The ultimate visual guide to the King of the Monsters.
As promised, here’s a typically extensive gallery featuring the King of the Monsters (accept no feeble imitations), Godzilla, across his many screen incarnations and beyond. The Godzilla juggernaut seems unstoppable – as I put this together, there is a new Japanese Godzilla film that is having a surprising global success and a new American incarnation around the corner. Who would have thought it possible for a monster that was widely dismissed by critics as nothing more than a knock-off creature, with the films attacked for the lack of stop-motion (because nothing said ‘cheap and trashy’ back in the 1960s and 1970s than a man-in-a-suit monster, no matter how good that suit was) and the increasingly juvenile nature of the movies – even though the films that were being dismissed were ones specifically aimed at kids.
Godzilla has had quite the life – not always one to write home about, and certainly the films became increasingly silly and the Big G was redesigned to be less threatening over the years. As far back as the mid-1980s, attempts were underway to revive a defunct series and breathe new fire into the monster’s belly. The efforts made by American filmmakers did little to help… or so it seemed. But if the clumsy hybrid affair Godzilla 1985 and, more significantly, the 1998 US reboot of the character did anything, it was to give new life to the character (in the case of the former film) and bring a new pride and sense of honour to him after the 1998 debacle – the series was hurriedly revived with Godzilla 2000 in order to save the monster’s reputation.
Godzilla is a global icon and messing with him is something that filmmakers do at their peril. Like James Bond, you can modernise Godzilla to a certain extent, but go too far and you lose the essence of who he is. Thankfully, the legend of Godzilla is now so widespread that it’s hard to imagine any American studio thinking that they know better in how to portray him. I have issues with the structure and style of the 2014 film, but the treatment of Godzilla (and King Kong) has been increasingly impressive in subsequent movies. With American and Japanese versions of Godzilla existing side-by-side – with the possibility that they will eventually become one whole connected story – I feel confident in his future. At least for now.
I’d initially planned to cover the whole world of Godzilla here, but it quickly became clear that an idea like that was utter madness, because there is just so much. We’ll do a follow-up piece to this covering the giant monster’s extensive career as a comic book star at some other point, as well as digging into the assorted toys and novelties out there. But for now, here are his film and TV appearances.
THE FILMS:
GODZILLA – 1954
(Gojira; Godzilla King of Monsters)
GODZILLA RAIDS AGAIN – 1955
(
KING KONG VS GODZILLA – 1963
GODZILLA VS THE THING – 1964
(/Mothra vs Godzilla)
GHIDRAH THE THREE-HEADED MONSTER – 1964
(/Ghidorah the Three-Headed Monster)
INVASION OF THE ASTRO MONSTER – 1965
(/Invasion of Planet X)
EBIRAH, HORROR OF THE DEEP – 1966
(/Godzilla vs the Sea Monster/Ebirah Terror of the Deep)
SON OF GODZILLA – 1967
()
DESTROY ALL MONSTERS – 1968
()
ALL MONSTERS ATTACK – 1969
(
GODZILLA VS HEDORAH – 1971
(/Godzilla vs the Smog Monster)
GODZILLA VS GIGAN – 1972
(/War of the Monsters/Godzilla on Monster Island)
GODZILLA VS MEGALON – 1973
(/Godzilla 1980)
GODZILLA VS MECHAGODZILLA – 1974
(/Godzilla vs the Cosmic Monster/Godzilla vs the Bionic Monster)
TERROR OF MECHAGODZILLA – 1975
(/Monsters from an Unknown Planet/Revenge of Mechagodzilla)
GODZILLA 1985 – 1985
(The Return of Godzilla)
GODZILLA VS BIOLLANTE – 1989
()
GODZILLA VS KING GHIDORAH – 1991
(
GODZILLA AND MOTHRA: THE BATTLE FOR EARTH – 1992
(/Godzilla vs Mothra)
GODZILLA VS MECHAGODZILLA II – 1993
()
GODZILLA VS SPACEGODZILLA – 1994
()
GODZILLA VS DESTOROYAH – 1995
(
GODZILLA – 1998
GODZILLA 2000: MILLENNIUM – 1999
()
GODZILLA VS MEGAGUIRUS – 2000
()
GODZILLA, MOTHRA AND KING GHIDORAH: GIANT MONSTERS ALL-OUT ATTACK – 2001
(
GODZILLA VS MECHAGODZILLA 3 – 2002
(/Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla)
GODZILLA: TOKYO S.O.S. – 2003
()
GODZILLA: FINAL WARS – 2004
()
GODZILLA – 2014
SHIN GODZILLA – 2016
()
GODZILLA: PLANET OF THE MONSTERS – 2017
(/Godzilla: Monster Planet)
GODZILLA: CITY ON THE EDGE OF BATTLE – 2018
(/Godzilla Chapter 2)
GODZILLA: THE PLANET EATER – 2018
(
These three animated Godzilla feature films are canonical entries in the series, though they remain surprisingly unknown by many fans.
GODZILLA: KING OF THE MONSTERS – 2019
GODZILLA VS KONG – 2021
GODZILLA MINUS ONE – 2023
(/G Minus One)
Outside this vast and wildly diverse collection of feature films, Godzilla has also appeared in several animated TV series, from the infamous Hanna-Barbera show in 1978 (the one that foisted Godzookey onto the world) via a bizarre educational series to a spin-off from the 1998 US movie.
GODZILLA – 1978 – 1980
Godzilla’s first American appearances came in 1978, when he became a Marvel Comics character during the company’s brief flirtation with Japanese culture (other comics around this time included the toy-based Micronauts and Shogun Warriors) and a Saturday morning cartoon star. While kids had been enjoying his big-screen appearances for years, he was still seen as too much for US children’s TV, robbed of his general destructiveness and saddled with a comedy sidekick nephew, Godzooky. There are defenders of Godzooky but they are few and far between. You can watch the first episode below.
ADVENTURE! GODZILLAND! – 1992 – 1993
(Bōken! Gojirando)
GET GOING! GODZILLAND – 1994 – 1996
(Susume! Gojirando)
Both Adventure! Godzilland and Get Going! Godzilland were educational entertainment shows for the pre-schoolers that perhaps show just how much Godzilla had become a part of Japanese culture. The latter series cannibalised the crude animation footage from the former and added live-action content, making it a bit like a Monster Island version of Sesame Street. Most of the Toho monsters are here, alongside Godzilla’s pink girlfriend Godzilly. Here’s an episode to marvel at:
GODZILLA – 1998 – 2000
This series was a spin-off from the 1998 Godzilla film and was essentially a publicity advertisement for the movie. It lasted for two seasons and 40 episodes, which is more than you might expect.
Beyond these films, Godzilla has made several unofficial appearances. We’ve already extensively covered Luigi Cozzi’s Godzilla, Bambi Meets Godzilla (and its spin-offs) and Godzilla vs the Wolfman. More obscure is the short Italian home movie Porno-zilla, which has Godzilla and other toy monsters having gloopy sex with Barbie dolls. There seems little chance of this ever emerging unless I can unearth my old VHS copy. Toy Godzillas also appear in several episodes of Robot Chicken and he turns up in The Simpsons, the gloriously tasteless Happy Tree Friends and the less fun Animaniacs cartoons series. In Japan, he’s shown up in Shinkansen Henkei Robo Shinkalion the Movie: The Marvelous Fast ALFA-X That Comes From the Future and Crayon Shin-chan. Oh, and he has a walk-on in Joe Dante and Allan Arkush’s 1976 film Hollywood Boulevard. These are likely not all the appearances and we welcome information on more.
DAVID FLINT
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There’s also the series of 3 min shorts called godzilla Island, there are over 200 of them and there currently being uploaded on the godzilla youtube channel with eng subs every Tuesday and Thursday. Love godzilla me, seen all the films except for the heisei and millennium era’s because there still not on blu ray in the uk which annoys me so much, hopefully criterion will be able to licence them.
As well as those three animated films on Netflix, there’s also the ‘Singular Point’ animated TV series.