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Godzilla has been the star of countless classic kaiju clashes over his 70-year career, but mixed in with the classics are a handful of movies that can be safely skipped over. Since Godzilla first made landfall in Japan in 1954, he has evolved into one of the most famous movie characters of all time. The greater Godzilla franchise has several important movies that define the character, his enemies, and the important themes that the radioactive monster has played a role in communicating.

However, there are also several that are of very little importance to Godzilla's overall legacy. Godzilla's movie timeline has been reset many times, and as a result, some movies wound up being of little consequence. Others, particularly from Godzilla's family-friendly Showa Era in the 1960s-1970s, are overly silly and campy, making them difficult to even enjoy at times as Godzilla cuts through extremely weak monsters. As legendary as...

The "King of the Monsters," Godzilla first appeared onscreen as a villain, and he has done some terrible things in his movies. In the original 1954 horror movie Godzilla, the giant radioactive monster represented a living nuclear explosion. Though he emerged from the sea and destroyed Tokyo with his size and atomic breath, he became unexpectedly popular. As Godzilla's movie franchise grew, the titular character was given an ecological angle, in which he warned humanity about respecting the Earth. Godzilla has now appeared in many forms and shows different powers throughout his movies.

Godzilla spent the first four movies of his franchise as the antagonist before Ghidorah arrived to threaten the world in Ghidorah - The Three-Headed Monster. After defeating Ghidorah, Godzilla movies cast the titular character in a more protective and heroic role turning him into an antihero, who occasionally turns evil. Godzilla now fights many villains as a guardian of the planet,...

Legendarys ever-expanding Monsterverse has already made reference to Godzillas classic Toho movies many times, but there are more powers and moves from Big Gs history that we want to see in the Monsterverse. Across Godzillas five appearances in Monsterverse shows and movies, he has used some of his most recognizable attacks to great effect, including his nuclear pulse, powerful tail whip, and different versions of his iconic atomic breath. However, with each new threat that arises, Godzilla has needed to find a new way to match their strength and battle power.

The Monsterverse has progressed from the relatively grounded Godzilla to the more fantastic and over-the-top Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire. While some Godzilla fans lament the shift towards a less-serious cinematic universe, the freedom of having fewer rules in place as far as realism is concerned opens the door to some of Godzillas most iconic battle attacks. There...

As the weather gets colder and the Halloween season creeps in like an eerie fog, the warmth and carefree vibes of summer become more and more of a memory with each passing day. However, if you’re looking to relive the freedom and adventure of the summers of your youth while still maintaining the spookiness of the current season, then Godzilla: Monster Island Summer Camp may be the perfect comic for you.

In this original graphic novel from Idw Comics, aspiring cartoonist Zelda is excited to spend her summer at the art camp of her dreams. However, she and the other campers learn that the camp is now under some new and suspicious management. In an effort to avoid the new sports-focused curriculum, Zelda ventures off to find a secluded place to draw in peace. Although, rather than an artistic escape, she finds herself face to face with Minilla, the baby Kaiju,...

There are few genre movies of any kind that can claim to have the level of influence that 1954's "Godzilla" had. Directed by Ishiro Honda, the kaiju classic was made as a response to the tragedy of the atomic bomb that Japan faced in World War II scarcely a decade earlier. The wounds were still fresh for the country at the time and, in that way, it's tough for modern audiences to truly view the film through the same lens as when it first came out, particularly those of us who aren't Japanese. But that's precisely why it was met with such an emotional response out of the gate.

2021's Life Godzilla did a deep dive on the "Godzilla" franchise and looked back at the original film that started it all. Stunt man Haruo Nakajima was in the audience for the film's premiere and he offered a bit of context...

TriStar Pictures believed they had the surest of things when they hired Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin to make the first Hollywood "Godzilla" flick. The duo had just delivered the biggest film of 1996 in "Independence Day," and appeared poised to become a blockbuster brand name on par with Steven Spielberg and James Cameron. Every studio in town wanted to make their next smash hit. But this is where the trouble started: TriStar wanted Emmerich and Devlin to make its next smash hit.

The 1998 iteration of "Godzilla" did not originate with Emmerich and Devlin. TriStar came very close to greenlighting it in 1994 with Jan De Bont (hot off the success of "Speed") directing a screenplay by Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio (who would eventually make their franchise fortune on the "Pirates of the Caribbean" series), which would've placed it in direct competition with "Independence Day" during the summer of 1996. So this all felt awfully fortuitous.

It’s been nearly 70 years since Godzilla first step foot on the silver screen with Ishiro Honda’s 1954 opus, Gojira. What started as an allegory about the horrors of the atomic bomb and war has since been reimagined myriad times to cover everything from the awesome forces of nature to geopolitical alliances, the absurdities of consumerism to mankind’s inability to curb pollution. Whether Godzilla is a tragic monster, a defender of earth, or children’s role model, there’s no denying the appeal the Big G has to audiences.

After all, it’s damn entertaining to watch a giant monster stomping around the streets of a metropolis and leaving a path of destruction. Sure, American movies like King Kong and The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms primed American audiences for features of this magnitude. But really, it was Godzilla and the evolution of the IP’s unique genre of films — kaiju...

A few years back, The Criterion Collection released the epic Godzilla: The Showa Era box set, collecting all fifteen Godzilla films of Japan’s Showa era together for the first time.

Starting today, Bloody Disgusting has learned, the 15-film Godzilla: The Showa-Era collection is available now on Vudu, Fandango’s premium on-demand video service!

The set includes Godzilla, Godzilla Raids Again, King Kong vs. Godzilla, Mothra vs. Godzilla, Ghidorah the Three Headed Monster, Invasion of Astro-Monster, Ebirah Horror of the Deep, Son of Godzilla, Destroy All Monsters, All Monsters Attack, Godzilla vs. Hedorah, Godzilla vs. Gigan, Godzilla vs. Megalon, Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla and Terror of Mechagodzilla.

You can digitally purchase or rent the individual films at the following links:

Godzilla Godzilla: King of the Monsters Godzilla Raids Again Ghidorah: The Three Headed Monster Mothra vs. Godzilla All Monsters Attack Invasion of Astro-Monster Terror of Mechagodzilla Son of Godzilla Destroy All Monsters!

Clockwise from top left: Grogu in The Mandalorian (Disney+), Godzilla Junior in Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II (Toho), flerken kitten in The Marvels (Marvel Studios), Wuba in Monster Hunt (Film Rise), Groot in I Am Groot (Disney+)Graphic: The A.V. Club

There’s a lot to talk about in the new...

Clockwise from bottom left: Godzilla (2014) (Warner Bros.), Godzilla Vs. Destoroyah (Toho), Shin Godzilla (Toho), Godzilla: King Of The Monsters (Warner Bros.), Godzilla (Toho)Graphic: The A.V. Club

Across four eras—Showa, Heisei, Millenium, and Reiwa—Godzilla has helped chart the course of both a country and a culture, speaking to the fears,...

Godzilla Minus One Photo: Toho Studios Nearly 70 years and more than 35 films into the series, it’s a testament to the enduring appeal of a skyscraper-sized lizard that Godzilla movies can still surprise you. He may not be the most flexible nuclear-powered dinosaur, but the concept is undeniably malleable. In this century alone,...

Legendary’s MonsterVerse Godzilla TV series Monarch: Legacy of Monsters is set to premiere on Apple TV+ with the first two episodes on Friday, November 17, followed by one episode every Friday through January 12. (You can read our own Alex Maidy’s review of the first batch of episodes Here.) In anticipation of the show’s premiere, we’re taking a look back at several of Godzilla’s previous adventures to see how they stack up against each other. For the sake of keeping it as lean as possible, we’re focusing on his earliest days, going all the way back to the original Showa era, consisting of his very first outing in 1954, his first clashes with the likes of Mothra, Rodan, King Ghidorah and his cyborg counterpart, Mechagodzilla, before concluding its run in 1975. To add more familiarity to the pot, we’re also including his string of American blockbusters, from...

U.S. audiences tend to accept Toho's earlier Godzilla movies as being high camp, usually thanks to Gen-x's half-remembered airings of late-'60s kaiju flicks broadcast on Uhf TV channels back in the 1980s. While there are some absurd and terrible Godzilla films from the Showa era (1954-1975), and many of them contained surreal, kitschy plot elements like invading aliens, one might also find several movies -- "Gojira," "Destroy All Monsters" -- that focus on Japanese national pride, the role of destructive weapons in the world, and a barely-simmering resentment lingering after a massive attack on the country. If modern superhero movies sprung from the U.S. subconscious as a fantastical revenge/preventative measure against 9/11, so too did Godzilla spring fully formed from the trauma left behind by the U.S.' atomic bomb attacks.

In the original "Gojira," that is literal. The titular creature, a stories-high amphibious animal,...

Godzilla vs. Megalon, a kids' movie from the 1970s, includes a tragic moment where Godzilla's home, Monster Island, is destroyed. The film doesn't pay much attention to this development, but it implies the deaths of many iconic monsters like Rodan and Mothra. The loss of Monster Island, and the end of Godzilla's partnerships with other monsters, adds a sad element to the otherwise silly movie.

A Godzilla movie aimed at children includes one of the most tragic moments in the King of Monsters’ entire cinematic history. The 1960s and 1970s were a time when Toho was heavily invested in Godzilla films that whole families, particularly kids, could enjoy. Known as the Showa series, this era of Godzilla movies included quite a few installments laced with humor and other campy elements.

Whereas the 1954 original was a dark and serious film about Japan’s desperate fight with an all-powerful killing machine,...

Pluto TV is going kaiju crazy with the just-announced Godzilla Channel, a Free channel that will air Godzilla movies and nothing but Godzilla movies, 24 hours per day, 7 days per week.

ComicBook.com reports, “Pluto TV has announced a new Godzilla channel filled with not only classics such as the original 1954 film, Godzilla vs. Megalon, and more but even left-field additions such as the animated Godzilla: The Series from the late ’90s and early ’00s. But the biggest surprise is that this new Godzilla channel will also offer up seven Godzilla films that are exclusive to Pluto TV as fans won’t be able to find them streaming anywhere else.”

The full lineup for the new Pluto TV channel includes…

All Monsters Attack (Godzilla’s Revenge) Godzilla 1999 Godzilla 2000 Godzilla (1954) Godzilla Raids Again Godzilla: King of the Monsters (1956) Mothra Ghidorah, The Three-Headed Monster Mothra vs. Godzilla Invasion of the Astro-Monster Ebirah, Horror of the Deep (Godzilla vs.

Warning: Spoilers for Skull Island

Thanks to Skull Island, the MonsterVerse has finally identified Monster Island, confirming a major connection to Toho’s Godzilla universe. Remembered as a key part of the Showa era of Godzilla films, Monster Island is easily one of the most important locations in the franchise. However, Legendary’s MonsterVerse movies have thus far avoided it completely.

Introduced in 1967’s Son of Godzilla, Monster Island is known as the home of Godzilla and a host of other Toho kaiju, such as Anguirus, Rodan, Gorosaurus, Kumonga, Mothra, and more. Though humans occasionally did visit the area, the island largely served as a place where the giant monsters of Godzilla’s world could live in peace. Such a place doesn’t exist in the MonsterVerse, though Skull Island has certainly been compared to it. It differs from Monster Island in a variety of ways, one of which being...

Longtime film distribution executive Melvin “Duffy” Stanley Maron died Jan. 13 in Atlanta. He was 90.

Maron brought martial arts and cult movies to theater, drive-in and TV audiences throughout the 1970s including Edie Sedgwick starring “Ciao Manhattan,” “Godzilla’s Revenge,” the double bill of “War of the Gargantuas” and “Monster Zero” and “The Cult,” about the Tate-LoBianco killings.

He acquired numerous dubbed martial arts movies to capitalize on the Bruce Lee craze, including “Bruce Lee: The Man — The Myth,” “Fists of Bruce Lee,” “Fists of Vengeance,” “Kung Fu Gold” and “The Killing Machine.”

“Even though he had a short career with only a few films, Bruce Lee opened everyone’s eyes,” Maron told DVDDriveIn. “When I saw kids going to these karate and kung fu schools that were springing up everywhere, I felt there was a natural tie-in between the martial arts and America.”

His later distribution company World Northal was oriented to the arthouse market,...

Don Kaye Oct 29, 2019

An extraordinary new Criterion Collection box set gathers the classic era of Godzilla movies together for the first time.

With a purposeful grimace and a terrible sound, Godzilla burst onto Japanese movie screens in 1954 as a frightening, melancholy metaphor for the nuclear nightmare that descended upon Japan just nine years earlier at the close of World War II.

Released in the U.S. two years later as Godzilla, King of the Monsters (with additional footage starring American actor Raymond Burr), that debut was such a success that it launched what has become the longest running franchise in film history, spanning 35 films over the course of 65 years and creating a genre known as the kaiju eiga (monster movie).

The Toho films have been separated into four distinct eras, and now the Criterion Collection -- the elite showcase label for classic cinema -- has compiled all 15 films of the first,...

You can tell that the Halloween season is getting closer, between various retailers already donning their shelves with tons of decorations, the days are getting shorter, and Turner Classic Movies has debuted their October schedule online, which features an abundance of genre awesomeness that will be hitting airwaves this fall. Without a doubt, TCM is one of the best resources for classic film, so for those of you looking to broaden your horizons this Halloween, definitely check out their calendar and set those DVRs.

Also, TCM has designated Godzilla as their “Monster of the Month” for October, so look for a bunch of classic films featuring the “King of the Monsters” and other beloved Kaiju throughout October as well.

**All Listings are in Est.**

Friday, September 27th

3:15pm – The Mummy’s Shroud

6:30pm – The Mummy (1959)

Saturday, September 28th

2:00am – Belladonna of Sadness

3:30am – House (1977)

Sunday, September...

Criterion Reflections is David Blakeslee’s ongoing project to watch all of the films included in the Criterion Collection in chronological order of their original release. Each episode features panel conversations and 1:1 interviews offering insights on movies that premiered in a particular season of a year in the past, which were destined to eventually bear the Criterion imprint. In this episode, David is joined by William Remmers, Bryan Fernandez, Josh Hornbeck, and Douglas McCambridge to discuss three titles from the Autumn of 1969: Ken Loach’s Kes, Ishiro Honda’s All Monsters Attack, and Gillo Pontecorvo’s The Color of Pomegranates.

Episode Time Markers Introduction: 0:00:00 – 0:04:22 Kes: 0:04:23 – 1:00:51 All Monsters Attack: 1:00:52 – 1:35:42 Burn: 1:35:43 – 2:25:21 Kes (11/15/69)

Guests: Bryan Fernandez and William Remmers

Criterion Cinehouse Cinema’s Fringes Combustible Celluloid Common Sense Media Criterion Confessions Derek Winnert Gone With...

Godzilla is being reinvented for a new generation. The reboot is due in the summer of 2014. This is a look at the long history of the Godzilla franchise, providing new viewers with everything they need to know about the King of Monsters.

Godzilla always returns. You can't keep a good monster down. A new Godzilla film is being produced by Legendary Pictures and is scheduled for release in 2014, which will be the 60th anniversary of Gojira, the first screen appearance of the perennially popular atomic mutation. (The image below is the only piece of the new teaser trailer which has been leaked to the internet, but it's not very clear.) For those who are unfamiliar with the six decade history of the most popular monster of the Japanese film industry, here's everything you need to know about the king of the monsters.

 

Godzilla--originally called "Gojira"--was inspired by (some...

As you may know, unless you don't care much for monster movies the news of a new Godzilla film has been spread out, and it seems like they are on the right path to make a decent movie, but the public opinion, me included, is skeptic about it, and we owe it to a really grim 1998 adaptation that left a scar that will be hard to heal....

Back in the day, Godzilla, was about the biggest meanest son of a gun in the world, and he faced a lot of great adversaries, but it wasn't all glory for our over grown lizard friend, some of the worst films made in cinema history had his name on it, and as a reminder to Legendary pictures and Gareth Edwards on what could go wrong, here I present my Top 5 Worst films of the Godzilla franchise.

#5 Godzilla and Mothra the Battle for Earth:

First off,...

The first hint that Legendary Pictures might be interested in returning Godzilla to the big screen was reported back in August. Now, Legendary has confirmed in an official press release their plans to develop and produce a new movie based on the character originally created by Toho Company of Japan more than fifty years ago.

Next Showing:

Godzilla's Revenge - Trailer

Link | Posted 4/6/2010 by BrentJS

Thomas Tull | Godzilla...