The result is a celebration of homegrown courage, with the vastly overpowered citizens fighting to protect the fragile progress of their rebuilt lives and to banish Godzilla back to the depths of the sea.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Sep 17, 2024

Yamazaki’s screenplay has subtly framed Shikishima as a stand-in for the nation at large, sloughing off macho Imperial dogma from underneath a suffocating shroud of survivor’s guilt.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 3, 2024

Godzilla himself takes up only a slim chunk of a run time largely devoted to people running around in awe and horror. That is why Godzilla Minus One is a great film rather than merely an impressive feat of monstrous visual effects.

| Feb 6, 2024

It’s the rare kaiju movie that cares this deeply about the inner lives and motivations of the people scurrying out of the way of the monster’s ginormous thudding feet.

| Jan 9, 2024

This prequel, similarly, yokes American imperialism, postwar malaise, survivor guilt and weaponised atomic power to produce the best action film of the year.

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Dec 23, 2023

Godzilla is the draw, but equally at the wild and monstrous heart of this movie is a surprisingly optimistic exploration of PTSD, shame, survivor’s guilt, and how we are all more than the worst things we’ve ever done.

| Dec 22, 2023

It gets the balance between drama and spectacle, and proper content. It has substance.

| Dec 21, 2023

It’s exciting too, and outrageously spectacular.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 19, 2023

You wouldn’t believe a monster movie could make you sob, as well as think, but Godzilla Minus One does.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 18, 2023

The messaging, it’s fair to say, is not subtle. But then this is a movie about a furious radioactive dinosaur trashing the commercial centre of Tokyo. Who needs subtle?

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 17, 2023

You definitely feel for all these characters and and the choices that they make, and that adds a surprising amount of like emotional heft to what could have just been a thrilling but a purely exciting escapist action film.

| Original Score: 9/10 | Dec 15, 2023

This really shows Hollywood how it's done.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 15, 2023

Action trumps meaning and symbolism, but it's still a rollicking ol' time.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 13, 2023

It puts the trauma of history at the very centre of the story, ultimately crafting a story about human beings pulling together to heal and defeat an inexplicable force of destruction.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 13, 2023

The first Godzilla movie that made me cry, but also the first one that made me feel afraid.

| Dec 8, 2023

“Godzilla Minus One” is a well-calibrated popcorn movie.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Dec 6, 2023

Director Takashi Yamazaki, a seasoned special effects supervisor, brings the story back to its original post-war roots—and brings back a sense of spectacle.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Dec 4, 2023

This may be the only Godzilla movie that will make you feel verklempt by the time it concludes.

| Dec 2, 2023

The film threads the needle of epic intimacy by identifying a personal element too expansive to be trivial, a battle we all take up together in solidarity.

| Original Score: B+ | Dec 1, 2023

Heartfelt and often awe-inspiring, Japanese VFX wizard Takashi Yamazaki delivers the best kaiju movie in decades.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 1, 2023