- The movie was a smash hit and award winner in Japan in 2023
- It was a sleeper hit in the US, but was yanked from theaters prematurely
- The horror–disaster film was a hit with critics and even won an Oscar
Netflix has a new king of its film rankings, and fans are bowled over by the newly streaming movie.
The action film was an international hit that became a sleeper hit and the biggest foreign film debut in the US for 2023.
This tense disaster film wasn’t just a hit with audiences who caught it in theaters, but it was also one of the best reviewed films in the world last year.
The Japanese movie — which shocked fans when it won an Academy Award after snatching up numerous Japanese prizes — currently has an impressive — and rare — 100 percent fresh rating from the most prestigious film critics surveyed by Rotten Tomatoes.
And now more and more viewers are being converted to fans after its breakout turn on Netflix.
The film currently dominating the streaming service’s charts is Godzilla Minus One, the 2023 update to the Japanese Godzilla franchise, which has continued on independently from the US MonsterVerse franchise.
As of Tuesday, the kaiju film debuted atop the Netflix top 10, followed by (in order) 300: Rise Of An Empire, Colors Of Evil: Red, The Lego Movie, A Million Ways To Die In The West, Divergent, Atlas, Pokémon: Detective Pikachu, Shrek and The Super Mario Bros. Movie.
According to IndieWire, Godzilla Minus One also has the distinction of being the first film to simultaneously top the Netflix film charts and the iTunes video on demand chart.
Fans of Godzilla Minus One were likely waiting with bated breath or the film’s streaming release, as an agreement between Toho Studios (which makes the Japanese Godzilla films) and Legendary Entertainment (which makes the American films) requires that their releases be staggered so as not to directly compete with each other.
Because of that, Godzilla Minus One was abruptly forced out of theaters in February of 2023, despite still doing brisk business, as Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire was coming out in March of that year.
That also meant that the Japanese film had to wait an unusually long number of months before getting any kind of home video release, even though the standard is sometimes as little as a couple weeks before films are made available online.
The publication notes that Oppenheimer, which had one of the longer windows in recent memory, waited four months, while it took around six months for the home video release in Japan.
It was a surprise to some that Godzilla Minus One was even released on Netflix, as Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire is still playing in theaters.
The monster movie didn’t disappoint on Netflix. Oddly, the streaming service gave no advance warning that it would be arriving, but that hasn’t stopped it from becoming a hit.
‘Holy f***ing f***,’ enthused the filmmaker Joe Russo (not to be confused with the co-director of Avengers: Endgame). ‘The movie that should have been in your 2023 Top Ten if you actually like movies, GODZILLA MINUS ONE, is FINALLY available on Netflix!!!!!!’
‘Holy s*** GODZILLA MINUS ONE is even better than y’all had me thinking,’ wrote the novelist and screenwriter H. Perry Horton.
One user raved about the film’s ‘final hour,’ calling it ‘some of the most inspiring s*** put to screen.’
F*** that big a** Lizard,’ they added.
Several fans shared that they were particularly surprised by how moving they found Godzilla Minus One.
‘I was prepared for Godzilla minus One to be a more cerebral Godzilla movie. I was absolutely not prepared for the emotional rollercoaster of this film. 100% WEPT through this sequence,’ they said of a video posted alongside their text. ‘The depiction of family devastation and reconnection in the postwar environment is MOVING.’
Another fan said Godzilla Minus One ‘truly hit me’ and shared a Seinfeld meme.
‘You’re crying from Godzilla Minus One?’ Jerry is seen asking George. ‘The indomitable human spirit and the will to live got to me,’ George replies.
Although many fans were seeing last year’s Godzilla hit for free (after already having a Netflix subscription), some fans were perturbed by the addition of an English-dubbed version of the film, as many found that the voice actors departed too much from the original Japanese performances.
Other fans of international film almost always prefer to watch the films in their original language with subtitles, rather than watching the performances dubbed over.
Netflix also appears to default to a English closed captions, rather than the original English subtitle track. The close captions include not only the original subtitles of what characters are saying, but it also describes sounds and vocal deliveries.
The service is helpful for viewers who are deaf or hard of hearing, but the extraneous text on screen can be distracting for viewers who don’t require the additional information.
Still, committed fans can change the settings to their preferred soundtrack and subtitles, so plenty more viewers are likely to discover Japan’s hit Godzilla Minus One as it hits streaming.