GODZILLA MINUS ONE
[GOJIRA MAINASU WAN] [ゴジラ-1.0]
In the waning days of World War II, kamikaze pilot Kōichi Shikishima (Ryunosuke Kamiki) and his Pacific island–based unit are decimated by a dinosaur-like creature that emerges from the water. Though he survives, Shikishima returns to Japan only to find a country utterly ravaged by war where he faces hostility from his neighbors for not dying in glorious battle. Wracked with survivor’s guilt, Shikishima befriends a young woman, Noriko Ōishi (Minami Hamabe), and the orphan baby she rescued during the bombing of Tokyo. Together, they attempt to eke out a life in post-war Japan — until the creature that attacked Shikishima, Godzilla, reappears and plunges the devastated country into a new nightmare. Courageously, Shikishima joins a ragtag military operation intent on defeating Godzilla, but with the country in such despair, do they have any hope of success? Directed and written by Takashi Yamazaki, who also did the film’s special effects, GODZILLA MINUS ONE is as dramatic as it is action-packed, using the menacing creature at its center as a metaphor for the anxiety of a nation facing the horrors of a nuclear holocaust and total defeat in war, similarly to its 1954 predecessor. Made on a modest budget between $10–$15 million, it became a box-office and critical sensation, topping several “Best of” lists in 2023 and making history as the first non-English-language film to win the Academy Award® for Best Visual Effects. In fact, it became the first GODZILLA film to even be nominated for an Oscar®. DIR/SCR Takashi Yamazaki; PROD Gō Abe, Kazuaki Kishida, Keiichiro Moriya, Kenji Yamada. Japan, 2023, color, 125 min. In Japanese with English subtitles. RATED PG-13
Run Time: 125 Minutes
Opening Date: Friday, September 12, 2025
Genre: Science Fiction
