Benji the Hunted (1987)

“We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried. Most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita. Vishnu is trying to persuade the prince that he should do his duty, and to impress him, takes on his multi-armed form and says, 'Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.'”

J. Robert Oppenheimer spoke those words in 1965.  Forty-seven years after that, and eleven years before Christopher Nolan’s epic biopic, kaiju fans heard this quote over the first teaser trailer for the Legendary Pictures reboot of Godzilla.  It was the first time in eight years that Godzilla fanatics had been given new footage of the monster (excluding Always Sunset on Third Street 2), and fans ranging from small children to retirees across the entire globe rejoiced. 

Godzilla means a lot of things to a lot of different people. To some, he is a goofy joke with bad dubbing and fake-looking special effects. To some, he is the ultimate badass. To some, he is the most effective and far-reaching metaphor for the nuclear bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. What’s more, those three interpretations can all be applied to just his first film. Across almost forty pictures, Godzilla has been a metaphor for the Fukushima disaster, for nature reclaiming its territory from aliens, for Earth retaliating against pollution, for the spirit of World War II being forgotten, or, just a dad.

Note on What is Included: This list includes every officially licensed Godzilla film, whether it’s made by Toho, Legendary, or Sony.  Always Sunset on Third Street 2 (2007) and Sayonara Jupiter (1984) are disqualified because his appearances are so brief and unrelated to the narrative of the film.  However, many films without Godzilla, but related to Godzilla, are included in this list.  Any official Toho production that features a character who also appears in a Godzilla film is here.  That means Rodan (1956), Mothra (1961), and Atragon (1963) are included, while films like Latitude Zero (1969), The War in Space (1977), and Prophecies of Nostradamus (1974) are excluded.  Dogora (1964) is included despite the titular monster’s appearance in Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters (2017) being so brief, while Matango (1963) is excluded despite appearing in a Godzilla video game.  While Gorath (1962) is connected to Godzilla: Final Wars (2004), it has not been legally available in the United States for decades, and so, is excluded from this list.  Finally, Kong: Skull Island (2017) is included because it is part of the Monsterverse, while other non-Toho projects to feature King Kong are excluded, partially to keep this film from being too diluted with films that don’t feature the Big G.