---
title: "Shin Godzilla"
year: 2016
kind: "film"
canonical: "https://film.one/film/shin-godzilla"
fi1m_id: "shin-godzilla"
imdb_id: "tt4262980"
tmdb_id: 315011
wikidata_id: "Q20899737"
fi1m_score: 74
critics_score: 65
critics_reviews: 16
published: "2026-09-28T21:09:48.534932+00:00"
updated: "2026-09-28T21:09:48.900211+00:00"
region: "US"
licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL."
---

# Shin Godzilla (2016)

Directed by Shinji Higuchi, Hideaki Anno · 2h 00m · MPA PG-13 · Action, Science Fiction, Horror

## Identity

Shin Godzilla

- **Canonical:** https://film.one/film/shin-godzilla
- **Type:** Film
- **Fi1m ID:** shin-godzilla
- **IMDb ID:** tt4262980
- **TMDB ID:** 315011
- **Wikidata ID:** Q20899737
- **Same entity:** https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4262980/, https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/315011, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q20899737

**Fi1m score: 74** · Critics 65 from 16 reviews

*In a sentence:* Godzilla flattens a suburb and the cabinet’s first response is to move to a bigger room

> Hideaki Anno and Shinji Higuchi remake Godzilla as a disaster-response procedural, and the procedure is the point. It is talky, odd and sometimes clumsy, and its creature, when it appears, is the strangest and most frightening the series has produced.

## Synopsis

Steam erupts from the water off the coast and a road tunnel beneath the bay floods. The cabinet of Prime Minister Seiji Ookouchi (Ren Osugi) gathers and argues over whether the cause is volcanic; Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Rando Yaguchi (Hiroki Hasegawa) says it is a living creature and is told to sit down. Then something with gills and fixed, staring eyes hauls itself up a river into a crowded district of the city, pushing boats and cars ahead of it. Yaguchi is handed a task force of officials nobody else wants, among them Hiromi Ogashira (Mikako Ichikawa) from the environment ministry and the biologist Kunio Hazama (Shinya Tsukamoto), while the smooth adviser Hideki Akasaka (Yutaka Takenouchi) manages the prime minister and an American envoy, Kayoko Ann Patterson (Satomi Ishihara), arrives with her own government’s demands.

## Review

Hideaki Anno and Shinji Higuchi have made a Godzilla film in which the monster is on screen for perhaps a third of its 120 minutes and the rest is meetings. That is not a complaint. *Shin Godzilla* is about what a modern state does when something impossible comes out of the sea, and its answer, delivered with a straight face and at speed, is that it convenes. We found it funnier and more frightening than we expected, and also tiring, which seems to be intended.

The first act moves fast. Steam rises from the bay, a tunnel floods, and the cabinet debates whether it is looking at a volcanic vent. Rando Yaguchi (Hiroki Hasegawa), a junior man who says the word creature out loud, is told to be quiet. Then the thing comes up a river into the streets on its belly, head lolling, gills leaking, eyes like painted plates, and shoves boats and cars through the streets ahead of it like a wave. We laughed when we first saw it. Ten seconds later we were horrified, and the two feelings never quite separated for the rest of the film.

Anno, who also wrote the script, edits with Atsuki Sato and cuts the meetings as if they were the action. Every official who speaks gets a caption with rank and department; every helicopter gets its designation. Kosuke Yamada shoots the rooms flat and wide under fluorescent light, faces low in the frame, sometimes from a camera set on the table among the water glasses. Eri Sakushima and Yuji Hayashida design a government of folding tables, whiteboards and name placards, and the joke, repeated until it stops being funny and then becomes funny again, is that the placards keep being carried into another room. Prime Minister Ookouchi (Ren Osugi) asks whether he is allowed to authorise a shot and is told a form is missing.

Shirō Sagisu, Anno’s composer since [*Neon Genesis Evangelion*](https://film.one/tv/neon-genesis-evangelion), supplies the choral and percussive cues that make a spreadsheet scene feel like a countdown. Alongside him the film uses Akira Ifukube’s marches from the earlier Godzilla films, and when the tanks roll out to that music we were moved more than we can quite account for. It is old music for old machines, and the film knows both are about to be found wanting.

Nobody here has a home life. Hasegawa’s Yaguchi is a decent man who is good in meetings; Takenouchi’s Akasaka is the adviser who always knows which way the wind is blowing; Ichikawa’s Ogashira says one flat sentence per scene and is right every time; Tsukamoto, the director of *Tetsuo*, plays the biologist Hazama with an unseemly delight. They are job titles with faces, and the film is content with that, so the two or three moments when a voice cracks land harder than they would in a warmer film. The exception is Ishihara’s Kayoko Ann Patterson, an American envoy who announces her intention to be president, speaks English that wobbles, and is written as a sketch in a film that has decided not to draw people. Most critics have picked on her, and they are right.

There is a sequence at about the hour mark, at night, over the city, that we will not describe. We watched it with a hand over our mouth. Higuchi and Anno stage it slowly, almost quietly, and it is the point at which the film stops being a comedy about paperwork and becomes something that is plainly about a real disaster, still recent when the film was made: press conferences, evacuation maps and men in blue jumpsuits. The film is angry at that memory and also proud of the people who worked through it, and it does not always manage to hold both moods in the same scene.

After that the creature goes quiet for a long stretch and the film becomes a plan: chemists, pumps, cranes, phone calls to foreign capitals. Several critics have complained that the monster vanishes for much of the second half, and the complaint is fair. The ending is a procedure carried out, and it goes more or less as planned, which is not what a monster film usually gives you. We were gripped anyway, mostly by the faces of people doing sums under a deadline.

Watch it with subtitles and be prepared to read; the captions arrive faster than anyone can say them. It runs 120 minutes and carries a 12, which is fair for the violence and slightly generous for the dread.

*Fi1m score 74, published 28 September 2026.*

## What the critics say

Most critics come away favourable, though the mixed verdicts are almost as numerous as the positive ones. The praise gathers in two places. The first is the political satire: the scenes of Japanese officials bickering in committee rooms while Tokyo comes apart are widely called shrewd, pointed and funny. The second is the creature itself. Reviewers admire the unsettling redesign, the awe-inspiring scale and the destruction sequences, and several note that the effects grow more convincing as Godzilla mutates.

The reservations gather around the talk. Many find the dialogue-heavy stretches slow the film, and a few say it runs too long. Empire complains that Godzilla disappears for much of the second half, and Time Out finds too little horror in the monster’s return. HeyUGuys, the lone outright dissenter, calls the film cold and monotonous, with thin characters. The spread is wide: from four stars to a shrug, with most reviews settling somewhere between entertained and unconvinced.

## Straight answers

**Is Shin Godzilla worth watching?**

*Shin Godzilla* is worth watching if you can sit through a monster film that is mostly meetings, and we scored it 74. Hideaki Anno and Shinji Higuchi treat a government's response as the drama, and the creature, when it appears, is the strangest and most frightening in the series. It is talky and tiring by design, so those who want two hours of destruction should look elsewhere.

**How long is Shin Godzilla, and what is it rated?**

*Shin Godzilla* runs 2h 00m and is rated PG-13 by the MPA in the US. It is an action and science fiction film.

**Where can I watch Shin Godzilla in the US?**

*Shin Godzilla* is streaming on HBO Max, The Roku Channel, Amazon Prime Video and Hulu in the US, and it is also available to rent from Apple TV and Amazon Prime Video from $4.99. Availability is checked daily; the links above go straight to each service.

**How does Shin Godzilla compare to Godzilla?**

*Shin Godzilla* remakes Ishirō Honda's [*Godzilla*](https://film.one/film/godzilla) as a fast, dry procedural about officials, whiteboards and paperwork, where the original is slow, sombre and openly grieving. Honda's film is the tighter and more affecting of the two; Anno and Higuchi's is odder, funnier and more frightening in its creature. Watch the original first, because Anno borrows Akira Ifukube's music from it to real effect.

**What should I watch after Shin Godzilla?**

After *Shin Godzilla*, try [*Godzilla*](https://film.one/film/godzilla) (1954, Fi1m 88): Ishirō Honda’s original: slow, sombre and still frightening, with Ifukube’s music first heard here. Then [*Dr. Strangelove*](https://film.one/film/dr-strangelove-or-how-i-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-love-the-bomb) (1964, Fi1m 93): The end of the world managed by committee, played entirely for laughs; and [*Threads*](https://film.one/film/threads) (1984, Fi1m 92): British nuclear catastrophe told through council memos and shopping lists; do not watch alone.

### Reviews we read (16)

- **Radio Times**, Jamie Healy (4/5): The critic finds the reboot unconventional and distinctive. They praise its shift from bureaucratic satire into a chilling nuclear-threat thriller. [Read](https://www.radiotimes.com/movie-guide/b-7170jv/shin-godzilla/)
- **The i Paper**, Matthew Turner (★★★★): Turner finds the film an effective blend of monster movie and political satire. He especially praises its impressive effects and sharply written treatment of political dithering. [Read](https://inews.co.uk/culture/film/shin-godzilla-review-satire-nuclear-war-84028)
- **The AV Club**, Katie Rife (B): Rife finds the film a charming, smashing return to form despite its dialogue-heavy stretches and anticlimactic ending. She praises the creature effects and the spectacular battle sequence, while noting the film’s pointed bureaucratic satire. [Read](https://www.avclub.com/political-satire-and-monster-mayhem-collide-in-shin-god-1798189094)
- **Variety**, Joe Leydon (75/100, inferred): Leydon finds the reboot largely satisfying and surprisingly clever. He praises its political satire and increasingly persuasive effects as Godzilla mutates. [Read](https://variety.com/2016/film/festivals/shin-godzilla-film-review-1201872105/)
- **The New York Times** (65/100, inferred): The URL identifies this as a review of the matching film. The page returned only an access error, so the critic’s verdict and specific praise or complaint are unavailable. [Read](https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/11/movies/shin-godzilla-review.html)
- **The Guardian**, Peter Bradshaw (3/5): Bradshaw finds the film watchable entertainment, though its first glimpse of the monster and an American character disappoint. He praises the shrewd, amusing scenes of Japan’s bickering bureaucracy. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/aug/11/shin-godzilla-review-japans-great-monster-revived-once-more)
- **The Hollywood Reporter**, Elizabeth Kerr (60/100, inferred): Kerr finds the reboot energetic and appealing, though weighed down by talky political scenes and an imperfectly handled satire. She praises its distinctive Godzilla and the impressive destruction of Tokyo. [Read](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/godzilla-resurgence-shin-gojira-923097/)
- **Time Out**, Trevor Johnston (3/5): The review finds the reboot politically minded but short on scares. Its central complaint is that the giant lizard’s return offers too little horror. [Read](https://www.timeout.com/movies/shin-godzilla)
- **Little White Lies**, Anton Bitel (50/100, inferred): Bitel finds the film entertaining but also very silly, with uneven effects and characterization. He praises its relentless pace and its focus on the logistics of emergency response. [Read](https://lwlies.com/festivals/shin-godzilla-first-look-review)
- **Empire**, Owen Williams (45/100, inferred): Williams finds the film an oddly paced but worthwhile twist on the Godzilla formula. He praises the creature’s awe-inspiring scale and the compelling political climax, but complains that Godzilla disappears for much of the second half. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/shin-godzilla-review/)
- **Consequence**, Dominick Suzanne-Mayer (80/100, inferred): The critic finds it an effective, engaging Godzilla reboot with pointed political satire and an unusually hopeful core. He especially praises its depiction of bureaucratic paralysis and the creature’s genuinely monstrous design. [Read](https://consequence.net/2016/10/film-review-shin-godzilla/)
- **/Film**, Jacob Hall (7.5/10): Hall finds the film fascinating and frustrating, ultimately praising its distinctive mix of monster movie, political satire, and patriotic tribute. He singles out the effective bureaucratic satire and the eerie, frightening redesign of Godzilla, while noting the film’s limited monster presence and rough visual effects. [Read](https://www.slashfilm.com/546807/shin-godzilla-review/)
- **Paste**, Jim Vorel (7.5/10): Vorel finds the film entertaining and an effective fit alongside earlier Japanese Godzilla films. He praises the frightening final Godzilla design and the film’s lively political satire. [Read](https://www.pastemagazine.com/movies/shin-godzilla/shin-godzilla-review)
- **The Wrap** (75/100, inferred): The critic recommends the film, finding it compelling beyond its monster spectacle. The political satire and realistic portrayal of disaster response stand out, though the film could be shorter. [Read](https://www.thewrap.com/shin-godzilla-review-resurgence-toho/)
- **Eye for Film**, Andrew Robertson (50/100, inferred): Robertson gives a mixed verdict, saying he is glad to have seen the film while remaining unsure how he feels about it. He praises the bureaucratic technothriller elements for grounding the outlandish monster story, but finds its tone and some of its messaging clumsy. [Read](https://www.eyeforfilm.co.uk/review/shin-godzilla-2016-film-review-by-andrew-robertson)
- **HeyUGuys**, Daniel Goodwin (30/100, inferred): The critic finds the film cold and often monotonous despite its impressive spectacle. The striking scenes of destruction stand out, while political discussions and thin characterization weigh it down. [Read](https://www.heyuguys.com/shin-godzilla-review/)

## Details

- **Director:** Shinji Higuchi, Hideaki Anno
- **Director:** Shinji Higuchi, Hideaki Anno
- **Screenplay:** Hideaki Anno
- **Cinematography:** Kosuke Yamada
- **Editor:** Hideaki Anno, Atsuki Sato
- **Music:** Akira Ifukube, Shirō Sagisu
- **Production design:** Eri Sakushima, Yuji Hayashida
- **Producer:** Yoshihiro Sato, Masaya Shibusawa, Taichi Ueda
- **Cast:** Hiroki Hasegawa as Rando Yaguchi; Yutaka Takenouchi as Hideki Akasaka : Special Advisor to the Prime Minister; Satomi Ishihara as Kayoko Ann Patterson : US special envoy; Kengo Kora as Yusuke Shimura : Secretary of Rando; Satoru Matsuo as Syuichi Izumi : Policy Research Council Vice Chairman; Mikako Ichikawa as Hiromi Ogashira : Ministry of the Environment Nature; Issey Takahashi as Ryu Yasuda : Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Research / Promotion Bureau Director; Kanji Tsuda as Fumiya Mori : Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare / Research and Development Division Director
- **Runtime:** 2h 00m
- **Certificate (MPA):** PG-13
- **Release (the US):** 14 August 2025
- **Genres:** Action, Science Fiction, Horror
- **Budget:** $15 million
- **Box office:** $78 million
- **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQKyyhhNxGU

## Where to watch in the US

- HBO Max: streaming, uhd
- The Roku Channel: add-on, hd
- Amazon Prime Video: add-on, uhd
- Hulu: add-on, hd
- Apple TV: rent $4.99, hd
- Amazon Prime Video: rent $4.99, hd
- Amazon Prime Video: buy $14.99, sd
- Apple TV: buy $14.99, sd

*Checked 2026-09-28.*

Also available in: AT, BE, CA, CH, DE, DK, ES, FI, GB, ID, IE, JP, MY, NL, NO, SE, SG, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country.

## Awards

- Blue Ribbon Awards for Best Film 2017: Blue Ribbon Awards for Best Film (won)
- Japan Academy Prize for Best Film Editing 2017: Japan Academy Prize for Best Film Editing (won)
- Japan Academy Prize for Director of the Year 2017: Japan Academy Prize for Director of the Year (won)
- Japan Academy Prize for Picture of the Year 2017: Japan Academy Prize for Picture of the Year (won)
- Japan Media Arts Festival Entertainment Division Grand Prize 2017: Japan Media Arts Festival Entertainment Division Grand Prize (won)
- Kinema Junpo Award for Best Screenplay 2017: Kinema Junpo Award for Best Screenplay (won)
- Mainichi Film Award for Best Film 2017: Mainichi Film Award for Best Film (won)
- Nikkan Sports Film Award 2017: Nikkan Sports Film Award (won)
- Nikkan Sports Film Award for Best Film 2017: Nikkan Sports Film Award for Best Film (won)
- Seiun Award - Best Media 2017: Seiun Award - Best Media (won)
- Japan SF Award Special Award 2016: Japan SF Award Special Award (won)

## If you liked this

- *Godzilla* (1954), Fi1m 88: Ishirō Honda’s original: slow, sombre and still frightening, with Ifukube’s music first heard here — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/godzilla.md)
- *The Host* (2006): Bong Joon-ho’s river monster film, where the government is as dangerous as the creature
- *Dr. Strangelove* (1964), Fi1m 93: The end of the world managed by committee, played entirely for laughs — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/dr-strangelove-or-how-i-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-love-the-bomb.md)
- *Threads* (1984), Fi1m 92: British nuclear catastrophe told through council memos and shopping lists; do not watch alone — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/threads.md)
- *Contagion* (2011), Fi1m 78: Soderbergh’s pandemic as briefings, spreadsheets and cold rooms; the paperwork is again the point — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/contagion.md)

---
© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/film/shin-godzilla