Every Alien Kaiju in the Godzilla Movies, Ranked

Throughout 70 years and four eras, Godzilla has taken on a slew of particularly iconic adversaries. Some of them ended up becoming his friends, like Mothra, Rodan, and Anguirus. Others stayed as one-off villains, e.g. Destoroyah, Megaguirus, and Megalon. His alien adversaries seem to be the ones who can exist within the middle between those two categories. Some of them are so beloved that they came back after their debut appearance. However, they’ve never quite become buddy-buddy with the Big G. Of course, not every kaiju villain from outer space is created equal. In fact, some of them are outright forgettable.

What follows is every extra-terrestrial kaiju Godzilla has fought throughout his long cinematic career. Whether they were in the Shōwa, Heisei, Millennium, or Reiwa era, not to mention the MonsterVerse, they were all fair game, provided the movie was live action.

7) Monster X

Like with everything else in Godzilla Final Wars, the fight between Godzilla and Monster X is way too over-stylized, often feeling like it’s trying to be a version of The Matrix with Kaiju. The final battle of the film essentially amounts to Godzilla and Monster X running up towards one another, jumping cartoonishly, landing on the other side, end of fight.

Granted, Monster X getting his own entry is actually a bit of a cheat here. After all, he’s really just a disguised King Ghidorah (Keiser Ghidorah here). We’ll get to King Ghidorah later, considering he’s had much more of a presence in his films than Monster X has in Final Wars. At the end of the day, Monster X is just one of many tools deployed by the Xiliens, and all of those tools last about 30 seconds in their lame fights with Godzilla.

6) Orga

Like Monster X, Orga isn’t around long enough in Godzilla 2000 to really make any substantial impact. But at least he’s a fairly unique looking monster. The goal was to craft a monster that looks like a clone of Godzilla if the cloning process was halted halfway through, and mission accomplished on that front.

However, even with his healing ability, Godzilla makes short work of Orga. The alien opens his maw and engulfs Godzilla’s head, which results in the remainder of the cloning process kicking off, but Godzilla does exactly what we expect him to do and blasts him through the back of the head with an atomic beam. It was a pretty lackluster fight to serve as the climax of a movie that was starting a whole new era for the Big G.

5) SpaceGodzilla

While SpaceGodzilla is a nasty looking replicant of Godzilla, his impact is substantially diminished by the fact that, on the whole, Godzilla vs. SpaceGodzilla is easily the worst entry in the Heisei era. Even still, he made for a powerful opponent.

Like Biollante, SpaceGodzilla is genuinely part Godzilla. He was formed when some of Godzilla’s cells were sent to space (with the death of Biollante), and once he reached a suitable size, he made his way to Earth to kill his originator. So, on one hand, his lack of a truly interesting backstory keeps SpaceGodzilla from ranking higher. But he ranks above the previous two entries because he’s powerful, massive, and has pretty interesting crystals jutting out of his shoulders. Plus, he can fly. His Earthbound counterpart can’t do that.

4) Hedorah

While Hedorah originated in outer space, he is what he is because of Earth’s massive pollution problem. Hedorah came to Earth on a comet, but it was only when he was exposed to humanity’s excessive wastefulness that he started to grow, and each of his phases are memorably unique, and fairly creepy as far as Godzilla movies go.

Hedorah is a one-of-a-kind monster. He basically takes what is killing Earth and ups it to 11. For instance, when he’s in his flying form, he sprays out a toxic vapor wherever he goes, killing all of those below him. He’s also a tough opponent for Godzilla to defeat. Considering he’s made almost entirely of acidic sludge, Godzilla can’t even punch him without getting hurt. Toss in the fact that he can shoot a red ray from one of his eyes and he gave the film’s kaiju protagonist a run for his money. In fact, Godzilla’s atomic breath wasn’t enough to dehydrate him. It was only after the JSDF got involved that Hedorah was able to be dried out enough for Godzilla to kill. In other words, without humanity, Godzilla very well may have lost.

3) Gigan

Like the next entry on our list, Gigan was so well-liked he was brought back immediately. However, he was definitely more effective in his debut movie, Godzilla vs. Gigan, whereas he was stuck as a sidekick in a cheese-fest in the subsequent Godzilla vs. Megalon.

Even still, there may be no more intimidating adversary kaiju in the history of Godzilla movies. He has a chainsaw for a belly, claws for hands, and a sharp beak, you can’t get near him and walk away safely. He even got an upgrade in Godzilla Final Wars, where his hook hands were replaced with chainsaws and he was given a powerful explosive beam that emitted from his forehead (in spite of the VHS cover, he never used a head beam in Godzilla vs. Gigan).

2) Mechagodzilla

There have been multiple incarnations of Mechagodzilla, but only the first one was an alien. Well, a tool of the Black Hole Planet 3 aliens, anyway. And, while Mechagodzilla was a memorable presence in Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II, Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla, Godzilla Tokyo S.O.S., and Godzilla vs. Kong, it was his Shōwa era rendition in Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla and Terror of Mechagodzilla that was and remains the best.

Mechagodzilla was the perfect kaiju to use to close out the Shōwa era. He was literally designed to be Godzilla’s equal in combat (better, at least as far as the Black Hole Planet 3 aliens hoped), and what better way was there to close out the era than with an opponent who could beat Godzilla at his own game. And, between his rainbow beams from his eyes, his missiles shot from his fingers and his ability to make a force field that burns Godzilla’s fingers when he tries to break through, Mechagodzilla seems to have it all. He even manages to draw blood from Godzilla in his debut movie. Were he not going against both Godzilla and King Caesar in Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla, and if his backup, Titanosaurus, weren’t so useless in Terror of Mechagodzilla, he may very well have won. Plus, the fact that he disguises himself as Godzilla and nearly kills Anguirus cuts to the quick of every Godzilla fan, no matter how many times they watch that particular scene.

1) Ghidorah

Ghidorah was always going to be number one. He’s the big bad of the Godzilla franchise for good reason. They didn’t pick anybody to challenge Godzilla to his throne as the King of the Monsters in the MonsterVerse.

King Ghidorah is at his best the first time out the gate in Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster. He’s basically just one great big mystery there. All we know is he’s an extra-terrestrial who emerged from a crash-landed meteor. But he was also put to good use in Invasion of Astro-Monster, where the Shōwa era version of the Xiliens (later seen in Final Wars) pretended that he was a great threat to their existence, and they needed Godzilla and Rodan to take him down only to then deploy all three monsters against Earth. Sure, his brief appearance in Destroy All Monsters is anticlimactic and he’s no more than a sidekick in Godzilla vs. Gigan, but at least he was memorable once more in the Heisei era’s Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah and the Millennium era’s Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack.

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