Godzilla Minus One is the first Japanese Godzilla film in almost a decade — and it was worth the wait. Upon its release in November 2023, Takashi Yamazaki’s film was a bona fide global phenomenon, quickly becoming the highest-grossing Godzilla film ever to emerge from the titanic kaiju’s home country. It went on to win the franchise’s first ever Academy Award, for Best Visual Effects. (Peep the VFX team’s adorable Godzilla merch in their infectious acceptance speech.)

To make things even more exciting, the movie is great, a rip-roaring science-fiction adventure that also features one of the most absorbing human-scale stories ever seen in a kaiju flick. Now you can catch up with it for yourself, streaming on Netflix. 

When will Godzilla Minus One be released?

Stream it now.

Who’s in the cast of Godzilla Minus One?

• Ryunosuke Kamiki as Kōichi Shikishima, a former kamikaze pilot
• Minami Hamabe as Noriko Ōishi, a young woman orphaned in the bombing of Tokyo
• Yuki Yamada as Shirō Mizushima, a minesweeper crewman joined by Shikishima
• Munetaka Aoki as Sōsaku Tachibana, a Navy Air Service technician 
• Hidetaka Yoshioka as Kenji Noda, a naval weapons engineer on the minesweeper 
• Sakura Ando as Sumiko Ōta, Shikishima's neighbor
• Kuranosuke Sasaki as Yōji Akitsu, captain of the minesweeper ship
• Sae Nagatani as Akiko, a young orphan adopted by Shikishima and Ōishi
• Miou Tanaka as Tatsuo Hotta, captain of a naval vessel
• Yûya Endô as Tadamasa Saitō

What happens in Godzilla Minus One?

Godzilla Minus One kicks off at the tail end of World War II, as kamikaze pilot Kōichi Shikishima (Ryunosuke Kamiki) abandons his mission and instead lands on an island base. That night, a massive reptilian creature, quickly dubbed “Godzilla,” demolishes the base and kills nearly every other soldier, leaving Shikishima to return to Tokyo nursing a bad case of survivor’s guilt. After learning that his family was killed in the bombing of the city, he builds a makeshift family with two other orphans of the assault, Noriko Ōishi (Minami Hamabe) and Akiko (Sae Nagatani). Shikishima then takes a job on a minesweeper, where he encounters a newly mutated Godzilla — heading straight for Japan.  

Is Godzilla Minus One part of the MonsterVerse?

No. The MonsterVerse (which contains Gareth Edwards’ 2014 Godzilla, Kong: Skull Island, and this year’s Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, among others) is a Hollywood franchise, produced by Legendary Pictures and distributed by Warner Bros. Godzilla Minus One is a film from Toho Studios, the originator of the Godzilla franchise. It fits into the Japanese franchise’s Reiwa era, which began in 2016 with the release of Shin Godzilla.

Is Godzilla Minus One a remake?

No. Godzilla Minus One is set just after World War II, with most of the action taking place in 1947. While Toho’s Godzilla chronology can sometimes be confusing to outsiders (take the Millennium era, which consisted of several films that each served as their own individual sequel to the 1954 Godzilla), Godzilla Minus One’s timeline is fairly simple — it’s set several years before the original, with Godzilla making his first appearance in Japan. Not quite a prequel, not quite a remake, it’s a perfect jumping-on point whether this is your first Godzilla or your 50th. 

What does the title Godzilla Minus One mean?

It’s perhaps best to give director Takashi Yamazaki the floor on this one. “The biggest [meaning] is how people rise up from a postwar Japan that is at zero, and then Godzilla arrives, making the situation even worse and more tragic,” he said at a 2023 press conference. “It is set even before the time of the original Godzilla, so in that sense it is also a ‘minus one.’ It is also a ‘minus one’ in the sense of a run-up — a pull-back [that allows you to] get back on your feet in the face of difficult times. It can also be a ‘minus one’ of losing something, and I hope that people will feel the various meanings in this film as they watch it.”

How does Godzilla Minus One end?

In a thrilling, Jaws-inspired sequence, Shikishima and his minesweeper crew attempt to detonate a mine in Godzilla’s mouth, but he recovers quickly and heads to the city of Ginza — where Noriko works. Here, the film enters another, more tragic gear. Noriko survives the initial attack, but just as Shikishima reaches her, Godzilla unleashes his atomic breath, decimating the city and seemingly killing Noriko. 

Inconsolable and already racked with survivor’s guilt, Shikishima joins a group of former Navy technicians (including his minesweeper crew) in a communal attempt to kill Godzilla once and for all by using decommissioned naval destroyers to sink him, hoping water pressure does him in — or, if that doesn’t work, raising him back to the surface and hitting him with explosive decompression. Desperate to redeem himself for failing to die a hero’s death during the war, Shikishima devises another plan: load a small airplane with explosives and crash it into Godzilla’s mouth.

As the ships move into position, Akira Ifukube’s stirring original Godzilla suite begins to play — and Godzilla escapes captivity. All seems lost, until Shikishima’s backup plan comes into play and the ferocious beast gets a mouthful of explosive charges. But Shikishima lives to fight another day, as a flashback reveals that bitter Godzilla survivor Sōsaku Tachibana (Munetaka Aoki) implored him to use his ejection seat and let go of his guilt.

The film ends happily, with the revelation that Noriko survived Godzilla’s attack and is safe and sound in a hospital bed — but a cut to the regenerating body of Godzilla in the depths of the ocean suggests that our story may not be entirely over just yet.  

What’s wrong with Noriko’s neck at the end of Godzilla Minus One?

As the film concludes, we see a moving black bruise growing on Noriko’s neck. At an interview during Godzilla Fest Osaka, Yamazaki confirmed that the bruise is made up of Godzilla’s cells, leaving the door open for a potential sequel — although if he’s working on one, the director’s lips are sealed.