Godzilla Movies Ranked

6. Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters

This is the only movie on the list I consider “bad.”

The main character’s personality is summed up in “I’LL KILL YOU BASTARD.” Humanity is living in a dark future, therefore no one seems to know how to operate a light bulb. Because working in the dark makes them edgy.

Yeah that’s enough on this one.

5. Godzilla (1998)

This movie is Godzilla: The 90s Romantic Comedy. The characters remind me of the cast of Friends. It is a very 90s movie.

It is simultaneously as bad and as good as it sounds. Our main character is a radioactive worm scientist, who gets hired by the military in the hopes that his worm knowledge will transfer to Godzilla.

And ultimately he saves the world, while working out his love life drama. This movie has some fun dino chasing fun. Whether its good, bad or otherwise, its more of a Jurassic Park movie than a Godzilla movie.

Godzilla acts like an animal, a large animal but an animal. He even flees.

Many would consider this blasphemy against God-er-Godzilla. Zilla doesn’t flee, he hunts and wins.

But the movie is fun.

4. Godzilla: King of the Monsters

A really fun epic spectacle. You get to see Mothra and King Ghidora. The plot is off the rails, and I could have done without the plot points that seem to grand ‘Zilla a semi-divine status. But if you just want to see some epic battles and watch our dude Godzilla take on his arch nemesis with the glory of modern special effects, this is a fun ride. I wrote a longer article on my thoughts on religion in this movie.

3. Godzilla (2014)

A glorious American Godzilla. The cinematography is top notch, and they know how to use Godzilla’s appearance to maximum effect. Godzilla’s appearance seems to be a truly world shaking event.

Godzilla must restore balance after MUTOS (insectoid monsters) hatch. The battle is epic, and the theme of nature’s balance comes through strong, without deifying nature. Godzilla may be part of the world’s balance, but he is still a brutal monster, and a force of terror.

That tension is what makes Godzilla interesting for me – the world needs Godzilla, but he is still a monster. We can’t live with him. We can’t live without him. And we couldn’t kill him if we tried.

All in all, this movie set up The Monsterverse on a Godzilla-strong foot.

2. Shin godzilla (2019)

Shin Godzilla offers a powerful tale about the need to evolve. The Japanese government in this movie is paralyzed by old ways, whereas Godzilla is constantly is changing and evolving.

Nonetheless, the evolution the movie seems to promote, is healthy growth, not the past-hating self destructiveness we often see in the West.

The visuals are creepy and frightening, and probably has the most horror of any Godzilla I have seen. Some of the visuals in this movie beat all the others on this list easily.

This movie drives home one of the best themes of the Godzilla franchise – to survive humans will need to unite and work together.

1. Godzilla Minus One (2023)

Arguably the best Godzilla ever made, and easily the best movie of this year (and a high contender for past ten years).

This movie starts during the last days of World War II, making it an early time period than even the first Gojira.

People have commented how “This Godzilla makes us care about the people.” The reason why it can do that is very very simple – it values Family. Something modern American superhero movies just don’t (at best), or actively oppose (at worst).

So often in action movies we have gruff loners, or a super hero and their love interest. But here we see something rarely depicted in Hollywood – a man, a woman and their desire to protect their child.

Both the man and the woman, value their careers as a means to provide for the child. (Not as a means for empty capitalist consumption or wish fulfillment) The importance of having parental support is explicitly called out by other characters.

Furthermore – we see characters in the past, behaving like characters in the past. And we see that way of life working. So often in the West when we depict characters in the past, they have our modern values, and the moral of the movie is about how bad the past was.

Here we see two characters acting from the needs, desires and situations they would have faced in the past, not (False)virtue signalling for modern audiences who have distorted views of it.

Furthermore, this is a movie about the value of human life and the value of forgiveness. It is a movie with real depth. Something completely lacking from today’s Hollywood.

So many of our stories neglect or even reject family – and that is what is leading to disaster in our modern world. We need heroes who fight, not just for abstracts, but for the future of their children.

OG – Gojira

The original Gojira definitely has older special effects, but it is still is a blast to watch today.

The movie came out in the Cold War. It is a dark parable about the effects of the arms race, with the ending being a key moral choice regarding whether science can be pursued and used in a world where it can and will be weaponized.

The tension between Godzilla as a awe inspiring and perhaps beautiful creature, while also being a force of destruction is also felt.

These themes interact with a love and family drama, as characters have their relationships tested by these moral choices.

Under a Hostile Sun continues to grow and thrive. The rules are now split into two short books – one for Players and one for Galactic Masters. Stress rules provide positional strategy and there are now Overwatch and Resource actions that do not require dice rolls.