The Heisei era is often considered one of the greatest periods in Godzilla history. Despite the name, the series actually begins with The Return of Godzilla in 1984, several years before Japan’s Heisei era officially started in 1989. The label has been applied to the continuity that ran from 1984 through 1995, a seven-film saga that reimagined the King of the Monsters for a new generation while telling a single ongoing story. Along the way, Godzilla battled iconic foes like Biollante, King Ghidorah, MechaGodzilla, SpaceGodzilla, and Destoroyah, while the films blended giant monster action with ambitious science fiction ideas. The result was one of the strongest and most consistent runs in the franchise’s history. But even in this beloved era, some entries stand taller than others. So let’s charge up the Maser Cannons and rank every Heisei Godzilla movie from worst to best.
The best Heisei Godzilla movie is Godzilla vs. MechaGodzilla II (1993), while Godzilla vs. SpaceGodzilla (1994) ranks last. The Return of Godzilla (1984) and Godzilla vs. Destoroyah (1995) round out the top three thanks to their strong storytelling and emotional impact.
Toho had made a trio of Godzilla entries featuring updated versions of classic Goji opponents (King Ghidorah, Mothra, MechaGodzilla and Rodan) after the box office failure of 1989’s Godzilla vs. Biollante, which had pitted the king of the monsters against a newly created kaiju. But with five years of distance from that disappointment, they took a chance… Although, since the new kaiju introduced in their 1994 production is just a version of Godzilla who has a strong resemblance to the series’ star, how much of a risk can it be considered? If MechaGodzilla draws people in, why wouldn’t SpaceGodzilla? (Biollante had also been a mutated version of Godzilla, but not quite as obviously.) Kanji Kashiwa and Hiroshi Kashiwabara wrote the screenplay, with director Kensho Yamashita bringing the story to the screen. Yamashita had previous experience with franchise, having worked as the chief assistant director on Terror of MechaGodzilla.
The film opens with SpaceGodzilla – who was formed from Godzilla cells that were carried into space by either Biollante or Mothra, then mutated after passing through a black hole and being exposed to crystal organisms and an exploding star – traveling through space, crystalline meteors striking Earth and awakening Godzilla within the first 80 seconds. Counter-G Force, including returning psychic Miki Saegusa, is preparing dual defenses to handle the Godzilla threat: Project T (telepathic control of Godzilla) and Moguera, an anti-Godzilla robot built from MechaGodzilla remains. While Miki’s subplot gets derailed with a kidnapping involving the Yakuza, a large portion of the film’s running time focuses on an extended battle between Godzilla, Moguera, and SpaceGodzilla. Along the way, we also get to spend some time with Godzilla’s son Little Godzilla, who looks like a more adorable version of Minya.
Powerful though he is, SpaceGodzilla isn’t a very interesting kaiju. It feels like more could have been done with the concept. Godzilla vs. SpaceGodzilla has a very odd tone overall; a mixture of Heisei era darkness and Shōwa era goofiness. At times, it feels like a ’90s version of the island-based installments Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster and Son of Godzilla, especially with the presence of the silly looking Little Godzilla. The script is lacking and sloppy, with time being wasted on the inclusion of elements that barely matter in the long run (like Project T). This installment is really all about the fight scenes and it certainly tries to deliver in that area, but it just doesn’t connect. It’s never quite as engaging as it should be.
Although The Return of Godzilla in 1984 marked the beginning of a new era for the franchise after a nine-year hiatus, another five years passed before a sequel was made. The delay came in part because producer Tomoyuki Tanaka turned to fans for story ideas, as the studio had done before with contest submissions that gave us Jet Jaguar in Godzilla vs. Megalon and the script for Terror of MechaGodzilla. Tanaka wanted a completely fresh concept and held another contest, spending years reviewing submissions until two finalists emerged. One was James Bannon’s Godzilla 2, featuring an AI supercomputer (later reworked into the unrelated film Gunhed), and the other was dentist Shinichiro Kobayashi, whose idea won the contest. Kobayashi’s script was rewritten by director Kazuki Ohmori, who removed a rat-fish creature called Deutalios from the mix and focused on Biollante, a monster which would be taking multiple forms over the course of the movie.
The film begins hours after the end of The Return of Godzilla, showing how a sample of Godzilla’s cells end up in the hands of a scientist who is working on plant hybrid experiments. When the scientist’s daughter dies, he splices her cells with roses – and before you know it, we have a monster called Biollante, which is a mixture of Godzilla cells, the daughter’s cells, and roses. Godzilla returns to wreak some havoc and fight Biollante, and in the midst of all of this, we’re introduced to a character who plays an important role in the Heisei era: Megumi Odaka as psychic Miki Saegusa.
Godzilla vs. Biollante is one exceptionally strange entry in the franchise; an oddball mixture of sci-fi and supernatural elements within an overly convoluted film that has an overall weird tone to it. As such, this is a divisive entry: it’s not very well regarded by some fans, yet there are others who feel like it’s one of the best films in the series. The design for Biollante is quite impressive and it can hold its own with Godzilla, but it isn’t given a lot to do. The special effects are incredible, but the action sequences lack excitement and thrills, they feel like they’re going through the motions. It’s no surprise the box office performance fell below The Return of Godzilla, leading Toho to reconsider using unfamiliar monsters as future opponents.
To rebound from the box office disappointment of Godzilla vs. Biollante, Toho tried to get a Godzilla / King Kong rematch off the ground – and when rights issues put the kibosh on that idea, they turned to King Ghidorah, one of Godzilla’s most iconic enemies. Biollante’s Kazuki Ohmori returned as writer and director, and Akira Ifukube came back to the franchise to compose music for the first time since 1975’s Terror of MechaGodzilla. In 1992, a journalist investigates strange events, including a UFO sighting and a man who claims to have seen a dinosaur on Lagos Island during World War II. That dinosaur, the Godzillasaurus, was the creature that ended up being mutated by radiation to become Godzilla in 1954. Futurian time travelers arrive claiming Japan has been destroyed in 2204 due to Godzilla, and propose traveling back to 1944 to remove the Godzillasaurus before it can be mutated. The group they take with them includes psychic Miki Saegusa.
In 1944, the Godzillasaurus is teleported away by the Futurians, and in its place, they secretly leave behind three tiny, genetically engineered winged creatures, which are eventually mutated by radiation and combine into the giant monster King Ghidorah, now controlled by the Futurians to attack Japan in present day. It’s the old “monster controlled by aliens” plot, with time travelers replacing aliens! The existence of Godzilla wasn’t entirely avoided, though: he emerges, taller than ever before (328 feet), having been mutated by a sunken nuclear submarine in the Bering Sea in the 1970s. Godzilla rises and battles King Ghidorah, but the film continues into increasingly complex reversals involving Mecha-King Ghidorah and shifting plans to stop both monsters. They needed to teleport Godzillasaurus to prevent Godzilla from existing, create Godzilla to stop King Ghidorah, then create Mecha-King Ghidorah to stop Godzilla… What a mess. Overly complicated was Ohmori’s style.
Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah is an entertaining sci-fi adventure with a fun, intriguing story (although one that comes up short in the logic department) that keeps the viewer invested throughout. As interesting as the time travel and Godzillasaurus aspects are, it’s mind-blowing how long it takes for all of this to play out, and how long of a period it keeps Godzilla off the screen for. And yet, if you don’t let the muddled screenplay and absence of Godzilla for the majority of the running time drag you down too much, this film is still a highly enjoyable romp.
A poll of the public’s favorite Godzilla co-star creatures had revealed that men liked King Ghidorah and MechaGodzilla the best, while women preferred Mothra. Mothra had always been extremely popular, so it seemed like it was a good time to bring the prettiest kaiju back to screens. Kazuki Ohmori, returning from Biollante and King Ghidorah, wrote the screenplay, adapting elements from a cancelled “Mothra vs. Bagan” project, but passed the helm over to Takao Okawara.
A meteoroid crashing into the Pacific awakens Godzilla within 90 seconds of the film starting – a fact that psychic Miki Saegusa quickly picks up on. An archaeologist and (former) professor, Takuya Fujito is the Japanese answer to Indiana Jones, and he ventures to a remote island to discover a giant egg and a pair of tiny women called the Cosmos. They explain Mothra’s ancient role as Earth’s guardian and the existence of Battra, a darker counterpart created by the planet to punish human environmental abuse. Now, the inhabitants of the Earth are carelessly destroying the planet, and Mothra and Battra are both making a return. Of course, also in the mix we get another corporation that’s more interested in making Mothra’s egg and/or the Cosmos a public attraction than anything else. This all builds up to Godzilla, Mothra, and Battra converging at Yokohama’s seaside amusement park Cosmo World, home to one of the biggest Ferris wheels in the world (112.5 meters/369 feet tall and capable of holding 480 passengers). That Ferris wheel doesn’t survive the ensuing monster fight.
Godzilla and Mothra: The Battle for Earth is a solid ’90s-style take on the Godzilla vs. Mothra story, modern for its time but also brought to the screen with a tone that evokes the spirit of the series’ ’60s installments. It’s a fun movie with a pleasantly colorful look and some spectacular special effects, from the monsters to the model work. Of the three Godzilla movies Kazuki Ohmori had scripted, Godzilla and Mothra has the least amount of issues, and having a different director was beneficial. There is still an uncomfortable amount of running time for which Godzilla is absent, but the movie makes up for it once he heads into the climactic battle.
Toho decided that their Godzilla franchise needed to go dormant for a while. TriStar Pictures had purchased the rights to make a trilogy of American Godzilla movies from Toho in 1992, and since those were in development, Toho wanted to step aside and let the Americans do their thing for a while. The plan was that this would be the last Godzilla movie produced by Toho until Gojira‘s 50th anniversary in 2004. And since this was going to be the end for a while, director Takao Okawara and writer Kazuki Ohmori, both of whom worked on multiple films in the Heisei era, tied their story back to the events of the original film, complete with an appearance by Momoko Kôchi as Emiko.
From the start, Godzilla vs. Destoroyah signals catastrophe: Godzilla’s home, Birth Island, has sunk into the sea, and Godzilla appears in Hong Kong just two and a half minutes into the film. Now unstable, his body glows red, his dorsal plates and eyes burn, and his atomic breath has become a red-and-yellow supercharged blast. Scientists determine that a uranium fission reaction on Birth Island has overloaded Godzilla’s internal system, turning him into a living nuclear reactor heading toward meltdown. Kenichi Yamane, grandson of Dr. Yamane from the original film, concludes that Godzilla will eventually explode with enough force to destroy the planet, so he joins G-Force (which includes psychic Miki Saegusa as a member) as the crisis escalates. He proposes recreating the Oxygen Destroyer, the same weapon used by Dr. Serizawa in 1954. The effects of the Oxygen Destroyer coincidentally start to make themselves known when the construction of the Tokyo Bay Undersea Tunnel stirs up the soil in the area where Serizawa activated his creation. Prehistoric micro-organisms were awakened by the Oxygen Destroyer and are now evolving in an abnormal way, eventually forming into one giant flying monster: Destoroyah, the living embodiment of the Oxygen Destroyer.
The film ends with the death of Godzilla, which is quite sad to see. But this isn’t the end for Godzilla, it’s simply the end of an era, and the movie doesn’t leave you on a complete bummer. There is a lining of hope in there. Godzilla may be gone, but Godzilla Junior lives… This isn’t an element that would be picked up on when the series would eventually continue, it’s just a nice note to end on. Not only is this the end of the Heisei era, it’s the swan song for composer Akira Ifukube, the man who created the iconic sound of Godzilla back in 1954 and provided the music for many of the films that followed. Although Ifukube’s theme continues to be used, he himself never worked on another film. He passed away in 2006. This was also the final Godzilla film for producer Tomoyuki Tanaka, who had been with the series since the beginning but was also the person who initially dreamed up the idea of Godzilla. Tanaka passed away in 1997.
Godzilla vs. Destoroyah isn’t a great movie, but it is an entertaining one, with an intriguing plot, some fun monster moments, nice callbacks to the first Gojira, and an emotional weight to it. If this were “The Last Godzilla Movie Ever, We Mean It,” there would need to be more to it, but for what it is – just a place to press pause for a while – it totally works.
When the Godzilla franchise went on hiatus after the box office failure of Terror of MechaGodzilla in 1975, there was no set idea for how long it would be dormant, but it was also not the intention to shut the series down for good. There was always the possibility of future installments being developed, it just had to be the right concept at the right time, and series producer Tomoyuki Tanaka was always looking for that perfect idea. Godzilla vs. Gargantua didn’t happen with producer Henry G. Saperstein, but Saperstein did help Hanna-Barbera land the rights to make their Godzilla cartoon that started airing in ’78. A remake of the original Gojira was pitched. A sequel called Resurrection of Godzilla was developed. A “Space Godzilla” concept was considered. American director Steve Miner failed to get a Hollywood Godzilla movie into production.
Then, the right idea at the right time: The Return of Godzilla, a film that would be released for the 30th anniversary of the original film and would serve as a direct sequel to the ‘54 classic, ignoring all other sequels and branching into a new continuity. After decades, the giant monster (now about 100 feet taller) has returned – and this time, not only does he ravage Tokyo, but he also almost triggers a nuclear war between the U.S. and Russia. Directed by Koji Hashimoto (who stepped in after Gojira director Ishirō Honda declined to return), this film has a dark tone that’s similar to the original, complete with a strong anti-nuclear message, and boasts awesome special effects that are leaps and bounds beyond what we saw in the ‘70s films. This time, there’s also some sympathy shown for Godzilla, who’s treated not only a destructive, “living nuclear weapon,” but as an animal that has been turned into a monster through the carelessness of humans.
Toho was always good at throwing cinematic anniversary parties: King Kong vs. Godzilla for the company’s own anniversary, Godzilla vs. MechaGodzilla for the franchise’s twentieth anniversary. The Return of Godzilla continues these exemplary milestone achievements, as it’s a fantastic companion piece to the original Gojira. (And like the original film, it got an American cut – Godzilla 1985 – that featured Raymond Burr.)
Polls had shown that the favorite Godzilla opponents were King Ghidorah, MechaGodzilla, and Mothra, so it’s no surprise that Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah and Godzilla and Mothra were followed by the return of MechaGodzilla – and this movie also gives us a bonus with the return of Rodan! Wataru Mimura, who had written a rejected draft of Godzilla and Mothra, provided the screenplay for this new take on the Godzilla vs. MechaGodzilla concept, with Godzilla and Mothra director Takao Okawara returning to bring Mimura’s story to the screen.
Japan’s Counter G Bureau is developing weapons to stop Godzilla, starting with the Garuda, a robotic warship, and advancing to MechaGodzilla, built using technology derived from Mecha-King Ghidorah’s remains from Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah. The robot is designed as a nuclear-powered anti-Godzilla weapon equipped with advanced armor and energy-reflecting systems. While Godzilla is dealing with Rodan and MechaGodzilla, psychic Miki Saegusa and other researchers find themselves in possession of an egg that hatches a baby Godzillasaurus. (A cute new version of Minya!)
Godzilla vs. MechaGodzilla II is a flat-out awesome movie: fast paced, action packed, exciting, highly entertaining, and not burdened with another awkward Kazuki Ohmori script. Wataru Mimura didn’t do anything all that groundbreaking with the concept, but he and Takao Okawara certainly delivered a fun adventure. And, as you can expect from this era of the films, since the movies had healthy budgets at this time and the suitmation and model work had been refined over the course of nearly forty years, the mecha/kaiju battles in this film look incredible.
In this ranking, Godzilla vs. MechaGodzilla II ranks first due to its fast pace, strong action sequences, impressive effects work, and entertaining story.
Godzilla vs. SpaceGodzilla ranks last because its script feels unfocused and the title monster never becomes as compelling as the concept suggests.
Many fans consider Godzilla vs. Biollante one of the franchise’s best entries, but others find its unusual blend of science fiction and supernatural elements overly convoluted.
The film successfully reboots the franchise while recapturing the serious tone and anti-nuclear themes of the original Gojira.
Although Japan’s Heisei era officially began in 1989, fans and historians generally use the term “Heisei Godzilla era” to distinguish these films from the earlier Shōwa era and the later Millennium era.