Can now be appreciated not just as a minor classic of tragic destruction, but also as a somber exploration of conflicted postwar emotions.
Godzilla(ゴジラ)
✭ ✭ ✭ ✭ Read critic reviews
Japan · 1954
1h 36m
Director Ishirō Honda
Starring Akira Takarada, Momoko Kôchi, Akihiko Hirata, Takashi Shimura
Genre Horror, Science Fiction, Thriller
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Japan is thrown into a panic after several ships explode and are sunk near Odo Island. An expedition to the island, led by paleontologist Professor Kyohei Yemani, soon discovers something more devastating than imagined in the form of a 164-foot-tall monster whom the natives call Gojira. The monster’s rampage threatens to destroy the world.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
Christian Science Monitor by David Sterritt
Not that Honda's original Godzilla is a message movie first and foremost. It's a horror flick, and an ingenious one at that, with visual effects so vivid that gimmicky spin-offs became an enduring staple of popular film.
Washington Post by Desson Thomson
The images are crisp. The story is restored. And there's no sign of Raymond Burr.
As crass as it is visionary, Godzilla belongs with--and might well trump--the art films "Hiroshima Mon Amour" and "Dr. Strangelove" as a daring attempt to fashion a terrible poetry from the mind-melting horror of atomic warfare.
New York Daily News by Jack Mathews
The monster's mashing of Tokyo looks as Ed Wood-like as ever, but the film's humanity gives it depth.
ReelViews by James Berardinelli
The arrival of the uncut Godzilla is a great boon to monster movie fans, but will have limited appeal to others.
San Francisco Chronicle by Mick LaSalle
A new restoration takes a flawed bit of monster camp and turns it back into a strong, serious-minded and occasionally moving science-fiction film.
Entertainment Weekly by Owen Gleiberman
Godzilla is still the most awesome of tacky movie monsters.
While the Raymond Burr sequences and the subsequent clumsy English dubbing of the remaining Japanese footage made the U.S. version an unintentionally funny movie, the complete Japanese version is an unfunny bore.
Washington Post by Stephen Hunter
Its images of the destruction of the cities is far more powerful than in American films, where the cities are trashed for the pure pleasure of destruction, without any real sense of human loss.
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- ✭ ✭
- Japan, United States • 1998
- Director Roland Emmerich
- Cast Matthew Broderick, Jean Reno, Maria Pitillo, Hank Azaria, Kevin Dunn, Michael Lerner
- Genre Science Fiction, Action, Thriller
- Available on Max Amazon Channel, Max, Apple TV, Google Play Movies, Vudu, Amazon Video, Microsoft Store, YouTube, Spectrum On Demand, AMC on Demand
Godzilla Raids Again
(ゴジラの逆襲)
- ✭ ✭ ✭
- Japan • 1955
- Director Motoyoshi Oda
- Cast Hiroshi Koizumi, Setsuko Wakayama, Minoru Chiaki, Takashi Shimura, Masao Shimizu, Seijirô Onda
- Genre Science Fiction, Horror
- Available on fuboTV, Criterion Channel, Max Amazon Channel, Max, Apple TV, Vudu, Crackle, Tubi TV, The Roku Channel, Pluto TV, Freevee, Shout! Factory TV, Plex, Plex Channel
King Kong vs. Godzilla
(キングコング対ゴジラ)
The motion picture screen beckons you to adventure that thrills the emotions with shock and terror!
- ✭ ✭
- Japan, United States • 1962
- Director Ishirō Honda
- Cast Tadao Takashima, Kenji Sahara, Yû Fujiki, Ichirô Arishima, Jun Tazaki, Akihiko Hirata
- Genre Science Fiction
- Available on No streaming locations found.
Mothra vs. Godzilla
(モスラ対ゴジラ)
Nothing Like This Ever On the Screen!
- ✭ ✭ ✭
- Japan • 1964
- Director Ishirō Honda
- Cast Akira Takarada, Yuriko Hoshi, Hiroshi Koizumi, Yū Fujiki, Kenji Sahara, Emi Ito
- Genre Drama, Action, Science Fiction
- Available on fuboTV, Criterion Channel, Max Amazon Channel, Max, Apple TV, Vudu, Crackle, Tubi TV, The Roku Channel, Pluto TV, Freevee, Shout! Factory TV, Plex, Plex Channel
The Revenge of Frankenstein
We Dare You To See It! We Double-Dare You To Forget It!
- ✭ ✭ ✭
- United Kingdom • 1958
- Director Terence Fisher
- Cast Peter Cushing, Francis Matthews, Eunice Gayson, Michael Gwynn, John Welsh, Lionel Jeffries
- Genre Horror, Science Fiction
- Available on fuboTV, Apple TV, Google Play Movies, Vudu, Amazon Video, Microsoft Store, YouTube, Tubi TV, The Roku Channel
The War of the Gargantuas
(フランケンシュタインの怪獣 サンダ対ガイラ)
Can a Country Survive When Two Gargantuas Battle to Death?
- ✭ ✭ ✭
- Japan • 1966
- Director Ishirō Honda
- Cast Russ Tamblyn, Kumi Mizuno, Kenji Sahara, Nobuo Nakamura, Jun Tazaki, Hisaya Itô
- Genre Action, Horror, Science Fiction
- Available on Criterion Channel, Max Amazon Channel, Max, Tubi TV, Pluto TV, Freevee, Shout! Factory TV, Plex, Plex Channel
Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster
(三大怪獣 地球最大の決戦)
The Three-Headed Monster battles Godzilla, Mothra and Rodan for the world!
- ✭ ✭ ✭
- Japan • 1964
- Director Ishirō Honda
- Cast Yōsuke Natsuki, Yuriko Hoshi, Akiko Wakabayashi, Hisaya Itô, Hiroshi Koizumi, Takashi Shimura
- Genre Action, Adventure, Science Fiction
- Available on fuboTV, Criterion Channel, Max Amazon Channel, Max, Apple TV, Vudu, Crackle, Tubi TV, Pluto TV, Freevee, Shout! Factory TV, Plex, Plex Channel
Terror of Mechagodzilla
(メカゴジラの逆襲)
From a black hole in space...they came to conquer Earth...!
- ✭ ✭ ✭
- Japan • 1975
- Director Ishirō Honda
- Cast Katsuhiko Sasaki, Tomoko Ai, Akihiko Hirata, Katsumasa Uchida, Gorô Mutsumi, Tadao Nakamaru
- Genre Action, Adventure, Science Fiction
- Available on fuboTV, Criterion Channel, FlixFling, Peacock, Max Amazon Channel, Max, Apple TV, Vudu, Crackle, Tubi TV, The Roku Channel, Pluto TV, Freevee, Shout! Factory TV, Plex, Plex Channel
Rodan
(空の大怪獸 ラドン)
Thundering out of unknown skies—the super-sonic hell-creature no weapon could destroy!
- ✭ ✭ ✭
- Japan • 1956
- Director Ishirō Honda
- Cast Kenji Sahara, Yumi Shirakawa, Akihiko Hirata, Minosuke Yamada, Yoshifumi Tajima, Akio Kobori
- Genre Horror, Science Fiction
- Available on fuboTV, Criterion Channel, Max Amazon Channel, Max, Crackle, Tubi TV, Pluto TV, Freevee, Plex, Plex Channel
Samurai I: Musashi Miyamoto
(宮本武蔵)
- ✭ ✭ ✭ ✭
- Japan • 1954
- Director Hiroshi Inagaki
- Cast Toshirō Mifune, Rentaro Mikuni, Mariko Okada, Kurôemon Onoe, Kaoru Yachigusa, Mitsuko Mito
- Genre Drama, Action, Adventure
- Available on Criterion Channel, Max Amazon Channel, Max, Apple TV, Amazon Video
The Crucified Lovers
(近松物語)
The tortured heart behind the cultivated image.
- ✭ ✭ ✭ ✭
- Japan • 1954
- Director Kenji Mizoguchi
- Cast Kazuo Hasegawa, Kyōko Kagawa, Eitarō Shindō, Eitarō Ozawa, Yôko Minamida, Haruo Tanaka
- Genre Drama, Romance
- Available on Criterion Channel, Apple TV, Vudu
Space Amoeba
(ゲゾラ・ガニメ・カメーバ 決戦!南海の大怪獣)
Hideous creatures from outer space advance to invade the earth!
- ✭ ✭ ✭
- Japan • 1970
- Director Ishirō Honda
- Cast Akira Kubo, Yukiko Kobayashi, Atsuko Takahashi, Yoshio Tsuchiya, Tetsu Nakamura, Sachio Sakai
- Genre Science Fiction, Adventure, Horror
- Available on Criterion Channel
Massacre Time
(Le colt cantarono la morte e fu... tempo di massacro)
THE MASSACRE MEN - They carry their hate in their holsters and a name on every bullet in their belts...
- ✭ ✭ ✭
- Italy • 1966
- Director Lucio Fulci
- Cast Franco Nero, George Hilton, Giuseppe Addobbati, Nino Castelnuovo, Linda Sini, Tom Felleghy
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- Available on Night Flight Plus, ARROW, Apple TV, Google Play Movies, Amazon Video, Microsoft Store, YouTube, Tubi TV, Plex Channel
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(吸血鬼ゴケミドロ)
A fiendish vampire from a strange world in outer space drains his victims' blood and turns them into weird corpses!
- ✭ ✭ ✭
- Japan • 1968
- Director Hajime Sato
- Cast Teruo Yoshida, Tomomi Satô, Hideo Kô, Masaya Takahashi, Nobuo Kaneko, Eizô Kitamura
- Genre Horror, Science Fiction
- Available on Criterion Channel, FlixFling
A Single Rider
(싱글라이더)
A man visits his family in Australia after losing everything only to find another shocking truth…
- ✭ ✭ ✭
- Korea, Australia • 2017
- Director Lee Zoo-young
- Cast Lee Byung-hun, Gong Hyo-jin, An So-hee, Jack Campbell, Annika Whitely, Kay Ekiund
- Genre Drama
- Available on No streaming locations found.
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- ✭ ✭ ✭
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- Director Larissa Sansour
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- ✭ ✭ ✭
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The original Godzilla remains a fascinating post-war study of nuclear destruction and national tragedy. Even in the age of Oppenheimer which seems to be the definitive meditation on the atomic bomb, Godzilla's enduring legacy is a testament to the creature's cultural resilience and adaptability to metaphor. Godzilla's been a symbol for the atomic bomb, yes, but also government bureaucracy and, most recently, guilt. Even a film as old as this manages to capture the horror of atomic destruction and the sheer loss of a life a superweapon can enable with the wave of a hand - or claw, or foot.