HBO Max’s 18-Part Action Thriller Godzilla Franchise Is So Good, It Makes King Kong Look Small

One of the best things about kaiju movies has always been scale. Not just physical size, but emotional scale, tonal scale, sheer imaginative insanity. Few genres understand awe the way giant monster movies do. Cities collapse beneath impossible creatures. Alien invasions spiral into apocalyptic wars. Ancient gods rise from oceans, volcanoes, and deep space with absolutely no concern for realism or restraint, and somehow the movies only become more entertaining the bigger and stranger they get. At their best, kaiju films do not feel grounded, and some of the best proof of this assertion is available to stream on HBO Max in the form of 18 Toho movies.

With Godzilla Minus One finally returning later this year with its highly anticipated sequel Godzilla Minus Zero, there has rarely been a better excuse to dive back into the chaotic, endlessly inventive history of Godzilla and the larger kaiju genre. And honestly, the lineup HBO Max has to offer is remarkably strong, because the collection spans multiple generations of Godzilla storytelling, from haunting black-and-white destruction epics to gloriously strange sci-fi monster battles where aliens, robots, giant insects, and world-ending dragons somehow coexist without the movies ever losing complete confidence in themselves.

HBO Max’s Kaiju Collection Covers Nearly Every Era of ‘Godzilla’

Part of what makes the Godzilla franchise so enduring is how wildly flexible it has always been. The original Godzilla remains one of the bleakest and most politically charged monster movies ever made, channeling postwar nuclear anxiety into something genuinely haunting. Then, only a few years later, the franchise evolved into increasingly elaborate monster battles involving alien invasions, secret underground civilizations, giant robotic weapons, and apocalyptic destruction happening on a nearly annual basis. And honestly, that tonal whiplash is part of what makes the series so fascinating. Movies like Mothra vs. Godzilla and Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster helped define the larger mythology of the franchise by introducing some of the most iconic kaiju ever created. Destroy All Monsters basically functions like the kaiju version of an Avengers crossover decades before Hollywood became obsessed with cinematic universes like the MCU. Even now, the sheer scale of that movie still feels ambitious in a way many modern franchise crossovers strangely do not.

Then there are the entries that fully embrace the franchise’s stranger instincts. Godzilla vs. Hedorah turns environmental collapse into a psychedelic nightmare full of disturbing imagery and bizarre tonal swings that somehow make the movie even more memorable. Godzilla vs. Megalon feels like somebody transformed a child’s toybox into a feature-length sci-fi spectacle. Invasion of Astro-Monster somehow combines alien mind control, space exploration, and giant monster fights into one of the franchise’s most entertainingly chaotic entries.

Toho Movies Still Make Practical Effects Feel Massive

Image via Toho

Part of the appeal of these older Godzilla movies is how tactile all of them feel. These movies were made long before CGI could smooth everything into weightless digital chaos, so every fight carries actual texture and impact. Buildings erupt into sparks. Miniature cities collapse beneath enormous rubber suits. Pyrotechnics explode constantly. The monsters slam into each other with real physical force. Even the rougher effects somehow add personality instead of taking anything away from the spectacle. That craftsmanship becomes even more impressive when watching these movies back-to-back. Toho’s effects artists were constantly finding increasingly creative ways to make giant monsters feel larger than life despite technical limitations that would probably terrify most modern studios. There is an inventiveness running through these movies that still feels contagious decades later.

And honestly, few examples capture that creativity better than Mechagodzilla. There are very few concepts in blockbuster filmmaking more immediately perfect than “evil robot Godzilla.” Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla and Terror of Mechagodzilla remain some of the most entertaining entries in the entire franchise because Mechagodzilla instantly changes the atmosphere every time he appears onscreen. Godzilla fights plenty of monsters in these movies, but Mechagodzilla feels genuinely dangerous in a way many kaiju do not. The design remains fantastic decades later: metallic armor plating, glowing eyes, missile-launching fingertips, hidden artillery packed into nearly every inch of the character’s body, and enough firepower to flatten entire cities within minutes.

These Movies Still Understand Spectacle Better Than Most Modern Franchises

Toho

What makes revisiting these older Godzilla movies so rewarding is realizing how much modern blockbuster filmmaking still borrows from them structurally, visually, and tonally. Monster-versus-monster escalation, crossover storytelling, serialized rivalries, world-ending threats, cinematic universes, escalating destruction spectacle are all elements the kaiju genre figured out most of this decades ago. Unlike many modern franchise movies, though, these movies rarely feel embarrassed by their own premise, and they commit fully. If a giant three-headed space dragon is destroying Earth while aliens manipulate humanity from hidden moon bases, the movie treats that scenario with complete sincerity. That confidence matters. It is part of why the franchise has survived for more than 70 years while so many blockbuster trends came and went around it.

Watching this collection now also makes it easier to appreciate why Godzilla Minus One resonated so strongly with audiences in the first place. Minus One works because it understands every side of Godzilla history at once. It understands the horror and tragedy at the core of the character, but it also understands spectacle, destruction, scale, and the strange emotional sincerity that has always made kaiju movies resonate beyond simple monster fights. HBO Max’s current lineup basically functions as a crash course in all of it. Whether somebody wants the darker nuclear allegory of early Godzilla, the bizarre sci-fi insanity of the Showa era, or simply two giant monsters leveling miniature cities for ninety straight minutes, the collection delivers. The moment Mechagodzilla fires missiles out of his fingertips, it becomes very difficult to pretend giant monster movies are not one of cinema’s greatest inventions.

The current lineup on HBO Max includes:

• All Monsters Attack
• Destroy All Monsters
• Godzilla
• Son of Godzilla
• Ebirah, Horror of the Deep
• Godzilla vs. Hedorah
• Godzilla vs. Megalon
• Godzilla vs. Gigan
• Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla
• Mothra vs. Godzilla
• Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah
• Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster
• Godzilla vs. Biollante
• Godzilla Raids Again
• The Return of Godzilla
• Rodan
• Invasion of Astro-Monster
• Terror of Mechagodzilla

Release Date

March 21, 1974

Runtime

84 minutes

Director

Jun Fukuda

Writers

Jun Fukuda, Hiroyasu Yamaura, Masami Fukushima, Shinichi Sekizawa

Producers

Tomoyuki Tanaka

• 

  Masaaki Daimon

  Keisuke Shimizu

• 

  Kazuya Aoyama

  Masahiko Shimizu