Gorgo x Konga x Anne Hathaway? 12 Godzilla knock-offs that are almost as good as the originals

Pop quiz: the Empire State Building is to King Kong as the Chrysler Building is to what movie monster? The not-quite-as-iconic answer is Q—The Winged Serpent, a delightfully cheesy disaster flick about a mythological creature that terrorizes New York City from its nest atop the famous Art Deco skyscraper. Q, of course, stands for Quetzalcoatl, an ancient Aztec god summoned back to life by a deranged priest who also happens to be a serial killer. David Carradine and Richard Roundtree play a pair of detectives who get caught up in a showdown with the creature after a two-bit thief (Michale Moriarty) promises to lead them to its lair in exchange for a big payday. It doesn’t go the way any of them expect, but if you’re familiar with the work of director Larry Cohen (It’s Alive, God Told Me To) you may not be all that surprised by the outcome.

Giant monster movies are often very funny. Sometimes the humor is intentional, other times it’s clearly not what the filmmakers were going for, but you just have to laugh anyway. Big Man Japan came along during an era when Toho was taking a break from making Godzilla movies, and a lot of strange, meta films came along to fill the gap. Conceived as a satire from the get-go, it’s filmed in the style of a mockumentary. Written, directed by, and starring comedian Hitoshi Matsumoto, the film is truly inspired, in every sense of the word. Matsumoto plays Masaru Daisatou, an ordinary guy who happens to descend from a line of protectors with the ability to grow to an enormous size in order to fight off invading kaiju. He’s not exactly a popular hero, though. He has no real friends and his relationship with his wife and daughter is strained due to his day job. The wild range of tone between the slice-of-life scenes from Daisatou’s personal life and silly giant monster fights somehow works, and the final result is like nothing you’ve ever seen before.

Producer J.J. Abrams imagined Cloverfield as an American take on the allegorical aspects of Godzilla, symbolizing the trauma of the 9/11 attacks in the same way that the King of the Monsters evoked the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Released at a time when found-footage movies were still a novelty, its ground-level point of view added a new dimension to the kaiju movie tradition. The camera follows a group of friends (played by Lizzy Caplan, Mike Vogel, Michael Stahl-David, and Jessica Lucas) through New York City while it’s under attack from an unidentified monster the size of a building. It’s hard to explain the level of hype that surrounded this film before it came out unless you were there to experience it (remember Slusho?). The viral marketing campaign is still one of the best ever created, but might have ultimately hurt the film when it couldn’t possibly live up to all that hype. Removed from the context of expectations, it holds up better than you might expect today. It was good enough, at least, to inspire a couple of retroactive tie-ins in recent years.

Guillermo del Toro combined elements from kaiju movies, plus mecha and anime, in his homage to Japanese cinema, Pacific Rim. The film fully embraces its influences—the monsters in the film have different names, but they’re all literally classified as “kaiju.” When they start emerging from a breach beneath the sea and attacking populated areas, humanity fights back. The front line of defense, the giant biomechanical Jaegers, are uniquely designed to accommodate two “drift compatible” pilots joined by a mental link. The cast, including Charlie Hunnam, Idris Elba, Rinko Kikuchi, Charlie Day, and Ron Perlman, all deliver solid performances, but the film’s real attraction is its elaborate digital effects. Created by Industrial Light & Magic, the visuals take it far from the realm of classic Japanese monster movies, but their spirit is alive and well beneath the surface of the spectacle.

This odd indie drama has such strong Godzilla influences that Toho filed a lawsuit against Voltage Pictures and filmmaker Nacho Vigalondo before its release, forcing them to change the location of the monster attacks from Tokyo to Seoul, and avoid any references to their proprietary monsters in the film. That doesn’t make the connection any less obvious, though. Colossal stars Anne Hathaway as an alcoholic, out-of-work writer who discovers that she’s been controlling a giant monster wreaking havoc on Seoul from her family home in New Hampshire. Just when you thought all the Godzilla symbology had been played out, here’s an entirely new metaphor to parse. Jason Sudeikis and Dan Stevens also give layered performances, especially Sudeikis, whose own true nature unfolds in well-measured reveals. Colossal is more interested in exploring its characters’ damaged psyches than epic, effects-heavy kaiju battles, but the synergy between them is ultimately what’s most compelling about it.

Considering this action film starring Dwayne Johnson is based on a video game series that allows you to take on the role of one of several rampaging monsters based on classic kaiju, the comparisons were already baked in from the start. Rampage brings the mutated monsters from the original game into live action, including George, a giant gorilla, Lizzie, a giant lizard, and Ralph, a giant wolf. It’s pure by-the-numbers, smash-em-up mayhem with some attitude, barely held together by The Rock and his seemingly bottomless well of charisma. He’s just as good at delivering pseudoscientific exposition as he is at one-liners, and sharp enough to know exactly what kind of movie he’s in. Rampage has no lofty ambitions to be smart or groundbreaking cinema. Like the original Godzilla and King Kong movies, it exists merely to transport and entertain us for a little while. Nothing wrong with that.