10 Giant Monster Movies That Are 10/10, No Notes

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Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah_ Giant Monsters All-Out Attack - 2001-1

Published Feb 10, 2026, 7:38 AM EST

Jeremy has more than 2300 published articles on Collider to his name, and has been writing for the site since February 2022. He's an omnivore when it comes to his movie-watching diet, so will gladly watch and write about almost anything, from old Godzilla films to gangster flicks to samurai movies to classic musicals to the French New Wave to the MCU... well, maybe not the Disney+ shows.
His favorite directors include Martin Scorsese, Sergio Leone, Akira Kurosawa, Quentin Tarantino, Werner Herzog, John Woo, Bob Fosse, Fritz Lang, Guillermo del Toro, and Yoji Yamada. He's also very proud of the fact that he's seen every single Nicolas Cage movie released before 2022, even though doing so often felt like a tremendous waste of time. He's plagued by the question of whether or not The Room is genuinely terrible or some kind of accidental masterpiece, and has been for more than 12 years (and a similar number of viewings).
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Giant monsters are almost always cool, which is something that becomes apparent when you watch a whole bunch of movies about them. Not every single giant monster movie is good, though, and some of the really bad ones aren’t particularly cool, even when the giant monsters are being focused on. Hence, they're almost always cool. And if they're even a little bit cool, then the movies are probably watchable.

But if you’ve got no time for digging through obscure or fairly by-the-numbers giant monster movies, then it’s worth checking out at least the following. If a monster is considerably larger than the average human being, and is at the forefront of a handful of important scenes, then, for present purposes, a movie may be considered one of the giant monster variety (apologies to Gremlins, any adaptation of Frankenstein, and Dracula; you lot ain’t big enough for these here parts).

10 'Pacific Rim' (2013)

Pacific Rim understands kaiju movies better than just about any other English-language movie, or more accurately, Guillermo del Toro understands kaiju movies better than any other filmmaker who’s made a movie in said genre in the English language. That’s not saying it’s the best giant monster movie not in Japanese, but kaiju flicks are a little different from giant monster movies.

Monsters in kaiju movies are especially big, like skyscraper-sized. And in Pacific Rim, those giant monsters are literally called kaiju, so that’s cool. Narratively, it’s about big monsters and the big robots that people build to fight back against said monsters. It’s like watching a particularly imaginative kid play with their action figures, but that kid has a blockbuster-sized budget and somehow knows how to direct. It’s very silly, but well-aware of the silliness, and that makes it all glorious and also oddly endearing, all in ways that are a bit hard to explain, but ultimately very easy to feel. You gotta love the smell of sincerity in the morning. Or the evening. Or whenever you choose to watch Pacific Rim.

9 'Godzilla vs. Destoroyah' (1995)

The first, but not last, Godzilla movie worth mentioning here is Godzilla vs. Destoroyah. This one wraps up the Heisei era of the overall series, which started in 1984 and was intended to make Godzilla scary again, essentially. Like, he’d become a bit kid-friendly and undeniably heroic toward the end of the Showa era, so the Heisei era films had him be sort of villainous again, but then merge into more of an antihero.

The moral complexity kind of comes through in Godzilla vs. Destoroyah, too, because the other titular monster here is far more terrifying, but Godzilla himself is still a threat, given he’s in meltdown mode, feared to blow and cause untold damage at any moment. Basically, the stakes couldn’t really be higher for a Godzilla movie, and that’s the main reason why this one packs such a punch, and proves particularly emotional if you're invested in the overall series (and all the movies that had been released in the 40-ish years preceding this one).

8 'The Host' (2006)

The monster in Han River from The Host (2006).

Guillermo del Toro isn't the only legendary filmmaker to tackle the monster movie genre in the 21st century, since Bong Joon-ho tried his hand at it in 2006, with The Host, and also kind of nailed it. Granted, the monster here isn't quite kaiju-sized, but it is big enough for present purposes, not to mention a significant threat. Also, the reduced size (compared to kaiju, you know) means the conflict here is ultimately a bit more intimate and personal.

Instead of a whole city being at risk of destruction, The Host is about a family being torn apart when one of their own is kidnapped by the monster, and so they set off on a rather chaotic quest to get her back. Like with other Bong Joon-ho movies (see Memories of Murder and Parasite), the tone of The Host might seem all-over-the-place, and maybe kind of is, but it all somehow works and coalesces, with the entire film being funny, sad, exciting, and even spectacular at times.

7 'Gamera 3: Revenge of Iris' (1999)

Gamera roaring at two figures in Gamera 3 Revenge of Iris

Well, it might not technically be one of the most ambitious trilogies ever or anything, but the three Gamera movies from the 1990s that make up a trilogy? They're all pretty great. And they're notable for each one being a little better than the last, and so it’s Gamera 3: Revenge of Iris that’s getting highlighted here, even if you should also watch Gamera: Guardian of the Universe and Gamera 2: Attack of Legion (you kind of need to, too, if you want to fully appreciate the third movie).

The whole trilogy rebooted and revitalized Gamera in a way that made him feel like so much more than a Godzilla knock-off. This one is ranked higher than Godzilla vs. Destoroyah, after all. Shusuke Kaneko did such a good job directing these movies that Toho got him on board with directing a Godzilla movie in 2001, and speaking of…

6 'Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack' (2001)

Back to Godzilla, but now to his more divisive Millennium era, Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack has Godzilla at his most malicious. He’s so evil here that King Ghidorah is one of the good guys, or at least this version of King Ghidorah. And if you're a fan of the series, you'd understand what a big deal that is; real unprecedented stuff.

Mothra being on the side of good is more expected (and we shouldn’t forget about Baragon being in this movie, even if the title forgets about him). Anyway, those three monsters and Godzilla all have interesting and unique backstories in this film, and all the action and drama are extremely well done, and it has to be, to get you barracking for Ghidorah over Godzilla. Also, there’s a dig at Godzilla (1998), which is always appreciated.

5 'Jurassic Park' (1993)

The T-Rex roaring after breaking out of its enclosure between two vehicles in Jurassic Park.

The best monster movie Steven Spielberg ever made will be mentioned in a bit, but for now, let’s mention Jurassic Park. What a movie, you know? Dinosaurs have never been cooler than they are here, and might well never be so cool again, but then you’ve got so much here that doesn’t involve dinosaurs that’s still compelling, as the human characters are easy to give a damn about, and the dialogue’s genuinely memorable throughout.

Concerning the special effects, they still hold up, and would've been positively mind-blowing back in 1993. It’s well-written, it’s a technical marvel, it’s scored tremendously (John Williams is reliably good as always), and then what Jurassic Park has to say about the dangers of meddling with nature and overdoing science… like, it’s broad, but it still holds up and proves kind of thought-provoking. You’ve got a bit of everything here, and all of it ensures that Jurassic Park is one of the definitive blockbusters of all time.

4 'King Kong' (1933)

One of the big ones, cinema history-wise (even if he’s not quite as big as some of the other giant monsters who've been mentioned here), here’s King Kong. This is the most enduring of the big movie monsters, because the original King Kong does predate the original Godzilla by a little over two decades. If you want to put the two in a head-to-head competition, that does kind of have to be taken into account.

On a narrative front, King Kong keeps things relatively simple, since it’s about finding a giant ape on a dangerous island and bringing him to civilization, with things inevitably going wrong from there. Most giant monster movies owe something to the original King Kong and what it did for special effects and cinema overall, and it says something about the quality of the movie that you can still watch and enjoy it as, you know, a movie more than 90 years on from its release.

3 'Godzilla Minus One' (2023)

The titular monster towering over a cityscape in Godzilla Minus One (2023)

At the time of writing, Godzilla Minus One is the most recent Japanese Godzilla film, and quite a few people would probably tell you – reasonably, it should be stressed – that this is the series at its peak. Perhaps even more so than the original, and certainly more so than (even the quality) American movies, this is a perfect entry point into Godzilla, as a series, if you’ve somehow never seen one of the many films bearing his name before.

It takes place right after World War II, and has a rather wounded and demoralized Japan forced to grapple with a new threat, making its human characters feel like underdogs even more so than most Godzilla movies. And that’s a big reason why Godzilla Minus One succeeds and feels particularly stirring on an emotional front. It’s got compelling human drama, well-established stakes, pretty much perfect pacing, and a great blend of exciting scenes alongside genuinely harrowing and intense ones.

2 'Jaws' (1975)

Jaws is a perfect thriller that just so happens to be a giant monster movie. Or if you want to call it a monster movie without the “giant” part, sure, you can, but the shark here is huge. The shark is big enough that the film fits for current purposes, even if this might be the biggest stretch. The biggest stretch for the smallest of the monsters here… well, some of the scariest dinosaurs in the aforementioned Jurassic Park weren’t huge, either.

And they might not have been monsters in the traditional sense. But Steven Spielberg makes the creatures in these two particular movies feel big on screen, and that’s what matters. Jaws is as good a shark movie as Jurassic Park is a dinosaur movie, and it’s hard to find much to fault with either one. Jaws is especially well-paced and efficient, as a film, as it struck a nerve back in 1975, and it’s kept on striking said nerve again and again (or maybe even some new nerves) in the half-century since.

1 'Godzilla' (1954)

As boring as it is to go back to the start of the series that birthed the king of the monsters, here’s 1954’s Godzilla, which could well be the most important giant monster movie ever made. Yes, there are the Spielberg ones, and the original King Kong, of course, but Godzilla is something special, as a series. Kong’s been around for longer, sure, but there are so many more Godzilla movies, and such a remarkable variety of them, too.

With this original one, it’s mostly horror-focused, and proves surprisingly downbeat. There’s some spectacle here, but it takes itself – and the monster at its center – seriously in a genuinely striking manner. It’s still possible to feel frightened and moved by the story here, and Godzilla will likely remain timeless for as long as there are fears in the world surrounding nuclear weapons and their destructive capabilities. Plenty of Godzilla movies post-1954 have a lot more fun with the whole “monster stomping around a city” thing, but this one remains pivotal and continually admirable because of how mournful and heavy it all is.