10 Worst Things Godzilla Has Ever Done

Godzilla is the most versatile character in pop culture, and as Godzilla experts, we should know. By "versatile," we mean the Big G can be both good and bad, or serious and silly. Yeah, Batman can bounce between Adam West and Christopher Nolan/Christian Bale, but the former was a parody, and not a true representation of The Dark Knight. Sure, Superman has been a villain, but seeing the Big Blue Boy Scout break bad was meant for shock value. Godzilla has been both the heroic defender of the Earth (1960s-1970s Showa Era, MonsterVerse, Hanna-Barbera), the evil villain bent on destruction (Godzilla 1954, Godzilla, Mothra, King Ghidorah, Godzilla Minus One), and the misunderstood monster who doubles as an anti-hero (Marvel Comics, Heisei Era). Guess what? Each works. Why? Perhaps because the idea of a giant radioactive dinosaur is terrifying on a primal level — and absolutely freaking awesome!

We're not discussing all the cool or good things Godzilla has done, though blowing his radioactive beam down a MUTO's mouth or dropkicking a giant roach while riding on his tail are definitely up there. No, these are the worst things Godzilla has done in his seven-decade cinematic career. This isn't a ranking, because as far as we're concerned, each is tied for No. 1. Also, we're just looking at movies. Some are acts of mindless, wanton destruction, while others are purposefully sadistic decisions made by a keen intelligence. Either way, they're all terrible ... and let's be honest, terribly sweet too.

Let's start at the beginning, shall we? Blue Öyster Cult said it best: "Oh no, there goes Tokyo, go go Godzilla." Godzilla stomping on "insert city here" could quite literally describe 95% of the franchise (a few took place on an island), but we'll always remember the first time. The original film is a certifiable cinematic masterpiece, kaiju or otherwise, and remains one of the best of the entire "Godzilla" franchise. That's pretty darn impressive, considering "Godzilla" came out more than 70 years ago, was followed by 30+ sequels and counting (including many that never got made), and features special effects technology that is ... how do we put this politely? ... a wee bit dated by today's standards.

While the 1954 original wasn't the first "giant monster runs amok #becauseradiation" movie, it stands head and shoulders above its behemoth brethren because it uses the bomb not simply as a convenient plot device, but rather uses the monster as a metaphor for the bomb. And all from the POV of a people who knew the bomb's devastating effects better than anyone; the postwar Japanese. Wow, that got heavy ... but that was the idea. Make no mistake, "Godzilla" is still a super-fun giant monster movie whose "man-in-suit," suitmation style launched a series, created the kaiju subgenre, "inspired" many rip-offs, and at the risk of hyperbole, introduced Japanese pop culture to the world. Yet it's all based around Godzilla doing a horrible thing: Destroying a densely populated major metropolitan city.

Godzilla was very villainous in his first four films, setting Japanese cities ablaze with blithe abandon. Along the way, he tangled (and toasted) Anguirus, went toe-to-toe (the first time) with King Kong, and did battle with his flying frenemy, Mothra. Mothra had starred in her self-titled debut feature in 1961, so pairing the two titans for a follow-up made perfect sense. It was also an early example of the "cinematic universe" (where characters from different franchises collide in a separate series) that would come to dominate the film business, and it happened almost 10 years before Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige was even born.

In the 1964 film, Godzilla reappears to do his "show up, break stuff, leave" bit, minus the "leave" part. Humanity begs Mothra to defend them, but the mammoth moth god doesn't have much incentive, given that humans kidnapped her tiny twin priestesses in "Mothra" and have been polluting her island paradise for decades. Fortunately, Mothra is nothing but altruistic, and even in her weakened state, she takes on the ferocious Godzilla. She's no match for the Big G, and Godzilla kills her with one blast of his atomic breath, leaving her to die on her egg (yeah, he did that) in the ultimate act of self-sacrifice. The story has a happy ending, as before Godzilla can destroy an island with schoolchildren on it (DANG, dude), Mothra's larvae tie him up in silk and send him to the sea.

Like many baby boomers, Godzilla spent the late 1960s and 1970s getting into really weird stuff — don't judge, your grandparents probably did too. Godzilla went from an emblem of nuclear terror that would make J. Robert Oppenheimer shudder to a heroic defender of truth, justice, and the Japanese way. Along the way, he slid on his tail, shook hands with a smiling robot, and even "flew" as the franchise became more kid-friendly. Following a nearly 10-year hiatus, Toho Studios returned Godzilla to his grim roots with the reboot, "The Return of Godzilla," repurposed as "Godzilla 1985" in the U.S.

In one of the first examples of the "vague sequel" that would be repeated by the "Halloween" franchise, "Godzilla 1985" ignores the previous movies except the original, with the titular titan returning for the first time since his 1954 attack. He's back and in a bad mood, but the Japanese Self-Defense Force is ready with the Super X, a floating military fortress that looks like a UFO. The Super X temporarily takes Godzilla out with cadmium missiles, but the radioactive reptile gets some nuclear performance enhancers when an H bomb explodes in space, raining radioactivity on his unconscious body. Godzilla revives, lays a whooping on the Super X, and just for giggles, pushes a skyscraper onto it, crushing the crew inside. That's pretty metal, but considering humans tricked Godzilla into jumping into an exploding volcano, we'll call it even.

"Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah" has a pretty wild premise, so you might need a stiff drink: Time-travelers arrive in Japan promising to rid the country of Godzilla by going back to the 1940s when the creature was just a dinosaur (a "Godzillasaurus" to be exact), and sending him from his Lagos Island home into the sea before he's mutated by nuclear testing. This "Godzillasaurus" was actually a folk hero, rescuing Japanese soldiers from the Americans (inspiring criticisms of anti-Americanism and Japanese Nationalism). 

With us so far? Turns out these time-travelers from tomorrow are actually jealous Westerners who want to stop Japan from becoming the world's most powerful country, so they remove Godzilla from Lagos Island, and leave behind three cute flying creatures called "Dorats," which, thanks to nuclear testing, fuse into King Ghidorah. But the Japanese locate the Godzillasaurus in the sea and shoot him up with nuclear energy, bringing the Big G back. Wowza, you got all that?

So you might be thinking: "Wait, I thought Godzilla was the good guy in this?" Not quite. Yeah, Ghidorah's bad, but the new Godzilla is worse. After defeating his three-headed foe, Godzilla goes on a rampage. He winds up crossing paths with Mr. Yasuaki Shindo, who served on the island that Godzilla rescued in the 1940s. Now a successful businessman, Shindo stands face to face with his former savior from six decades earlier. The two share a moment — before Godzilla blasts him into oblivion.

A big reason why "Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack" ("GMK" for short) is one of the series' best is that Godzilla has never been worse. Godzilla has been the big bad many times, but you could argue he was just a wild animal acting on instinct, like Rexy in the "Jurassic Park" movies. He was an antagonist to overcome, but not necessarily a villain with malevolent intent. That is most definitely not the case in "GMK." In this direct sequel to the 1954 original, Godzilla has his typical "dinosaur gets mutated by nuclear testing" origin, but with a supernatural twist; his body is also a vessel for the souls of all the soldiers killed in the Pacific during World War II. Sweet.

Thus, their righteous vengeance fuels Godzilla's rage. This list could be exclusively the horrible things Godzilla does in this movie: Stomping on a house, beating (and blowing) up an outmatched Baragon, leaving a mushroom cloud in his wake as he annihilates an entire city block. But for our money, the "worst" is when he passes by a hospital, where one of the survivors of his earlier attack watches in terror. She has a moment of brief relief as Godzilla passes her by ... until his titanic tail swings in, smashing right into her hospital room. Godzilla literally goes out of his way to kill one patient in a hospital. Even Ghidorah would be like, "Dude, really?"

Godzilla's Showa Era (1954-1975) and Heisei Era (1984-1995) are separate from each other (save their shared connection to the original "Godzilla"), but are self-contained series, with each film being a direct sequel to the other. That's not the case with Godzilla's Millennium Era (1999-2004), which functioned as an anthology, with most movies being a one-off story, with one exception: "Godzilla: Tokyo S.O.S." (released in Japan as "Godzilla, Mothra, Mechagodzilla: Tokyo S.O.S.") is a direct sequel to "Godzilla x Mechagodzilla." The previous film saw Godzilla and his robotic doppelganger fighting to a standstill. The two return for a rematch, but bring Mothra into the fray to make it a triple threat.

Godzilla and Mothra's on-again/off-again relationship has had more drama than Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez, aka "Bennifer" – should they be "Gothra" or "Mothzilla"? But in this movie, they're clearly foes. Mothra shows up to warn humanity away from using the bones from the original 1954 Godzilla to make Mechagodzilla (don't ask us how or why, it's science). While initially at odds, Mothra and Mechagodzilla eventually join forces to stop the greater foe, Godzilla. Alas, it's not before Godzilla kills Mothra (again) with his atomic blast. What makes this one worse than usual? Godzilla's trying to kill Mothra's larvae, but Mothra takes the blast, sacrificing herself to save her children, and dies in front of them. That's "The Land Before Time" levels of sad, right there.

For Godzilla's big 5-0 in 2004, he invited all his friends for a birthday bash. Just kidding — he laid a monster-sized whooping on all his enemies. With 15 kaiju, "Godzilla: Final Wars" topped "Destroy All Monsters" as the Godzilla movie with the most monsters. And he throttles pretty much all of them. The story couldn't be any simpler: evil aliens invade Earth by controlling a kaiju army, including household names like Rodan, fan favorites like Gigan and Anguirus, and C-listers like Ebirah (giant shrimp), Kumonga (giant spider), Kamacarus (giant mantis), and Hedorah (giant ball of toxic sludge). Oh, Godzilla also pwns "Zilla" (Roland Emmerich's "Godzilla" from 1998) in about seven seconds, providing much-needed fan catharsis. 

Honestly, that sums up "Godzilla: Final Wars," which is less a movie with a plot than a sequence of monster fight scenes (no complaints here). Godzilla is guided on his globetrotting gauntlet thanks to the Gotengo, an advanced, multipurpose military warship that originally appeared in Toho's Godzilla-less "Atragon" in 1963, but returns for his short-lived cinematic swan song. The film concludes with Godzilla and Mothra (they're allies in this one) defeating Gigan and Kaiser Ghidorah in a tag team match to save the world. But Godzilla's gonna Godzilla, so he goes rogue and blasts the Gotengo because he felt like it. Before he can destroy the ship and kill everyone inside, his son Minilla calms him down. Because even if Godzilla is a cold-blooded monster, he's still a good dad.

Pretty much every Godzilla movie heavily implies (or outright states) that the monster(s) must be stopped before they can destroy humanity and conquer the world. Godzilla came darn close in 1995's "Godzilla vs. Destroyah" (the only Godzilla movie with a perfect Tomatometer score), but he was fortunately frozen before he could melt down and take the world with him. Well, in the Toho/Netflix anime "Godzilla: Monster Planet" trilogy, Godzilla not only defeats humanity once and for all, but he does it in the first 10 minutes. Not bad, Godzilla. 

The first film in the trilogy imagines a world where Godzilla appears in the last summer of the 20th century, driving humanity to near extinction, before forcing us to abandon Earth for outer space aboard an interstellar ark. While only 20 years have passed aboard the ark, the humans discover upon their return to Earth that Godzilla has essentially ruled the planet as an ambivalent god for 20,000 years! Cthulhu, who? 

Lots more takes place in the trilogy — which includes 2018's "Godzilla: City on the Edge of Battle" and "Godzilla: The Planet Eater" — but nothing is worse than what goes down in the prologue. Kudos to Godzilla for some serious ambition on that one. Of course, it's a lot easier to conquer the planet when you're just shy of 1,000 feet tall, making this the biggest version of Godzilla by far (though still a pipsqueak next to some sci-fi monsters).

Technically, "Godzilla: Singular Point" isn't a movie, but we're including it because it classifies as a miniseries, at least until it gets a season 2. Despite Godzilla getting top billing, the series follows a "less is more" approach to its title character. Make that "much less," as Godzilla isn't even seen until episode 3, and finally shows his full form in episode 6. Make no mistake, even when Godzilla isn't on-screen, his presence is felt throughout the series. While some Godzilla plots are, shall we say, "creative" (a nice way of saying "absolutely bats**t insane"), the anime "Godzilla: Singular Point" may take the cake for the most confusing. You may need a PhD in advanced theoretical physics to truly appreciate the plot of "Godzilla: Singular Point," or at least watch a lot of anime. 

Essentially, it's about monsters from a higher dimension bleeding into ours through "singular points." The worst of these beasts is, naturally, Godzilla, a mythical monster foretold to bring about the apocalypse. He'll do it the old-fashioned way (e.g., by smashing cities into smithereens), but also by being the end result of several clashing singular points, causing "The Catastrophe." In a nutshell, Godzilla destroys everything not just by going stompy-stompy, but through his mere existence. Or something. Honestly, we're still trying to wrap our heads around it. We only know that, however it happens, it is still one of the worst things Godzilla has ever done.

Godzilla won his first Academy Award in his seven-decade career in 2024, and we can tell you that it wasn't the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award. It was actually Best Achievement in Visual Effects, won by "Godzilla Minus One," which is pretty ironic considering the series has long been slandered for using suitmation (i.e., "man in suit"). Before "Godzilla Minus One," Toho Studios had taken a long break from making live-action Godzilla movies after 2004's "Godzilla: Final Wars." The live-action series returned with "Shin Godzilla" in 2016, which was a massive hit and the big winner at the Japanese Academy Awards, including earning Best Picture. 

While the Godzilla in "Shin Godzilla" was undeniably the antagonist, his worst actions were in retaliation for human actions. Not so with "Godzilla Minus One," a grim and gritty picture that shows how Godzilla is getting grumpy in his old age, as this was among the meanest we have ever seen the Big G. In fact, before he even becomes Godzilla, he lays waste to an entire garrison on Odo Island. Things don't get any better when he is mutated from his dinosaur form into his final form, as he chases down minesweepers, belly flops heavy cruisers, and worst of all, murders thousands by raining atomic hellfire on the densely populated Ginza District. Sure, we have seen Godzilla toast towns many times before, but this level of malevolence easily makes it one of the worst things Godzilla has ever done.