The 10 Best Godzilla Movies

Godzilla Minus Zero, which is stomping its way into U.S. theaters on November 6, will be the 39th installment in the long-running giant monster franchise. Given its extensive tenure in the world of cinema, it’s high time to celebrate the 10 greatest movies featuring the world’s favorite giant irradiated lizard. Let’s hurry up and get started before Godzilla x Kong: Supernova drops in 2027 and makes it so that a Top 10 list covers just one-quarter of the entire franchise.

10. Godzilla Minus One (2023)

I know the Oscar-winning hit Godzilla Minus One is some people’s favorite installment, but while lists are always subjective, there is perhaps no type of Top 10 more subjective than a Godzilla list. The franchise is so idiosyncratic and has so many distinct modes in which it works that there’s something for everyone.

All that being said, Minus One is pretty darn great. It’s the rare contemporary Godzilla movie that cares deeply about the emotional stakes of the human beings onscreen. Its post-World War II narrative maybe doesn’t have enough new wrinkles to the subgenre to deserve being the longest Japanese movie in the franchise, but when the potent drama is combined with engaging visual effects (by writer-director Takashi Yamazaki), it makes for a winner of an installment.

9. Mothra vs. Godzilla (1964)

I could personally do without the Mothra larvae taking up so much screen time in this one (they look like little wriggling turds), but Mothra vs. Godzilla has unbeatable effects for its era and it’s historic! While it’s not the first “versus” movie in the franchise (that would be 1962’s King Kong vs. Godzilla, which kicked off a trend that led to 13 of the 33 Japanese Godzilla movies to have “vs.” in the title), it’s the first time that Godzilla shared the title with another Japanese kaiju that had its on-screen debut in a movie by Godzilla’s production company Toho.

This ultimately led to the creation of one of the great cinematic shared universes in early cinema history (rivaled only by the Universal Monsters, which had their heyday in the 1930s and 1940s).

8. Godzilla (2014)

The only English-language movie on this list is 2014’s Godzilla, which kicked off Legendary’s now sprawling Monsterverse franchise. The Gareth Edwards movie is beautifully shot, boasts a bombastic score by Alexandre Desplat, and has a great sense of how to revel in the sheer size of the title character. The human characters and the other monsters (no thank you, MUTOs) are somewhat lacking, but overall it holds its own against the more serious installment in the Japanese branch of the franchise.

7. Destroy All Monsters (1968)

This massive Toho crossover movie features an alien invasion triggering about a dozen kaiju to wreak havoc around the world. It’s a total blast, and there’s never not something happening. However, it’s perhaps a bit too ambitious for its own good. While it’s fun to catch up with our buddies Godzilla, Mothra, King Ghidorah, and Rodan, the filmmakers were tempted to shove in monsters who weren’t ready for prime time, like Gorosaurus (who had never appeared in a Godzilla movie before, only 1967’s King Kong Escapes) and Manda (ditto, having debuted in 1963’s Atragon), taking precious time away from more important monsters.

6. Ebirah, Horror of the Deep (1966)

Here is where the list sheds any semblance of seriousness. Ebirah, Horror of the Deep is pure, delirious camp. It basically asks what would happen if a 1960s Beach Party movie collided with a kaiju movie. The answer? A whole lot of fun.

5. Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster (1964)

King Ghidorah, the three-headed space dragon who is perhaps Godzilla’s greatest foe, was introduced here, just 10 years after the big guy himself first stepped onto the world stage. The human plot here is so over-the-top bananas that it’s engrossing enough on its own, but the whole thing gets an even bigger burst of energy whenever Ghidorah is onscreen, whipping around his snakelike necks and proving to be a very credible menace.

4. Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah (1991)

The first time that Ghidorah was trotted out in the Heisei era of the franchise (the second “phase” in Marvel Cinematic Universe parlance, which ran from 1984 through 1995) was even better. At the risk of sounding like Stefon from SNL, Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah has everything. We’re talking time travel, World War II, a Terminator robot, and cute baby monsters. I dare anybody not to have a good time while watching this movie.

3. Godzilla Raids Again (1955)

Godzilla Raids Again gets a bad rap because of how rushed its production was. You know how it took Apple TV three years to make a new season of Severance? Godzilla Raids Again came out just 172 days after the original Godzilla debuted nationally in Japan. Now that’s a turnaround! It should be a sloppy mess, but it genuinely isn’t. It’s definitely a little goofier than the original, but it is packed with beautiful cinematic moments, including a haunting sequence where an entire seaside town turns off its lights to prepare for a Godzilla attack.

2. Shin Godzilla (2016)

Every Godzilla movie has a human story, both because movies need an emotional anchor and because Toho couldn’t afford to show monsters onscreen for 90 minutes. While it’s a rule of thumb that the human parts aren’t ever as good as the monster parts, both sides of the story are brilliant in Shin Godzilla.

The human plot is a lacerating satire of how bureaucracy and red tape hinder the Japanese government as they attempt to solve a national crisis (it’s no mistake that this came out just five years after the Fukushima nuclear accident) and the monster plot features the most terrifying and godlike version of the titular kaiju since the original movie.

1. Godzilla (1954)

There is simply no beating the original. 1954’s Godzilla is the beating heart of post-World War II Japan ripped out and smeared onto celluloid. All of the nation’s woes around the nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki are condensed into one monumental achievement in special effects and genre storytelling.

Runners-up for this list include Godzilla vs. Megaguirus (2000), Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack (2001), and Godzilla vs. Gigan (1972). Do you have any titles you think should have been included in the Top 10? Share your picks in the comments below!