The Big Picture
- Godzilla’s height has remained relatively consistent throughout the years, with the Shōwa period keeping him at 50 meters (164 feet) and the Heisei period doubling his size to 100 meters (328 feet).
- The Americanized version of the 1954 original Godzilla depicted him as 400 feet tall, while the 1998 Godzilla stood at 70 meters (230 feet).
- In the MonsterVerse films, Godzilla reaches his tallest at 119.8 meters (393 feet), while his opponent King Kong grows from 148 feet in 1962 to 335 feet in Godzilla vs. Kong, offering a fairer battle.
Ever since Godzilla’s debut in the 1954 Japanese film Gojira (Godzilla), the mighty reptilian, dubbed “King of the Monsters,” has dominated the big-ass monster corner of pop culture. King Kong, his adversary in both King Kong vs. Godzilla in 1963 and in 2021’s Godzilla vs. Kong, is perhaps the nearest contender to the throne, but let’s face it: no other monster comes close. Not the towering alien from Cloverfield, not the kaiju from the Pacific Rim films, not the mighty beast behind the infamous “Release the Kraken” line from Clash of the Titans (both the Kraken and the line delivery by Laurence Olivier from the 1981 original are the best, in the opinion of yours truly). Godzilla, apart from the godawful Americanized 1998 version, has remained pretty much the same over the years: green, large protruding scales on his back, atomic breath, and the iconic roar. But if you’re wondering how tall Godzilla is, that answer is much more complicated.
Godzilla’s Height Remained Constant — For a While
Noger Chen, a graphic designer and creative director out of Taiwan, painstakingly researched and developed a stunning piece of art that compares the sizes of every live-action Godzilla, as found in this 2019 article from Newsweek. Part of that piece details the first eight Godzilla designs, from the original Godzilla to Terror of Mechagodzilla in 1975. In those 23 years, known as the Shōwa period (so named for the era of Emperor Hirohito‘s reign), the look of Godzilla alters slightly from film to film, but his height remains constant: 50 meters (164 feet). It’s rumored that the height was chosen so that Godzilla would be just tall enough to look over the tallest building in Japan at the time, adding a level of tension for the audience. It should be noted, however, that the Americanized version of the 1954 original, Godzilla: King of the Monsters!, not only cut 40 minutes, rearranged scenes, dubbed the dialogue and brought Raymond Burr in for some new footage, but Godzilla was stated to be 400 feet tall.
In the nine-year period between Terror of Mechagodzilla and 1984’s The Return of Godzilla, everyone’s favorite Tokyo terror grew 30 meters, up to 80 meters (262.5 feet) from the original 50. The Return of Godzilla kicked off the Heisei period, which rebooted the series by discarding the sequels to the original film and making it a direct sequel to Gojira. The first two films of the Heisei period, The Return of Godzilla and Godzilla vs. Biollante, would see Godzilla stay at 80 meters before growing to 100 meters (328 feet) for Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah, doubling his size from the Shōwa period. He remained at that height for the remaining four Heisei titles, ending with 1995’s Godzilla vs. Destoroyah.
The Long and Short of Godzilla in the 2000s
1998’s Godzilla, from director Roland Emmerich, America’s first real entry into the world of Godzilla, stands alone, a largely derided one-off entry with no ties to Toho or the MonsterVerse to come. But for the record, “Fake Godzilla” comes in at 70 meters (230 feet), the only time Godzilla would be seen on film at that height. Released one year after, Godzilla 2000: Millennium kicked off the Millennium period, and featured a throwback to the earlier iterations of Godzilla, coming in with a height of 55 meters (180 feet). 2001 saw Godzilla add another 5 meters in Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack, before returning to the 55-meter height for three more films before hitting that 100-meter mark again for the final film of the Millennium Era, 2004’s Godzilla: Final Wars (which had Godzilla, in a hilarious moment, slam the 1998 American Zilla into the Sydney Opera House, killing him).
2014 introduced a rebooted Godzilla for the American market, launching the MonsterVerse with a far more accurate (and better received) take on Toho’s iconic franchise, with a Godzilla that tops out at 108 meters (354 feet). Toho also rebooted the original franchise with 2016’s Shin Godzilla, kicking off the Reiwa era. As far as Godzilla’s height, Shin Godzilla is a unique entry in that we find Godzilla evolving over the course of the film, from 28 meters (92 feet), to 57 meters (187 feet), to his final form at 118.5 meters (389 feet). It remains to be seen just how tall Godzilla will be for the upcoming Godzilla Minus One, although there is speculation that he is in that 55-meter height of the Millennium era.
The MonsterVerse Godzilla’s Height Impacts His ‘Godzilla vs. Kong’ Castmate
Since Shin Godzilla, the unrelated (but faithful) MonsterVerse Godzilla has been in two more films: Godzilla: King of the Monsters and Godzilla vs. Kong. Both of those pictures see Godzilla at his all-time tallest, a whopping 119.8 meters (393 feet), which should see him as a no-brainer pick for the monster basketball team. Yet it isn’t Godzilla’s height in these films that is interesting, but rather his castmate in the latter: King Kong. The first time the pair met, in 1962’s King Kong vs. Godzilla, Kong was 148 feet tall. In Peter Jackson‘s epic remake of the film in 2005, he shrank to 25 feet tall. 2017’s Kong: Skull Island he was four times that height: 104 feet. But a fight where a 104-foot ape takes on a 393-foot lizard would be over almost as quickly as Godzilla’s epic battle against Bambi in the 1969 short Bambi Meets Godzilla, so Kong entered Godzilla vs. Kong at 335 feet, still smaller than his foe but a much fairer battle (the discrepancy between 2017 and 2021 is explained by Hank Marlow (John C. Reilly) in Kong: Skull Island when he says “Kong’s the last of his kind, but he’s still growing.”)
The next time we see the King of the Monsters will be later this year when Toho’s Godzilla Minus One opens on November 1, and in the MonsterVerse’s Apple TV+ series Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, set for a fall release. Where we won’t see Godzilla is in real life, with an amusing, but very scientific, rationale given by paleontologist Mike Habib as to why (Godzilla’s heart would have to be thousands of tons and fill up his chest just to get blood to his brain, for example). And in a way, that fact alone is a little comforting.
