How To Watch The Godzilla Movies In Order

There are a handful of cinematic characters who simply can’t stay away from the big screen for too long. Count Dracula, Sherlock Holmes, Victor Frankenstein and his monster, James Bond... the first three can count their live-action appearances in the hundreds, and Bond himself, with 27 films under his belt, isn’t too shabby either. Each has the benefit of longstanding literary source material to prop up their cinematic adventures, but there’s one character with a comparable legacy built on nothing but the 30+ films to their name.

Godzilla entered the public consciousness 72 years ago, taking Japan and then the world by storm with his self-titled 1954 debut film. Originally conceived as an allegory for the cataclysmic devastation of the nuclear bombs dropped on Japan at the end of World War 2, the King of the Monsters would go on to battle an ever-growing pantheon of literally larger-than-life villains and help birth the tokusatsu and kaiju genres. Godzilla’s popularity soon grew beyond his birthplace — only two years after the release of the original Godzilla, American audiences received a recut dub called Godzilla, King of the Monsters, and the rest was history.

Since then, Big G has appeared in over 30 movies, and his nature has shifted drastically. He’s been an outright villain, an unfeeling force of nature, a reluctant antihero fighting off bigger threats... he’s such a malleable figure that he can team up with King Kong to fight a monkey king in American movies that feel like Saturday morning cartoons, while also terrorizing post-war Japanese civilians in Godzilla Minus One around the same time. And now that Godzilla Minus Zero just hit theaters, what better time to rewatch the Godzilla films in order to see just how the most famous kaiju has changed over the years?

How To Watch The Theatrically Released Godzilla Films In Order

Since the Godzilla franchise has been running for over seven decades, there’s no single correct continuity in the vein of Star Wars or the MCU. Instead, the timeline is divided into different eras, with most of the Japanese names coming from the era name given to the sitting Emperor’s reign. Each has its own specific canon (and some have no consistent canon at all), which makes the Godzilla franchise as convoluted as it is entertaining, and that’s before you get into the separate situation of American Godzilla films.

With that in mind, here’s the chronological watch order of each continuity, counting only kaiju films in which Godzilla appears as a primary character:

The Shōwa Era

• Godzilla (1954)
• Godzilla Raids Again (1955)
• King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962)
• Mothra vs. Godzilla (1964)
• Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster (1964)
• Invasion of Astro-Monster (1965)
• Ebirah, Horror of the Deep (1966)
• Son of Godzilla (1967)
• Destroy All Monsters (1968)
• All Monsters Attack (1969)
• Godzilla vs. Hedorah (1971)
• Godzilla vs. Gigan (1972)
• Godzilla vs. Megalon (1973)
• Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla (1974)
• Terror of Mechagodzilla (1975)

The Heisei Era

• The Return of Godzilla (1984)
• Godzilla vs. Biollante (1989)
• Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah (1991)
• Godzilla vs. Mothra (1992)
• Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II (1993)
• Godzilla vs. SpaceGodzilla (1994)
• Godzilla vs. Destoroyah (1995)

First American Era/TriStar Pictures Era

• Godzilla (1998)

The Millennium Era

• Godzilla 2000: Millennium (1999)
• Godzilla vs. Megaguirus (2000)
• Godzilla, Mothra, and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack (2001)
• Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla (2002)
• Godzilla: Tokyo S.O.S. (2003)
• Godzilla: Final Wars (2004)

Second American Era/The MonsterVerse

• Godzilla (2014)
• Kong: Skull Island (2017)
• Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019)
• Godzilla vs. Kong (2021)
• Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (2024)

The Reiwa Era

• Shin Godzilla (2016)
• Godzilla Minus One (2023)
• Godzilla Minus Zero (2026)

There’s also a recent trilogy of animated Godzilla films released in theaters and distributed on Netflix internationally: Planet of the Monsters, City on the Edge of Battle, and The Planet Eaters. And there are several films across the Toho Godzilla timeline that don’t feature Godzilla on-screen but are still “canon” to one or more eras, including 1956’s Rodan, 1958’s Varan the Unbelievable, 1961’s Mothra, and 1963’s Atragon.

Thirty-seven films released across 72 years sounds challenging to catch up on, but that’s somehow one fewer than the number of films the Marvel Cinematic Universe has released in less than two decades. The key difference is that the Godzilla franchise is defined by change and adaptability, and each era offers something unique to fans. Shōwa introduced Godzilla as an allegorical nightmare before turning him into a monster-fighting mascot, Heisei made him a formidable threat again, and at one point in the Millennium era, he was reanimated by the souls of the dead victims of imperial Japan. Godzilla has been among the most inescapable icons of cinema pretty much since he was created, and it’s easy to see why. In the hands of the right filmmaker, the King of the Monsters can be almost anything.