shots in Gojira still look great. It benefits tremendously from being in black and white. The city models, and Godzilla himself, look more convincing here than they would once the era of color Godzilla films began in the 60s.
Fascinatingly, Godzilla’s theme song was present in Fukube’s score for Gojira, but it was associated with the Japanese defense force, not Godzilla himself.
Gojira is part disaster film and part horror film, but it is also a movie deeply concerned with the plight of humanity. It is highly critical of nuclear weapons (and weapons capable of mass destruction in general), and it uses Godzilla as a symbol of the kind of wanton destruction those weapons bring. We may now associate Godzilla with whacky, over-the-top Kaiju hijinks, but Gojira couldn’t be further away from that version of Godzilla. To this day, it is a remarkably effective film.
2Godzilla Minus One (2023)
Shin Godzilla may have been the film that helped reassert the more serious tone that had long gone missing, but Godzilla Minus One manages to run with that tone, continuing forward with a more meaningful subtext, while also featuring more of that traditional Godzilla-style spectacle. Godzilla Minus One does a fantastic job of making us care about its protagonists, which gives the inevitable Godzilla attacks additional weight. This may be the most effective human cast to ever feature in a Godzilla film.
Like Shin Godzilla before it, the film is strongly critical of war. It takes aim at Japan’s own militaristic past and condemns its carelessness toward human lives (even if it frustratingly stops short of condemning the Japanese war crimes from the Pacific War). With Koichi (the central protagonist) being a former Kamikaze pilot, there’s an emphasis on the trauma of war, as well as the survivors' guilt that comes with it. Godzilla Minus One has heft, and heart, and still manages to wedge in some highly entertaining Godzilla-led destruction.
1Shin Godzilla (2016)
Before Shin Godzilla, we’d had years ofhighlyenjoyable films featuring the green Goliath. Godzilla had become kitschy, and Toho leaned into that. In the process, however, Godzilla lost its critical voice. Shin Godzilla was able to return it. This is a Godzilla film that focuses primarily on the people, and unlike the many Godzilla films where the human-first approach dragged the film down, Shin Godzilla is all the better for it.
The whole film is a biting satire, criticizing painfully ineffectual bureaucracy, and the inability of the government to mount an appropriate response in a timely fashion. Ultimately, humans aren’t the target of the films' ire, it is the institutions themselves that the film is so critical of. And hey, we also get some of that classic Godzilla-thrashing-a-city goodness to round it all off. Shin Godzilla isn’t the cleanest movie in the series, and some people will take issue with how focused on the human angle the film is, but it strives to say something, and it does so effectively while entertaining the audience, that is the highest honor a Godzilla film can achieve.
There is an uncomfortable nationalistic undertone present here as well, and we feel like that needs to be acknowledged, however, we still believe that Shin Godzilla is a must-watch Godzilla film.
