Ranking the ENTIRE series...

[Legion]

I had seen all the Heisei films by the time I was 16, and went through a period where I thought they were the best Godzilla films, period. This is especially true of Biollante through Mechagodzilla and Destroyah. I thought these films were perfect, and I preferred them over the older films. I loved the more bombastic Ifukube scores, the updated monster designs, the in-your-face optical effects...everything. Every time I would see a new film (which was always 7-10 months after they first came out) I would be obsessed with them. Obsessed. If you asked me 20 years ago what the best Godzilla movies were, I would have listed something made between 1989 and 1995. This lasted longer than I wish it did, as I believed Godzilla vs Destroyah was "fantastic" more recently than I care to admit (remember the thread, guys?)

But as I got older I started looking at Godzilla movies from a different perspective. Monster battles and laser shows weren't as appealing as competently made movies, or at least movies with some sincerity and a soul. All of a sudden, the Heisei series started looking like the rushed, poorly written and increasingly lazy DTV-quality films they actually are, and even the lesser films of the golden era started looking like gems in comparison. I'll take something like Godzilla vs Megalon over most of the Heisei output because at least it doesn't hide what it is: a cheap kids movie with absolutely no pretension. Son of Godzilla has a poor Godzilla suit and homely Minya but, DAMN, everything else about it works, and the entire thing succeeds as an actual film. But I bet a lot of younger films would never give the movie a second thought because the monsters aren't powerhouses, and thus aren't useful in fantasy battles or playable in video games.

And that's really the thing here. I don't think younger fans care to assess these movies are complete films. If my experience as a younger teen in any indication, this is nothing new. I think a lot of younger fans couldn't care less about Toho history, or what the company was doing behind the scenes in the '60s and '70s, or who any of the actors and crew here (outside of the big names). For these fans, it's really the monsters themselves that are important, usually to the point that movies like Godzilla vs Destroyah automatically become "good films" because they star the monsters that usually win the majority of fantasy battles. And that's where you get the "if I like it, it's good" mentality that ends up putting Heisei films and garbage like GFW above what were once accepted classics like Mothra vs Godzilla and Ghidrah on "best of lists".

Someone mentioned that no Godzilla film has dropped in popularity like Godzilla VS Mechagodzilla. I beg to differ and counter with Destroy all Monsters. It used to be accepted as THE ultimate giant monster film, and for a long time I didn't know a single person who didn't like it. Now it's amazing how often I see it turn up at the very bottom of favorites lists. It's kind of scary.

[jellydonut25]

I don't think people not liking DAM is scary. I think it's appropriate and shows perhaps a normalization for the fanbase overall. There was a period where it seemed like everyone loved the Heisei era. Then we over-corrected and everyone loved everything from the golden era no matter what. Now we're settling into a period where we can honestly appraise these movies and their faults. DAM is boring, honestly.

I actually wish I liked the Heisei films a little more, but one of the things I think helps it for SOME people is nostalgia, because of what you said in the first part of your post: for some people (the people who bought or whose parents bought them bootlegs) the Heisei films were treasures and they were THE Godzilla films of their childhood (I know quite a few people who still say that Ken Satsuma is "MY Godzilla"). I don't have any of that. I can remember very vividly the first time I saw each of the 90s movies because it was when they were released on VHS in the wake of the 1998 movie...so I was 13, 14, 15...and watching GvsKG (which is actually easily my favorite 90s Heisei movie these days) was the first time I ever felt embarrassed watching a Godzilla movie. It was one of the first times I can recall watching a movie (ANY movie) and finding it to be incredibly amateurish and dated. GvsM was the first time I ever physically cringed watching a Godzilla movie "Niiiice!" made me vomit in my mouth a little bit. GvsSG was what it is, which is really bad. GvsD did get to me, and I think it's maybe the only one of the Heisei films that I have a good first impression of. And GvsMG2 was supposedly the best (at the time that seemed to be the consensus) and so I figured it should be better than GvsD, which it wasn't...and so yeah, my first memories of most of the 90s Heisei films are bad, and there's no nostalgia to help me out with them.

These days, I actually enjoy GvsKG as a sort of kitschy fun thing...especially once we get past the opening 45 minutes, which probably should have been cut down by 15 minutes or so. I also at least get some enjoyment out of GvsD's opening, ending, and unintentionally hilarious "science", but the rest of those 90s Heisei movies are just too much for me, sadly. Or maybe not enough?

I AM liking the Millennium films a little more as time goes on though...except for GMK, which I had the highest initial opinion of...but now just kinda frustrates me with its pretentiousness.

[king_ghidorah]

Ok, ok. Hopefully the last updated ranking for me for a long time.

Why has my list jumped around so much over the past year or two? Well, to be honest (and taking a page from Legion's excellent post about his own history with the Heisei Godzilla films)...Godzilla (2014) caused me to reexamine what I like about Godzilla. I had been pulling away from Godzilla for many years....almost a decade. Don't get me wrong, I was becoming more and more of a tokusatsu genre fan but Godzilla was becoming an increasingly tiny aspect of what I liked. It all started with the ADV releases of the Heisei Gamera films and the Daimajin trilogy. I suddenly saw an entire world of stuff that was just like the stuff I loved as a kid, but it was different and new. I soon graduated to things like Kamen Rider, Kikaider and Ultraman. Godzilla was for beginners.

I started to consider myself a Gamera fan first and foremost. I found the Heisei films to be superior to anything Toho had done since the 60s and Gamera himself matched my own sensibilities (the good guy role, the underdog...weird and bizarre villains). I even grew fond of the Showa Gamera films for their campy humor and I still maintain that if you take those films in the spirit of how they were intended, they are great fun.

Godzilla became the kaiju equivalent to Batman, or Wolverine, to me. Angst-y, sheltered man children responded strongly to these angry anti-social heroes and something about that connection irked me. I felt like I had matured past Godzilla. I also started to take exception to a trait that Godzilla shares with Superman (when written poorly)...both are invunerable, unbeatable and insanely powerful. I felt like there was little drama to be had in watching Godzilla fight another kaiju. Godzilla was the bully that would inevitably win..the inverse Superman.

If Godzilla had any meaning to me at all, it was the original film. The only One-True Godzilla to me was the original incarnation. Had I seen the Shin Godzilla design two years ago I would have been floored. It's exactly what I wanted. I believed that Godzilla shouldn't fight other monsters...he was supposed to be a living warning against war and nuclear weapons. Basically, I was an entitled pretentious ass.

Godzilla (2014) came out and it felt like Phantom Menace all over again. I kept trying to convince myself that it was awesome and that I loved it but it didn't jive with the Godzilla I had in my mind's eye. I was listening to podcasts, reading reviews, all from people less familiar with Godzilla than me, and these people were claiming that Godzilla (2014) was keeping in spirit with the original Showa era films. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. How could everyone be so wrong? One day I was listening to a podcast where the host mentioned that while Godzilla was created as an anti-nuclear beast of destruction, he had morphed into something else, something arguably better that had permeated the pulp culture in a way the original version never did.

It's such an obvious statement (and perhaps debatable) but something about hearing this...from a casual fan...made me take a step back and think. So, every time I've been posting a list, it's been because I've just started watching a certain era of Godzilla films again. It's been a roller coaster of "Oh man the 70's films are horrible" pops in Godzilla vs. Gigan "Oh wow the 70s films are the best ever!!!" Over and over again, this pattern has continued for me. I've now been through roughly every era and can finally appreciate the Big G once again. My preferred version of Godzilla is the Showa anti-hero from the 60s. I started to really respond to that version of Godzilla...yes, he was the strongest of the Earth kaiju but he wasn't all powerful, in fact he's often the underdog, and what's more he had a lot of personality. He was a lovable ass-hole. Case in point, my favorite suit/ version of Godzilla? The 62. The Showa era has once again become king for me but I've also found a love for a certain small selection of films from the Heisei and Millennium eras.

Godzilla, like Superman, had been bastardized by lazy writers in the 90s. In an effort to make him bigger, better, stronger than before they removed almost all of his personality and his unique brand of noble snappiness. It turns out that the Godzilla I had grown tired of, was more of less the recent versions of the character. The classic Showa era Godzilla remained as powerful to me as when I saw these films for the first time as a kid.

I won't post a whole list, just a top 10. I feel like most of these films represent the version of Godzilla that I have come to like the most: anti-hero, protector of Earth (oddly enough, the same "type" of Godzilla depicted in the 2014...a film I now love BTW)

1. King Kong vs. Godzilla
2. Terror of MechaGodzilla
3. Son of Godzilla
4. Godzilla vs. The Sea Monster
5. Godzilla vs. Gigan
6. Ghidrah-The Three Headed Monster
7. Mothra vs. Godzilla
8. Destroy All Monsters
9. Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah
10. Godzilla 2014

[jellydonut25]

Whenever the latest and "greatest" Godzilla movie comes along, everyone always wants to talk about where it ranks in the franchise. Here's my list for the franchise as of right now including my far-too-early-in-my-life-cycle-with-the-movie placement of Godzilla: King of the Monsters.
https://letterboxd.com/jellydonut25/lis ... ovies-wip/

[klen7]

I'm going to need a few rewatches before ranking it, right now it feels like it might be in a position like Final Wars, which bounces up and down my list depending on my mood when i watch it

[Gentleman]

There was a thread about this a while back, with a link to a site where you would answer questions about preferences and it would give you your list. This was mine:

Godzilla Mothra King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack (2001)
Destroy All Monsters (1968)
Terror of Mechagodzilla (1975)
Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla (1974)
Mothra vs. Godzilla (1964)
King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962)
Godzilla vs. Gigan (1972)
Ghidrah the Three-Headed Monster (1964)
Godzilla vs. Destoroyah (1995)
Godzilla (1954)
Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla (1993)
Godzilla vs. Hedorah (1971)
Return of Godzilla (1984)
Godzilla (2014)
Godzilla Final Wars (2004)
Son of Godzilla (1967)
Godzilla vs. Mothra (1992)
Shin Godzilla (2016)
Godzilla vs. Biollante (1989)
Godzilla's Revenge (1969)
Godzilla vs. Megalon (1973)
Godzilla Raids Again (1955)
Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla (2002)
Monster Zero (1965)
Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah (1991)
Godzilla vs. The Sea Monster (1966)
Godzilla vs. Spacegodzilla (1994)
Godzilla vs. Megaguirus (2000)
Godzilla Tokyo SOS (2003)
Godzilla 2000 (1999)
Godzilla (1998)

It's pretty spot-on. I'd put KotM right in the neighborhood of G'14.

This was the thread, BTW, just for historical purposes. The link seems to be dead now.

[Benjamin Haines]

[tbeasley]

Top tier films
Godzilla
Mothra vs Godzilla
Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster
Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah
Ebirah, Horror of the Deep
Invasion of Astro-Monster
Son of Godzilla
Godzilla vs Hedorah
The Return of Godzilla
Shin Godzilla
Godzilla vs Biollante
King Kong vs Godzilla
Terror of Mechagodzilla

Mid range films
Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla
Destroy All Monsters
Godzilla vs Gigan
Godzilla vs King Ghidorah
Godzilla vs Destoroyah
Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019)
All Monsters Attack
Godzilla: Tokyo SOS
Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla II
Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters
Godzilla (2014)

Bottom rung films
Godzilla: The Planet Eater
Godzilla vs Megalon
Godzilla vs Mothra
Godzilla vs Megaguirus
Godzilla Raids Again
Godzilla: City on the Edge of Battle
Godzilla 2000: Millennium
Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla
Godzilla vs SpaceGodzilla
Godzilla: Final Wars
Godzilla (1998)

[Rody]

Here's how the list came out for me:

Still the best
Mothra vs Godzilla
Son of Godzilla
Godzilla (1954)
Godzilla vs Monster Zero
Godzilla vs the Sea Monster

Close seconds:
Godzilla vs Biollante
King Kong vs Godzilla
Godzilla vs Hedorah
Shin Godzilla
Godzilla (2014)
GMK: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack
Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla (1974)

Mid range:
Ghidorah the Three-Headed Monster
Godzilla King of the Monsters
Godzilla's Revenge
Godzilla vs Megalon
The Return of Godzilla
Terror of Mechagodzilla
Godzilla 2000
Destroy All Monsters
Godzilla vs King Ghidorah

Subpar:
Godzilla vs Gigan
Godzilla vs Megaguirus
Godzilla: The Planet Eater
Godzilla Raids Again
Godzilla: Tokyo SOS
Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla (1993)
Godzilla: Planet of Monsters
Godzilla: City on the Edge of Battle
Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla

Bottom of the barrel:
Godzilla vs Destroyah
Godzilla vs Spacegodzilla
Godzilla: Final Wars
Godzilla (1998)
Godzilla vs Mothra

I didn't expect Revenge to end up quite so high on the list compared to others; then again, I'm probably due for another review on the 70s, 90s, and 00s films. Sometimes how much I like a film comes down to the nuance in presentation, which I forget over time.

[O.Supreme]

The top and bottom I pretty much knew, but this was more about the middle for me. G:KOTM, ranks far higher than even I expected, but I'm not ashamed of that. I am a bit ashamed about how high Final Wars ranked, I guess my sons love of that film has rubbed off a bit on me . Some of those asked to compare, were tough calls though.

FAVORITES
Destroy All Monsters (1968)
Godzilla (1954)
Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah (1991)
Ghidorah the Three-Headed Monster (1964)
Terror of Mechagodzilla (1975)
King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962)
Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla (1974)
Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019)
Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla (1993)

GOOD
Monster Zero (1965)
Mothra vs. Godzilla (1964)
Godzilla vs. Destroyer (1995)
Godzilla vs. Biollante (1989)
Giant Monsters All-Out Attack (2001)
Godzilla vs. Gigan (1972)
Godzilla vs. Hedorah (1971)
Shin Godzilla (2016)


OK
Godzilla vs. The Sea Monster (1966)
Godzilla (2014)
The Return of Godzilla (1984)
Son of Godzilla (1967)
Godzilla vs. Megalon (1973)
Godzilla x Mechagodzilla (2002)
Godzilla: Final Wars (2004)
Godzilla 2000 (1999)

NOT GOOD
Godzilla: Tokyo SOS (2003)
Godzilla Raids Again (1955)
Godzilla vs. Mothra (1992)
Godzilla's Revenge (1969)
Godzilla vs. Spacegodzilla (1994)
Godzilla vs. Megaguirus (2000)
Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters (2017)
Godzilla: City on the Edge of Battle (2018)
Godzilla: The Planet Eater (2018)

[Giganfan]

Ghidorah The Three Headed Monster
Godzilla On Monster Island
Monster Zero
Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah
Terror of Mechagodzilla
Mothra vs. Godzilla
Destroy All Monsters
Ebirah Horror of the Deep
Godzilla vs. The Cosmic Monster
Son of Godzilla
Godzilla 1985
Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla (1993)
King Kong vs. Godzilla
Godzilla Mothra King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack
Godzilla vs. Biollante
Godzilla vs. The Smog Monster
Godzilla vs. Megalon
Godzilla's Revenge
Godzilla x Mechagodzilla
Godzilla Mothra Mechagodzilla: Tokyo SOS
Godzilla vs. Mothra
Godzilla Raids Again
Godzilla x Megaguirus
Godzilla vs. The Destroyer
Godzilla vs. Spacegodzilla
Godzilla Final Wars
Godzilla 2000

The original is always in a class all its own, and therefore, not included in my list. Nor are GINO '98 (for obvious reasons), Shin Godzilla and the Legendary movies, because I have yet to figure out where they rank amongst the rest of the series.

[Benjamin Haines]

[Giganfan]

I tried. I did five minutes of the first one, and couldn’t make it any further. Anime just doesn’t do anything for me. I had thought that the fact that it was Godzilla would help me warm up to it, but unfortunately, no. It’s nothing against anime, personally. I understand that it’s an art-form with a huge following, but it’s never been something that interests me, Godzilla, or not.

[klen7]

-- Top 10 --
Godzilla vs. Gigan (1972)
Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla (1974)
Godzilla Mothra King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack (2001)
Godzilla (2014)
Godzilla (1954)
Mothra vs. Godzilla (1964)
Shin Godzilla (2016)
Godzilla vs. The Sea Monster (1966)
Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla (2002)
Godzilla vs. Megalon (1973)

-- Highly Enjoyable, but not Top 10 --
King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962)
Godzilla vs. Biollante (1989)
Godzilla 2000 (1999)
Godzilla Tokyo SOS (2003)
Ghidrah the Three-Headed Monster (1964)
Godzilla vs. Hedorah (1971)
Godzilla vs. Destoroyah (1995)
Godzilla's Revenge (1969)
Godzilla vs. Megaguirus (2000)
Son of Godzilla (1967)
Monster Zero (1965)
Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah (1991)
Godzilla (1998)

-- I Never Met a Godzilla movie I didn't like --
Terror of Mechagodzilla (1975)
Destroy All Monsters (1968)
Godzilla Final Wars (2004)
Godzilla vs. Mothra (1992)
Godzilla: King of the Monsters 2019
Godzilla Raids Again (1955)
Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla (1993)
Godzilla vs. Spacegodzilla (1994)
Return of Godzilla (1984)

-- Ok, Maybe I have met a Godzilla movie I didn't like... --
Godzilla: The Planet Eater (2018)
Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters (2017)
Godzilla: City on the Edge of Battle (2018)

[H-Man]

It's interesting to look back at this thread and see how my preferences have changed over 12 years.

Not a lot has changed for me in five years, although there are five new Godzilla movies to include (mostly at the bottom of the list, lol), but I realize there's a short shelf life on some of the more recent movies. The Heisei and Millennium films have shifted a lot and now I've found I'm pretty tired of most of those movies. I've given especially the Millennium Godzilla movies more shots than some of them deserve and I'm ready to all but retire all of them but GMK. I get so much play out of the Showa films, even entries I used to despise like Godzilla Raids Again, but somehow they're immune to that.

Anyway I'm going to mix things up a bit with this version of my list because I can.

-The 10 Best Godzilla Movies-
Godzilla (1954)
Mothra vs. Godzilla
King Kong vs. Godzilla (IMO the most underrated Godzilla film)
Shin Godzilla
Son of Godzilla
Godzilla vs. Biollante
GMK
Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah
Monster Zero
Ghidrah, the Three-Headed Monster

-Love to Like-
Godzilla vs. Gigan (Good? No, but it's immensely entertaining.)
Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla '74(Ditto)
Godzilla versus the Sea Monster
Terror of Mechagodzilla
Destroy All Monsters
Godzilla vs. Megalon
Godzilla vs. Hedorah
Godzilla Raids Again
Godzilla's Revenge
Godzilla vs. Mothra

The order of these last three is pretty fluid.

-"Diminishing Returns"-
The Return of Godzilla -or- Godzilla 1985
Godzilla vs. Destoroyah
Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II
Godzilla 2000
Godzilla vs. SpaceGodzilla
Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla
Godzilla (2014)
Godzilla vs. Megaguirus
Godzilla Tokyo SOS
Godzilla Final Wars

I don't really know how to rank G14. I think it's an OK film, so it would probably be towards to the top of that group, but I feel weird about putting it ahead of the '90s films, which I enjoy in spite of their obvious flaws.

-Bottom Five-
Godzilla King of the Monsters (2019)
Godzilla: City on the Edge of Battle
Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters
Godzilla: The Planet Eater
Godzilla (1998)

Eventually I'll revisit all of the last group except GINO but I don't see them moving up into other tiers.

[klen7]

Most recent rewatch really escalated Sea Monster, further sunk ToM and the Heisei series. G'98 is so different from the rest of the franchise that it's a little easier to rewatch than some of the other flicks, which have better counterparts higher in the list. The animated series are little more than curiosities to me

[Gojizilla]

Instead of ranking the entire series I'll just post my top three each from the Showa and Heisei periods.

Showa:

Godzilla 1954 & 1984 tie
Mothra vs Godzilla
Ghidorah, the Three Headed Monster

Heisei:

Godzilla vs Biollante
Godzilla vs King Ghidorah
Shin Godzilla

[Gojizilla]

Btw, I'm defining Shōwa as 1926–1989 and Heisei as 1989–2019. We are now in the Reiwa period and the first Godzilla movies will be American.

[Benjamin Haines]

This is my updated list with all of the newest Godzilla productions of the last few years.


FAVORITES:
Terror of Mechagodzilla (1975)
Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla (1974)
Godzilla (1954)
Godzilla vs. Gigan (1972)
Monster Zero (1965)
Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah (1991)
Godzilla vs. Hedorah (1971)
Ghidorah the Three-Headed Monster (1964)
Godzilla 2000 (1999)
Son of Godzilla (1967)
Mothra vs. Godzilla (1964)
Godzilla vs. The Sea Monster (1966)
Godzilla Minus One (2023)
Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack (2001)
Godzilla: Singular Point (2021)
Godzilla: Final Wars (2004)

AWESOME:
Godzilla vs. Biollante (1989)
King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962)
Shin Godzilla (2016)
Godzilla (2014)
Godzilla vs. Megalon (1973)
The Return of Godzilla (1984)
Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (2024)
Godzilla vs. Kong (2021)
Monarch: Legacy of Monsters (2023-2024)
Godzilla: The Planet Eater (2018)
Godzilla: City on the Edge of Battle (2018)
Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters (2017)
Destroy All Monsters (1968)
Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019)
Godzilla: The Series (1998-2000)
Godzilla vs. Destroyer (1995)

FUN:
Godzilla Raids Again (1955)
Godzilla vs. Mothra (1992)
Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla (2002)
Godzilla: Tokyo SOS (2003)
Hanna-Barbera's Godzilla (1978-1979)
All Monsters Attack (1969)
Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla (1993)
Godzilla (1998)
Zone Fighter (1973)
Godzilla vs. Spacegodzilla (1994)
Godzilla vs. Megaguirus (2000)


My favorites tier is my top 15 favorite Godzilla movies and my favorite Godzilla TV series. My top four have remained the same for most of my life but the sequence of everything after that is more fluid. I like Monster Zero and Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah about the same, and then I like Hedorah, GT3HM and G2K about the same, and then I like Son, MvsG and Sea Monster about the same, and then I like the last four about the same. I became a Godzilla fan when I saw the 1998 TriStar film in theaters as a kid, so that's always been the dividing line from my perspective: everything Showa or Heisei already existed and I discovered it after I became a fan, while I've experienced everything since 1998 as something new. By the time G2K was released in the US, I already regarded a bunch of Godzilla movies as favorites and that included most of the same Showa flicks that I consider favorites today. GT3HM is a movie that I just sort of liked as a kid but it rocketed up to one of my favorites as I got older. None of my favorite Showa Godzilla movies from my childhood have fallen off my favorites tier over time, so my favorites still lean heavily Showa. My favorite Heisei movies as a kid were King Ghidorah and Mechagodzilla but only the former has held up as a favorite to this day. I considered each of the Millennium Series films to be new favorites when I first saw them but the ones that have remained my favorites over time are G2K, GMK and GFW. Although I really like all of the new Godzilla movies and shows since the 2014 revival, the only ones that have broken into my favorites list so far are Minus One and Singular Point.

My awesome tier is all of the other Godzilla movies and shows that I really like, more than most other movies and shows in the world because I'm biased as a lifelong Godzilla fan. These are Godzilla movies and shows that I can watch pretty much anytime, and the only reason they're not grouped with my favorites is because having 32 favorites would just dilute the meaning of it. Biollante, King Kong vs. Godzilla and Destroy All Monsters were movies that I just sort of liked as a kid but now I think they're all awesome. Megalon, G'84 and Destroyer have always been awesome to me. I think all of Legendary's Godzilla productions are awesome, with G'14 still being the one I like the most, and I think Shin Godzilla is even more awesome. I think the anime film trilogy is awesome and I like each of those sequels more than its predecessor. Godzilla: The Series was one of my favorite cartoons as a kid and I still think it's awesome.

My fun tier is everything else, down to the ones I like the least. The only Godzilla movie that I genuinely didn't like as a kid was Spacegodzilla, and then I sure did have fun picking apart a lot of the movies in this tier when I was an oh-so-media-savvy teenager looking for things to criticize online, but I've mellowed out on all of them in my adult years. I like reading books and articles about how these movies were made, even the ones at the bottom of my list, so of course I can have fun actually watching them if I'm in the right mood for them. Godzilla Raids Again has its issues but I like it more than everything else in this tier. Godzilla vs. Mothra is poorly written and derivative but I like it. The Kiryu movies really aren't good but they're fun, short and full of fan service. Hanna-Barbera's Godzilla isn't great, even by '70s cartoon standards, but I still like watching it from time to time and I really liked watching it on Cartoon Network as a kid. All Monsters Attack is a creative story that's weighed down by its excessive use of wholesale stock footage sequences. GvsMG'93 was my favorite Godzilla movie as an impressionable '90s kid but it didn't hold up as I got older, and the same goes for the 1998 TriStar film that made me a fan in the first place. I first saw clips of several of the Godzilla, Ghidorah and Gigan scenes from Zone Fighter as a teen but I didn't actually watch the series until 2020 when the episodes were fansubbed, and I'd say it's second only to Gridman as the worst tokusatsu series I've ever seen. Spacegodzilla and Megaguirus are interchangeable as my bottom two Godzilla movies.

[Kailem]

Oh wow, I don't think it'd be possible for me to rank the entire series in order of personal preference! Both because I've never been good at creating lists of favourites, but also because there are several films I've not seen in years and am due a re-watch, so I'd need to refresh my memory of several of them in order to really say how I feel about them now (I'm holding off on my re-watch of Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla until the anniversary celebrations this year, for example).

I first got into Godzilla back in the late 80's/early 90's when I was little, with the first films I saw on TV being Ebirah and I *think* Invasion of the Astro Monsters (it was plural in the UK, even though Ghidorah is the only "astro monster" in it ). After that I found our local video rental place had G'84 (and Gappa!), and by that point I was hooked. So those three have definitely always remained very high on my list of favourites and never really left.

The Showa era has definitely always been my favourite era overall though because the vast majority of Godzilla films that aired regularly on UK TV throughout the 90's were Showa films, so those are what I grew up with watching the most. As a result that's always been the era I've had the biggest nostalgic connection and love for, but even outside of that I've always just loved that "Showa look", even with other tokusatsu movies and shows. When I first got into the series it was still early on in the Heisei era, so that's always been my second favourite for that reason, even though I didn't end up seeing most of those films until I started importing DVDs in the early 2000s, since only G'84, GvsKG and GvM ever got a release in the UK.

The Millennium Series was so strange to watch for the first time, because after years of the Showa and to a lesser extent Heisei films being the entirety of what Godzilla was for me, suddenly I was watching brand new films that were way more modern in their filmmaking style than anything I'd seen before. They're not the only Godzilla films I don't have a big nostalgic connection to, but it's certainly the only *era* where that was the case (aside from everything that's come afterwards, obviously ).

I've been pleasantly surprised by how well so many of my childhood favourites have held up when I've gone back to rewatch them too. Ebirah and Son of Godzilla remain one of my favourite "duologies", and even though G'84 might not be up there with the very best, it's still a great movie that I think is a little underrated. IotAM is still excellent, though my opinion of Destroy All Monsters, which was a big favourite of mine growing up, may have lessened *somewhat* in later years. I still think it's really good, but it definitely lacks the engaging characters compared to films like Astro Monsters or Mothra vs Godzilla etc.

Destoroyah became a big favourite when I was finally able to see it, with Biollante coming right behind. King Ghidorah has remained one of my absolute favourites of the Heisei era though, and one of the few that got a UK release back in the day. GMK and Final Wars are my favourites of the Millennium era, though for different reasons.

I actually rewatched Megaguirus not that long ago, and I still feel like it's a little underrated, at least as far as not being the absolute abomination some people make it out to be. Don't get me wrong, it's never going to be on anyone's lists of favourites, but it's a decent middle of the road Godzilla film that I found to be better than the two Kiryu films that followed (though to be fair, those are two of the ones I really need to re-watch at some point).

Which is all one big, long-winded way of saying yeah, I don't think I'll be making a definitive list of favourites any time soon.

[Benjamin Haines]

^ I went through an opposite trajectory with Destroy All Monsters. As a kid I found it to be pretty boring compared to most of the other Showa flicks and I only liked it marginally more as a younger adult. It's just been in the last few years that I've come to appreciate how awesome DAM really is. I remember that I always found it odd how older American fans seemed to revere it as one of the best Godzilla movies, which I now realize must have been at least partly due to how scarce DAM became by not airing on US television at all between the early '80s and 1996, and not getting a VHS release in the US until 1998. I didn't experience any of that rarity with DAM.

I was 9 when I saw the TriStar film in theaters and became a fan but I remember my very first exposure to Godzilla was years earlier when I saw bits and pieces of a movie marathon on cable TV. It was "Godzilla vs. Mothra" (using that title for the '64 film), followed by "Godzilla vs. Monster Zero" and then "Godzilla's Revenge". I didn't watch any of them for more than a few minutes and I don't remember what else I was doing that evening, I might have been as young as 6 at that point, but I distinctly remember watching Godzilla battle Mothra to the death, then later seeing the battle on Planet X with Godzilla's victory dance.

Ebirah and Son of Godzilla are both fantastic! It's a testament to the creativity of the era that two Godzilla movies set on tropical islands and released a year apart could have the same director, the same screenwriter, the same special effects director and the same composer but the stories, the themes, the characters and the monster action are all totally different.

[Kailem]

Oh yeah don't get me wrong, DAM is still up there among my favourites. I think it was just that at some point during my last re-watch or so I kinda thought "yeah, I guess can see what some people are saying about it not quite being *as* good as some of the other Showa classics." But it's still an awesome movie that I've always really enjoyed, and it also features my all-time favourite Godzilla design.

That's crazy to me to imagine DAM just never got shown on US TV during the 80's and 90's! In the UK it was one of seven Showa movies that pretty much aired every weekend on a bunch of channels throughout the late 80's and 90's, so it's one of the ones I had the clearest memories of from back in the day, even before more recent re-watches. And for the last couple of decades it's always seemed like the US has just had way more Godzilla stuff than the UK in general in terms of merch and movies, so it's kinda wild to think there was a time when that maybe wasn't *entirely* the case.

Already being a fan during the 90's meant I was hyped as hell during the run-up to the '98 film. "Godzilla from the team that made Independence Day" sounded like the perfect combination, and regardless of how the movie ultimately turned out it was still a super fun time to be a fan. I remember close to the opening weekend Sky Movies had an all-day Godzilla movie marathon on a Saturday, again with those same seven Showa films, and I remember just laying in bed that day watching non-stop Godzilla movies back to back. It was the best day ever!

[Benjamin Haines]

^ What were the seven Showa films that aired regularly on UK TV through the '90s?

DAM was released in American theaters by AIP in 1969, then AIP's dubbed version aired in syndication on American TV in the '70s and early '80s, and then it stopped airing until the SciFi Channel began showing it on cable TV with the international dub in 1996. At the same time, all of the other Showa Godzilla movies were released on VHS in the US from 1983 to 1990, most of them multiple times in the years that followed, making them prevalent in American video rental stores through the '90s, while DAM was absent from home video until 1998.

[Kailem]

The ones that aired pretty frequently over here were Invasion of the Astro Monsters (as it was known here), Ebirah: Horror of the Deep, Son of Godzilla, Destroy All Monsters, Godzilla vs Gigan, Godzilla vs Megalon and Terror of Mechagodzilla. They used to play a lot of Channel 4's on the weekends as the mainstays of their "creature features" block (footage for the bumpers of which was largely made up of stuff from those films, if I remember rightly). Then later in the 90's they aired often on Sky's movie channels, and around 1998 they were all released on VHS by 4 Front Video, to really cash in on the hype surrounding the upcoming Tristar film.

Likewise Godzilla vs Hedorah, Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla and one other film I can't recall were released on video by a different company. As far as I'm aware those movies never aired on UK TV, so I blind bought Hedorah on video and watched it for the first time that way. It didn't quite grab me the same as the rest of the films I grew up with did though, so I never ended up watching it again until I got Sony's DVD release years later.

And because I never ended up nabbing the Mechagodzilla VHS and so never saw that one growing up, I didn't even realise that the opening of ToMG was a recap of a previous movie until I finally picked up the Sony DVD for that too! I always just thought Terror had a really action-packed opening, with Godzilla fighting the disguised Mechagodzilla immediately as soon as the film started, rather than being brought up to speed on the events of a film I hadn't seen yet.

The original '54 film aired only very rarely over here, and I was lucky enough to catch it one night when it was on Channel 4. By that point I was well aware of how dark and serious it was meant to be compared to the Godzilla movies I was used to, so I wasn't surprised by how different it was to those later Showa films when I saw it. And I remember Godzilla's Revenge/All Monsters Attack aired at least once on TV over here back in the 90's too, because I recorded it one night to watch later; and gave up around the point where Ichiro finds the abandoned building because I was so bored. So that was one I didn't see in its entirety until many years later. And similarly I remember catching the majority of King Kong vs Godzilla on TV over here one time, but it wasn't something that aired hardly at all and so I didn't end up seeing it until for many years after that.

I wonder why DAM was the only Showa film that didn't get an American VHS release until the late 90's when all the rest did? I should have figured that it was an anomaly and not a case of the US not having as much Godzilla back in the day as I thought it did.

[Benjamin Haines]

^ Nice, four of Fukuda's movies and three of Honda's.

Did GRA, MvsG or GT3HM ever air on UK television? How did you first see them?

Regarding which movies got released on American home video and when, a lot of it boiled down to the chain of rights ownership over time from one company to the next, although that still doesn't explain why it took so long for DAM. American International Pictures was bought by a company called Filmways in 1979, including the rights to DAM and Godzilla vs. The Smog Monster (as AIP called it), and then Orion Pictures bought Filmways in 1982. Orion formed a home entertainment division in 1985, then they started releasing movies on VHS in 1987 under the Orion Home Video label, which led them to release Smog Monster on VHS in 1989. There's no telling why Orion never released DAM on VHS around that time. Their rights to DAM and Hedorah eventually reverted to Toho sometime in the early-mid '90s, which led to those movies returning to American TV on the SciFi Channel in 1996 featuring their previously unheard export English dubs provided by Toho, much to the chagrin of longtime American fans who preferred the English dubs from AIP's versions.

The irony of my experience was that by the time I became a fan and started seeking out Godzilla movies in 1998, DAM had been released on VHS by ADV Films and was easy to find, while Orion's Smog Monster VHS had been out of print for years and was impossible to find. I never found it! It wasn't in any video rental store that I visited, it wasn't for sale at any retail outlet and it wasn't even available to order from Amazon Dot Com. I finally saw Hedorah for the first time when it aired on the SciFi Channel in December 2000, and the tape that I recorded then was the only copy of the movie that I owned until Sony released it on DVD in 2004.