Godzilla Minus One is the #1 movie at the domestic box office, taking the top spot on box office charts for most of this week, after debuting at #3 last weekend behind Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé and The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes. For the record, Godzilla Minus One was at #2 on Friday, falling behind the Hunger Games sequel on Saturday and Sunday. So now is a perfect time to offer my ranking of all 34 live-action Godzilla movies from worst to best.
Mass destruction ensues in “Godzilla Minus One”
With rave reviews and strong audience ratings, the latest giant monster film (which I declared one of the year’s greatest films) is already the highest grossing live-action Japanese film in North American history.
My rankings of the Godzilla film series — only the live-action entries, as I’ve not seen the animated films and they didn’t frankly sound interesting enough for me to seek them out any time soon — is of course going to reflect my own tastes, judgments, and perspectives about cinema, giant monster movies, filmmaking broadly, and all manner of basic preferences for storytelling and cinema. Meaning these are my picks based on my opinions, nobody else’s. If my choices don’t conform to your own, that’s fine, you’re sure to find somebody else with a list more to your liking.
I appreciate both the original and earliest conception of Godzilla as a force of pure destruction and terror, as well as his later depictions as an anti-hero who causes mayhem but also defeats even worse monsters threatening the world. Eventually, Godzilla became a heroic protector of Japan and Earth, and the films morphed from horror and disaster moviemaking to sci-fi action-driven spectacle full of humor and outright camp.
The descent into silly camp has its merits, and can be terrific fun when done right and done well. Kids can enjoy the bright colorful rubber costumes and cheap small-scale models the monsters stomp all over, and adults can revisit their own childhood in that way while also getting a dose of tongue-in-cheek self-aware humor.
But that said, while I can appreciate much of those campier outright sci-fi action Godzilla flicks, they’re my least-favorite of the series. Some of that is due to qualitative issues in the storytelling and characterizations, some is due to the sillier visuals and costumes — and the fact Godzilla and other monsters would sometimes dance or engage in other over the top displays of comedy that undermine their status and the sense of danger or threat. There’s also simply the fact my age and moviegoing experiences are rooted in more modern sensibilities, so I recognize I have biases and preferences arising from that upbringing and lifetime of viewing.
But a key part of my preferences arises from specific themes in Godzilla — themes that can feel contradictory and which represent certain significantly contrasting worldviews — and which films represent those varying themes.
Godzilla’s portrayal evolved as the relationship between Japan and the USA evolved over time, so what had been a giant destructive monster reflecting the immorality of atomic warfare and personifying tragedy and grief became a big powerful hero whose atomic abilities defended Japan and saved Earth.
The thematic switch might have been more fun for fans who focused more on the action spectacle and B-movie joy of rubber-suited monster fights in vivid color, but it wasn’t capable of retaining the immensity of historic memory and voices of a nation screaming their desperate warning to the world. The complex nature of Japan’s struggle with their own war guilt likewise infused the best Godzilla films with a nuanced self-identity and questions about honor, sacrifice, and the price individuals pay for their collective choices — and for the choices of their leaders who lied to them.
So I prefer Godzilla movies that position the creature as a destructive force that must be stopped, and in which the human characters have the dominant arcs and attention. Monster attacks, destruction, action, and visual effects are always part of the equation, and of course I find them thrilling and engrossing when done right and done well; but it’s not “disaster porn” I seek when I watch these films, it’s the reaction of people caught in the crisis that I find most compelling.
Not that there aren’t some action-driven sci-fi spectacles high on my Godzilla list, but even in those cases the films tend to still put time and effort into the human stories, and when Godzilla is given a more heroic role, it’s helpful that the monster gets a personality and arc of its own.
Likewise, when the films play broadly like some of the other best kaiju movies and employ certain elements common to my favorite of those other kaiju pictures — Pacific Rim for example — then I enjoy it more (recognizing these later films didn’t invent those elements or tropes, I’m merely referring to modern examples of mixing elements in this particular way I was exposed to in other places first).
Still, I prefer the horror/disaster Godzilla most, with anti-hero “chaos creature who happens to destroy an even worse chaos creature” portrayal my second preference, and as noted the campier heroic sci-fi actioners are my least favorite (despite a few of them being very entertaining and even at times among the franchise’s best entries).
So, without further ado, here is my countdown and ranking of all 34 Godzilla live-action feature films, from worst to best!
34. ALL MONSTERS ATTACK
33. GODZILLA (1998)
32. SON OF GODZILLA
31. INVASION OF ASTRO-MONSTER
30. GODZILLA vs. MEGALON
29. GODZILLA RAIDS AGAIN
28. GODZILLA vs. SPACEGODZILLA
27. KING KONG vs. GODZILLA
26. GODZILLA vs. GIGAN
25. EBIRAH, HORROR OF THE DEEP
24. GODZILLA vs. MOTHRA (1992)
23. GODZILLA vs. MECHAGODZILLA II
22. GODZILLA vs. KING GHIDORAH
21. GHIDORAH, THE THREE-HEADED MONSTER
20. GODZILLA 2000: MILLENNIUM
19. DESTROY ALL MONSTERS
18. GODZILLA, MOTHRA, AND KING GHIDORAH: GIANT MONSTERS ALL-OUT ATTACK
17. GODZILLA vs. MECHAGODZILLA
16. TERROR OF MECHAGODZILLA
15. MOTHRA vs. GODZILLA (1964)
14. GODZILLA vs. MEGAGUIRUS
13. GODZILLA AGAINST MECHAGODZILLA
12. GODZILLA: TOKYO S.O.S.
11. GODZILLA: FINAL WARS
10. GODZILLA vs. DESTOROYAH
9. GODZILLA: KING OF THE MONSTERS
8. GODZILLA vs. HEDORAH
7. GODZILLA vs. BIOLLANTE
6. THE RETURN OF GODZILLA
5. GODZILLA (2014)
4. GODZILLA vs. KONG
3. SHIN GODZILLA
2. GODZILLA (1954)
1. GODZILLA MINUS ONE
There you have it, dear readers, my picks for the best and worst of the Godzilla giant creature-features.
I’m sure some of my choices are controversial — a few of the beloved late-1960s era entries in the series (such as Destroy All Monsters) rank lower in my estimation than on most other lists, while other films with more mixed receptions (including for example Godzilla vs. Hedorah) appear higher on my list. But hopefully fans can appreciate my explanation of my picking process and my own preferences that informed the rankings.
If you’re not familiar with most of the Godzilla franchise (I’d seen many of these films, but had to revisit some of them the past week to prepare for writing this article), I suggest starting with the original 1954 Godzilla, and then watching Godzilla Minus One, The Return of Godzilla, Godzilla vs. Biollante, and Godzilla vs. Kong to get a nice “flavor sampling.”
Keep in mind, the films are usually not directly related to one another, having rebooted several times and relying on either no continuity at all or loose continuity, with only a relative few true direct sequels here and there. Plus, there’s a distinction between the Toho Godzilla films and the Hollywood Godzilla films (the Hollywood films are #33, #9, #5, and #4 on my list), with Hollywood’s films all being part of a shared MonsterVerse of continuity, except for the bad standalone 1998 film.
A final word of recommendation for the AppleTV+ streaming series Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, which continues and fills in gaps for the Legendary Pictures MonsterVerse continuity. It’s a terrific film with good characters and excellent actors in a fascinating sci-fi horror world. If you like your Godzilla with more sci-fi and anti-hero or outright heroic elements, then this series — and the MonsterVerse movies overall — will appeal to you.
And next year comes Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire to round out the MonsterVerse, while the ongoing success of the brilliant Godzilla Minus One will no doubt ensure more Toho sequels, so whatever your Godzilla and giant monster preferences, you will have plenty to look forward to for years to come.
