Godzilla Minus Zero Review: Bigger Sequel, 95% on RT — Takashi Yamazaki adds King Ghidorah, an R rating and Japan's first IMAX shoot, and critics rank it just below Minus One.

The follow-up to the Oscar-winning Godzilla Minus One premiered at the New York Film Festival to strong reviews. Critics agree it is larger and better-looking; the debate is whether it hits as hard.

Godzilla Minus Zero is Takashi Yamazaki's sequel to Godzilla Minus One, the 2023 film that won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects, the first Japanese film ever to win that category. Yamazaki again wrote, directed and supervised the effects, with Shirogumi handling VFX and Naoki Sato returning as composer. The story picks up in 1949, two years after Godzilla's defeat in Sagami Bay, with Japan still rebuilding when a second monster, King Ghidorah, attacks. Toho releases it in Japan on November 3, Godzilla Day, and GKIDS opens it across North America on November 6, 2026, with IMAX early-access screenings on November 3.

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Godzilla Minus One details →YouTube ↗

The numbers

The film premiered at the New York Film Festival on September 26, and the reviews since have been strong. It holds a 95% Tomatometer from 43 reviews with an 8.3/10 average and a 77 on Metacritic from 22 critics, which breaks down as 18 positive, four mixed and zero negative. Those figures sit slightly below Minus One's, which is roughly where the critical conversation lands too: very good, possibly not quite the original. Boxoffice Pro's October tracking projects a $25 million to $35 million North American opening.

What the reviews praise

Scale is the headline. Critics broadly describe the sequel as larger in scope, bolder and more visually impressive than Minus One, and several say the effects improve on a predecessor that won an Oscar for them on a reported budget under $15 million. The Guardian's Jesse Hassenger wrote that the film "cross-breeds its fight-to-the-death grappling with disaster-movie scope and horror-movie teeth," and noted that it favors quality of effects over quantity. Minus Zero is also the first Japanese production filmed for IMAX, with sequences framed for the 1.43:1 format, which makes the premium-screen version the one most reviewers recommend.

The R rating is new territory

This is the first Godzilla film rated R in the US, for violent content and bloody images. That fits Yamazaki's approach: Minus One treated Godzilla less as a hero than as a nuclear-age horror, and the sequel's reviews describe the monster sequences as genuinely frightening rather than spectacle for its own sake. Parents who took younger kids to the 2023 film should know this one is pitched harder.

Where critics hold back

The reservations are about the story rather than the craft. TheWrap's William Bibbiani summed up the most common view in his headline: one of the great Godzilla sequels, but not one of the great Godzilla films. Dread Central's Rory Doherty gave it three out of five and pointed out that Godzilla himself appears only about three times across the first 90 minutes, with King Ghidorah carrying much of the threat. Minus One's emotional engine was Kōichi Shikishima's survivor's guilt; returning to Ryunosuke Kamiki and Minami Hamabe's characters means the sequel has to find a new wound, and some reviews suggest that human story is less sharply drawn the second time.

Who is back and who is new

Ryunosuke Kamiki returns as former kamikaze pilot Kōichi Shikishima, who wants to fly again, alongside Minami Hamabe, Hidetaka Yoshioka, Yuki Yamada, Kuranosuke Sasaki, Sakura Ando and Miou Tanaka. New faces include Min Tanaka, Masami Nagasawa and Jun Kunimura as Dr. Ogata. The runtime is 135 minutes, about 10 minutes longer than Minus One.

Should you see it

If Godzilla Minus One worked for you, the reviews give every reason to see this on opening weekend, and specifically in IMAX, the format it was built for. Anyone expecting a monster brawl in the style of the American MonsterVerse should adjust: this is still a postwar drama first, with the kaiju used sparingly and to frightening effect. Given the R rating and the 135-minute runtime, it is a film for teenagers and up rather than a family outing.