Something odd is happening in movie theaters this fall. First, a documentary (You Can See Everything) did huge numbers. Next, Godzilla Minus Zero, the sequel to 2023’s Oscar-winning Godzilla Minus One, bested The Cat in the Hat to score a record U.S. box-office take for a live-action foreign language film: $31.6 million on a budget of less than $20 million.
Granted, the Godzilla franchise is the longest-running one in cinema (according to Guinness World Records), and nothing is more natural than wanting to see giant monsters on a giant screen. Still, it’s rare these days for a subtitled film to break out of the art-house circuit, proving that the language barrier is no impediment to rampaging radioactive reptilians.
The deal
World War II is over, but in defeated Japan, the war on giant monsters is just beginning. In 1947, pilot Kôichi Shikishima (Ryûnosuke Kamiki) led a bold mission to bury Godzilla beneath the waves. Two years later, however, a new menace rears its head: the dragon-like, lightning-spitting Ghidorah.
After Ghidorah flattens much of Matsumoto City, the leader of Japan’s disaster response team (Hidetaka Yoshioka) convenes a new task force, including a professor (Min Tanaka) who’s been studying Godzilla’s mutations and a meteorology prodigy (Masami Nagasawa) who can predict storms. Kôichi volunteers his flying skills for their daring plan to destroy Ghidorah, over the objections of his wife, Noriko (Minami Hamabe), and Akiko (Sae Nagatani), their war-traumatized adopted daughter.
The mission goes horribly wrong, leaving Ghidorah with three heads instead of one and a knack for levitating villages and then smashing them. Meanwhile, Godzilla returns, stronger than ever. As casualties mount, the task force tests an invention that could pit the monsters against each other — while also satisfying one member’s secret thirst for revenge. Caught in the middle is Noriko, whose disturbing connection to Godzilla may be key to destroying him.
Will you like it?
The Godzilla franchise is inseparable from the atomic age. In the 1954 film that kicked it off, hydrogen-bomb testing unleashed Godzilla on the world, and the monster’s dangerous radiation remained a motif. But the Godzilla Minus films are literally as well as metaphorically about Japan’s World War II legacy, and their historical awareness gives the fantasy new and powerful layers.
In Godzilla Minus One, the monster serves as a massive embodiment of national war trauma. Kôichi, a kamikaze pilot who dodged death by faking equipment failure, can’t shake his survivor’s guilt or accept the happiness of his chosen family with Noriko and Akiko. Feeling betrayed by all institutions, he and other veterans find meaning in the DIY civilian response to Godzilla, which is beholden to neither the U.S. nor the Japanese government.
Godzilla Minus Zero builds on those themes with harrowing flashbacks to the devastation of Hiroshima. Noriko has a dangerous mutation developing inside her, as did many survivors of the atomic bombs.
These are heavy themes for a movie about monsters shooting death rays at each other, but viewers who come for the latter will still get their money’s worth. Godzilla and Ghidorah don’t look or act remotely “realistic” — this isn’t Jurassic Park — but they are iconic, and they have personality to spare. Once you accept the dream logic of the monsters’ regenerative and other continually mutating powers, you can appreciate how writer-director Takashi Yamazaki keeps the action scenes tight and focused. Rather than overwhelm us with music and visual effects, these set pieces build comprehensibly, as they do in classics like Jaws. When a plane’s crew must harpoon Ghidorah midair, for instance, we fully participate in the breathless suspense of lining up for the shot.
Human drama is also a major factor in these movies, however, and there Godzilla Minus Zero falls short of its predecessor. Godzilla Minus One has a relatable protagonist — Kôichi — whom we follow on a journey from despair to hope. By contrast, Minus Zero is an ensemble drama in which each character has an economically defined stock role, like an old-school war movie. The only person who evolves does so mostly off-screen, with convenient rapidity.
If the sequel has an emotional center, it’s little Akiko’s justified fear of abandonment, which Yamazaki milks with impressive and perhaps admirable shamelessness. These days, the makers of U.S. blockbusters often seem too fearful of being “cringe” to yank on viewers’ heartstrings; they cut away from emotional intensity or summon tears with an ironic wink. Not so here: A scene in which Akiko’s parents leave her in the care of an orphanage is as brutal as any monster fight. Watching the other orphans taunt the small girl, revealing their own ingrained hopelessness, we grasp the toll of war in ways no speechifying dialogue could accomplish.
While Godzilla Minus Zero lacks the first film’s overall emotional pull, it still demonstrates that a reliance on digital effects doesn’t have to throw a movie into a chaos akin to Godzilla exploring Tokyo. Anchored by sturdy plotting and characterization, CGI can help tell a thrilling story just fine.
If you like this, try…
Godzilla Minus One (2023; Netflix, rentable): The sequel makes sense alone, but for maximum historical context and emotional resonance, watch the movies in order.
Hope (2026; rentable): South Korea also got in on the creature feature action this year with this thriller from Na Hong-jin (The Wailing) about small-town detectives facing a mysterious threat.
Monsters (2010; rentable): Before Gareth Edwards directed the 2014 English-language Godzilla reboot, he made this scrappy little giant-alien-monster movie that scares viewers mostly with suggestion. Godzilla Minus Zero has some of the same spirit.
The original print version of this article was headlined “Godzilla Minus Zero”
This article appears in Winter Preview • 2026.
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