Godzilla Minus One Review 

This week I parked my tractor trailer at the Pilot in Cleveland Tennessee and I walked down the hill to a theatre showing this movie. There was a notice on the door the movies screen explaining how this movie was with subtitles and they did not have any other format. I walked in to the room and I was the only person in this screening room. I had this film all to myself like I was a VIP Movie critic getting a first screening. I am just a trucker and a movie fan and I am 62 years old. This Godzilla movie is the Godzilla movie that rules them all. This is the only Godzilla movie that touches really connects you with the characters and their struggles in their lives. No other Godzilla movie has the ability to make you cry.

I saw it in IMAX and it was amazing!!!! Best monster movie so far and when Godzilla shot his heat ray, it felt like the end of the world

Nobody is saying it, but this is the first Godzilla since the original that prioritizes the horror of nuclear weapons. This is the film's greatest achievement. When I saw Godzilla let out his atomic breath, my mind went straight to the incomprehensible horror the Japanese must have felt when the bombs hit. This is what Godzilla is meant to be.

I have watched every godzilla movie ever made and collected the most rarest godzilla toys in existence. I'm just blown that Japan managed to make the best godzilla movie within my lifetime. What a great time to be alive.

Ray is the reason some people hate going to the movies. You’re there with a bunch of other paying customers who came to watch and take in a film, shut your mouth and do your talking after the movie with your friends during the walk to your car.

The movie being revolved around a kamikaze pilot that lied about his faulty plane and feels guilt for potentially causing so much death (without even anything to do with Godzilla) is just brilliant. The fact he can’t shoot in the first act is just brilliant

My 8yr old son is a huge Godzilla fan. When I showed him the trailer for this he thought it was the American Godzilla but boy when he realized it was the Japanese one he was so pumped and shouted ‘Thats Godzilla!’ Can’t wait to watch next week.

Godzilla literally carrying both film and tv on his shoulders

Hollywood take note. $15 million for a spectacular film. Hollywood is pissing $300 million a film up the wall. What they did is deliver a Godzilla movie with a great story and great characters, in fact they should the trailer for Godzilla X Kong before the movie, it look like an over budgeted video game, absolute shit.

i got choked up when he showed him the seat in the plane and said "LIVE" 😢 Never thought id see a Godzilla film with that kind of Human character story that was so engaging. Absolutely Incredible Job TOHO. 10/10 BRAVO👏👏👏

This is my favorite movie of the year. The human story was amazing, the love story got me choked up, the story of the brotherhood between the guys!! THE MUSIC!!! ... My goodness, this movie was SO good!!

I dragged my girlfriend to the IMAX with me today, and although she was reluctant to see a monster movie, she was drawn in by the storyline and plot. As amazing as the actual Godzilla scenes are the human themes were much more powerful. Godzilla is the embodiment of war, Atomic War. And the entire movie is an allegory of that. The harder they fought Godzilla the larger and more powerful he became. While Godzilla might’ve been killable on Oda Island by the plane (unlikely, but we like to convince ourselves that one well placed bullet can prevent a war) he was unstoppable after the Atomic bombing of the bikini atoll. To the average person war is a monster that arises from nowhere (the sea for Japan), and it’s horrible and monstrous. It was amazing seeing how fleshed out the human experience was written. Themes like PTSD, Survivors guilt, the youthful eagerness to run into battle, finding love during war, suic!de, how all wars begin with lies and secrets by the government, and finding purpose and meaning through love and family. We even see themes about the medical side effects of war like cancer from Atomic bombings. The mark on Noriko’s neck at the end is basically cancer. Generations of Japanese have dealt with the cancerous effects of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Just got out of seeing this movie. I agree with John that the most "boring" Godzilla shot was indeed incredible. Seeing Godzilla standing still, taking in all the destruction that he just caused is both a rare and powerful shot. I would LOVE to have a poster of that shot, too!

As a Godzilla fan I have to agree that this is NOT a Godzilla movie ... this is a movie about humanity [Trauma, PTSD, Guilt, Community, Family] that happens to have Godzilla play a major part. This is a good movie ... period!!

The humans character were so good. I felt them. The dilemma they faced and their realistic reaction. I was moved!

The best thing they did was, they didn't made a "superhero-like" Human protagonist who is protected with plot-armor that could boss around these Monsters. They just made a compelling characters that are actually aware how dangerous Godzilla is.

OMG, I'm so glad there was no "Ray" in our theater ruining the experience for everyone else. Thank god the only thing I heard from others was the sniffling and sobbing at the end.😢

I got excited because the leading newspaper in my country (the Netherlands) gave this a 5 out of 5. The reason given was that this movie understands why godzilla as an idea was conceived in the first place. And the difference between an American Godzilla movie and a Japanese one. Japan was the victim of a nuclear attack. America was the creator of that force.

goodness was Godzilla terrifying in this movie. this is the first movie i found myself rooting for the humans

I just got out of the film and I am completely blown away. By far the best Godzilla in this modern era and to my surprise I went with my 10 year old nephew and he was in a trance watching this. What a beautiful film.

The protagonist's name Shikishima implies Japan as Shikishima is one of the old names expressing Japan.

Godzilla is a profound Post War Japan drama; 1 hr 45 min human drama and 15 min action. I’m still processing what I saw but tentatively 5/5 need another viewing. The Best Foreign Language film of the year and I’ve watched 5 of the top ones every critic raves over. Definitely a Best Picture nominee. I was invested in the human protagonists, and hoping they’d destroy the pure evil beast. Just like in Jaws.

This movie is OUTSTANDING. Perhaps the best movie of the year. ART.

I saw it a few days ago and will watch it again in the theater with my wife this coming weekend. I have been telling people it's a post-World War II era serious drama that happens to also include Godzilla. It is so refreshing to have a action/monster film that has a well-written script with believable characters and their own story arcs. The country of Japan also seems to have its own story arc in how the country deals with reconstruction in getting back on its feet after the horrors of the second World War.

The Best Godzilla Movie Ever!!! The whole cast and storyline were Perfect!!!🤩

The character development was fantastic. I think American movies could take some notes.

Just got out with my kids. It was their first foreign language film .. they loved it. I think it is one of the best of rhe year

Ray's so right, this Godzilla design is SO insanely terrifying

This is not just the best creature movie ever but possibly the best movie of 2023, period! You won't think you'd say that about a freakin' Godzilla movie but it's an incredible movie with a heart and soul.

My phone's down to 2%, so I hope there's enough charge to post this comment. This movie pretty much takes Hollywood to school, and hopefully Hollywood will learn from it (they won't). But it seems the most important thing is this: of all the mo

Awesome love that we get a sequel to Oppenheimer. Basically a companion piece like Flags of Our Fathers & Letters From Iwo Jima

This movie reawakened a nightmare I used to have as a kid when I saw Disney's Pinocchio for the fist time. Specifically the part where they're being chased by the whale.

Godzilla is basically the ongoing trauma of the horror of wars still within the Japanese people.

I had no doubts whatsoever about "Godzilla: Minus One". I've seen or own most of Takashi Yamazaki's live action titles (he's also directed anime movies) and has been consistent in his visions time after time after time. Yamazaki, in North America, was one of Japan's most underrated and under appreciated directors of the last two decades. Underrated and under appreciated, no more... This film is *his* masterpiece --a classic that will stand the test of time.

Just watched tonight. Godzillas atomic breath was more impressive than Oppenheimers Trinity

Wasn't gonna watch this but after seeing how hyped Ray was in your out of theater reaction yesterday I went and watched it today. Absolutely fantastic film. I can't believe the budget was $15 million it looked WAY better than that. Great action moments, some funny moments, and some surprisingly emotional moments that you wouldn't expect from a typical Kaiju movie. Highly HIGHLY recommend seeing this on the biggest screen you can find.

$15 million USD = ¥JPN 2.25 billion, not making exchange rates a big deal, this is the best Godzilla movie ever

I just want a poster of all 2023 movies bowing down to Godzilla Minus One.

Too bad American audiences hate subtitles. This movie won’t get much attention here, cause reading is hard.

This movie was amazing. This was the movie of 2023. Story telling was great and it was very well written. I bought into the characters and best thing that I loved was the original score of the 1956 Godzilla was in it. I was shocked on how amazing it was. This is the best Godzilla movie ever made.

Just watched it, I was in tears. It was so good

I’m a huge Godzilla fan and found myself torn between wanting to root for Godzilla or the characters. I was attached to every single character and found myself actively hoping they wouldn’t meet their demise

I want to thank you for taking the time to give Godzilla a little love.

I loved it. I’m a huge Godzilla fan and I remember when the monster verse movies came out and I like them for kaiju movies. They were a lot of fun but I admit they weren’t “good movies.” And I can’t say that this is my favorite Godzilla movie, because I have nostalgia for some of the classics, but it is by far if you go off cinematography, acting, directing, plot and storyline, this is the best Godzilla movie ever made. My brother went with me because it was my birthday, but he walked out just blown away with how good he thought it was.

The King of the monsters has returned better than ever!!

Not seen it yet, but I'd wager it's better than most things Hollywood's put out. Well done to the Japanese movie industry.

Just finally saw this last night... INCREDIBLE, AMAZING, IN AWE. What a great movie!

Even Steven Spielberg himself liked this movie so much she saw it three times..!

Watched this film today and I have to say it’s my favorite film of the year

This review was on point. Without any spoilers, this was a movie that made you feel; that's the sign of a good movie, monster involved or not; it was phenomenal. The music, the moment, the storytelling, so good.

People who complaing about human stories in their movies.. dont freaking realize they are complaining about bad human stories ..no human stories by themselves.. cause all great stories are stories about humans that highlight an aspect of the human condition . and im not talking about stories that are just human dramas.. Terminator.. great human story.. jaws.. great human story.. Jurassic park ..great human story ..the dark knight ... great human story... alien... great human story .. back to the future great human story..

saw this tonight. not a big godzilla fan but this was great. well told story. about 40 people in the theatre and got respectable applause at the end. but I love the young kids next to me, about 10 minutes in, they said "when they start speaking english"

This movie is the spiritual sequel to Oppenheimer. Needs to play in a double feature

No way that had a 15mill production budget !!

I saw it for the second time tonight. Both times the audience applauded at the end, and everyone was raving about it on the way out

That water chase seen I thought was Practical effects but, later I found it was CGI!! How terrifying is it to have a head to pop out the water that can swallow your whole ship!!

Godzilla Minus One is perhaps the best Godzilla movie since the original 1954 movie. I loved Shin Godzilla from 2016 and I really dug Gareth Edwards' take on the big guy, but Minus One is one of the most well-written movies of this year. Great character work, great story, and outstanding visual effects make for my third favorite movie of the year. It's right up there with Barbie and Oppenheimer. I'm a pretty big Godzilla fan, and this was my first Japanese Godzilla movie that I saw in theaters. It was an incredibly powerful experience. I can't wait to see what they do next. I'm more interested in what Toho's doing with Godzilla than WB at this point.

Ray laughing out loud at the shockwave blast scene would of pissed me off, that's how good the writing was for the characters!

This movie is more "Gojira" than "Godzilla". It's definitely the best one I've seen.

How in the absolute hell did this movie cost 15 million? Cause it looks incredible. The flash cost over 200 million and looks like absolute shit

Movie was 10/10 for me. I saw it at the early screening on Wed night at Regal cinemas on the Imax and it was an early bday gift to myself since yesterday was my birthday. I will definitely be a repeat viewer of the movie and hopefully this time I'll check it out on the 4DX screen. Long live the king.

Oscar must go to Godzilla

To be honest, I will immediately say that it is the best Godzilla movie ever. As someone who has been wanting a film like this for 17 years, the past current variations never gave it. They were popcorn entertainment, with limited substance. This film delivered the tone and scary nature of Godzilla. People throwing around the “best movie of the year” are somewhat right. In terms of a movie that anyone can go see and enjoy, Yes. It might not be the best movie of the year, in means of technical aspects. Directors like Christopher Nolan may have the best Oscar winning movie of the year, but Godzilla may have the best casual W of the year. So far Godzilla Minus One and Talk to Me are among my favorites of the year.

First movie in a long time where I was jumping in my seat. Best movie I've seen in 2023. Best Godzilla movie tied up w Shin Godzillla.

This is the BEST Godzilla movie ever made, in my opinion

Friday Night Tights has this as their top movie of the year, I agree

This is an amazing movie. I saw it yesterday. I was worried about a movie with subtitles, but that wasn't an issue at all. The story is an incredible story and the acting is amazing. When you can feel the emotions of a character and you can't understand what they're saying if you weren't reading, that is really good acting.

This was not just the best Godzilla movie ever made - this one of the best movies ever. Period.

Godzilla is full angry tom cat mode.

Someone who doesn't read subtitles? And they are a critic? Smh missing out on 60% of cinema.

John, just saw this…it’s honestly a crazy year bc imo at least 3 poppy blockbusters deserve Oscar noms for best pic (Barbie, spider verse, this)

I have seen every single Godzilla film and this one actually made me terrified of Godzilla. Kudos Japan!

All I can say is thank God that I didn’t watch this film with Ray

What I love about Godzilla Minus One is that they treat a monster movie inside a human drama, and it works perfectly! The special effects, taking into account the $15 million budget are Outstanding! For me is easily the best Godzilla movie ever made, hands down the best.

Saw it in a packed Imax Theater and many nose sniffles heard, also many people in my row clearing their eyes, so bring the tissue, also have not witnessed a (clapping) response including myself at the end of a movie in many years.

If anyone has a bad review, they are lying. Best Godzilla movie YET. He was a true BEAST. Terrifying!!

I loved when Godzilla came to the mainland and they played the Godzilla theme. It just fit and I was saying “he is going to give the city some work”.

The director of this project came and said it was a lot lower than $15m and that's more impressive can't wait to see it this Friday

9:17 the Japanese people had nothing to do with it. The Americans were the ones who Mutanted Godzilla into a freak when they were testing their nuclear bombs in the Pacific and Godzilla takes his rage out on the nearest human civilisation which happens to be Japan. Basically Japan is paying the price for what the Americans had created.

Listening to John talk in the beginning makes me think he has never laid eyes on a Godzilla film outside the American ones… or just the beat em ups. The original, return or 84 and shin are excellent movies in my opinion… I would never compare them to zombie movies

Holy crap this movie was amazing, Godzilla is probably my favorite movie franchise of all time, I’ve seen them all and whenever a new one comes out, American or Japanese I’m there day one, and this movie was fantastic, I’ll start off by praising something really incredible about it, the human story, one of the things that kinda divides a lot of Godzilla fans is that they’re usually separated into one of 2 camps, “Action is great icing on the cake but I’d also like a good story and characters” or “Who cares about characters or story? All that matters to me is big monsters wrecking things” And over the years there’ve been Godzilla movies that have catered to both camps, for me I belong to the first camp, I love the big monster action but I also like having good stories and characters driving them, and this movie does it in spades, the story behind it is so great and the main characters are so compelling, right from the opening scene when you see what brings this guy and the woman that he meets together it’s so emotionally gripping and I found myself rooting for them the entire time, which was a big improvement over Shin Godzilla, which was a movie I liked but I said that while it had some of my favorite Godzilla scenes in the whole franchise it unfortunately had one of the blander human stories I had seen in the franchise, and as for Godzilla the stuff with him is amazing too, I thought Toho’s first venture into using a CGI Godzilla worked out amazingly with Shin Godzilla and it continues here, this movie is by far the most cinematic looking Godzilla movie Toho has ever made, it looks unbelievable, it looks like a high budget American movie, the very first action scene with Godzilla is an absolute work of art, I truly cannot express how big of an accomplishment this movie is for Toho when it comes to how it looks, and the movie is pretty heavy too, there’s some very dark things that happen in it which for me I really liked because I’ve always enjoyed the darker Godzilla movies more (With the exception of Godzilla: Final Wars which was always my favorite Toho Godzilla movie before, don’t ask me why because I don’t know) And so I really enjoyed that aspect of the movie, I mean I done wanna get into spoilers but there’s actually a pretty grizzly looking image that happens near the end of the movie, and just a little detail but I really liked the spin they put on Godzilla’s atomic breath in this movie, usually it functions like a laser beam, where he powers it up and then shoots out this big beam of energy that he sprays around destroying things, whereas in this movie it functions more like a cannon, where he starts glowing blue, charges it up and then fires a big single shot that creates a massive explosion, I thought it was a really cool way to shake things up with that ability, in the end this movie was everything I had hoped it would be and so much more, as of now it’s definitely my favorite Toho Godzilla movie, Final Wars was amazing balls to the wall insane action but with Godzilla: Minus One on top of all that amazing action this was truly a great *movie* as well, the characters are remarkable, the action is phenomenal and as a massive Godzilla fan I could not be happier with this movie. 10/10

This slipped under my radar and I saw it last night and I was impressed with it overall. 1st time ever I cared about the people in a kaiju movie.

I have to disagree about Godzilla being a villain. Ray is right in that he was just chillin until humanity started shit with him. You mess with a kaiju you get the heat breath.

I think this is my favorite movie ever…

This was made for $15 million by the way.

TOHO is way better than Legendary at these movies

I juts got out from the theatre from seeing this. Definitely one of the best movies I've seen in months of not years.

this dude really just called a Japanese movie a small foreign film LMAO. Just because it's foreign or the budget is low doesn't make it small. Great review regardless. 👍

It is actually lower than 15m. The director confirmed it on tokyo comic con.

Ray’s comment about the heat Ray scene is not hyperbolic fanaticism. I expected it and it still exceeded my expectations.

I chuckled at John saying, "I'm not saying this is the best Godzilla movie ever!". Really??? Then WTF is the best Godzilla movie ever? Certainly not one of the Legendary G-movies and none of the previous Toho releases unless you want to give a nod to the original Godzilla movie. Hands down, this is definitely the best Godzilla movie ever made!!!

This movie was absolutely unbelievable

Hollywood movies have overblown budgets and are flopping. They should take notes.

You could literally say "they're all the same" about any kind of movie series so your opening statement is absolutely moot

Saw in the UK, best movie of the last few years

Minus one is in my top 5 war dramas ever

Just finished watching this great movie! Tell your friends to see Godzilla Minus One!

Unlike Zombies Movies. Godzilla never stay’s down. He keeps coming back again and again. His is frankly, A God!

Def the best Godzilla movie ever made. Probably the best of the year in terms of the human element.

The movie from start to finish was superb👌🏽 and I got emotional a few times as well lol. We needed this masterpiece to wrap up a very rough 2023 in the cinemas and it went above and beyond in delivering!