Monster Movies, Ranked

Spielberg's malfunctioning mechanical shark forced him to hide the creature, inventing suspense that won three Oscars and created the modern summer blockbuster.

Rob Bottin's shape-shifting practical effects remain a landmark of creature design, and the film is now widely regarded as one of the greatest horror films ever made.

Ishiro Honda's atomic allegory launched the longest-running film franchise in history and the entire kaiju genre.

Willis O'Brien's stop-motion ape climbing the Empire State Building set the template for every giant-monster movie that followed.

H. R. Giger's biomechanical xenomorph won the Academy Award for Visual Effects and remains cinema's most iconic creature design.

Its blend of animatronics and pioneering CGI won three Oscars and made resurrected dinosaurs feel genuinely alive.

Bong Joon-ho's Han River creature feature was a South Korean box-office record-breaker praised for fusing monster thrills with sharp social satire.

Rick Baker's agonizing on-screen werewolf change won the first-ever Academy Award for Best Makeup.

A tongue-in-cheek creature feature about subterranean Graboids that became a beloved cult classic spawning a long-running franchise.

Cronenberg's body-horror remake won an Oscar for its grotesque makeup effects and is considered one of the best remakes ever made.

Stan Winston's dreadlocked, mandibled hunter became an enduring sci-fi icon anchoring a decades-long franchise.

Joe Dante's puppet-driven creature comedy was a massive hit whose content, alongside Indiana Jones, helped prompt the creation of the PG-13 rating.

A viral-marketed, handheld monster movie that reinvented the giant-creature attack from street level and became a surprise hit.

A visually striking, well-reviewed reboot that grossed over $560 million and expanded Legendary's MonsterVerse.

Gareth Edwards' atmospheric relaunch was a commercial success but frustrated some fans by keeping its monster largely off-screen.

A goofy prehistoric-shark blockbuster that critics found dull but which still grossed over $500 million worldwide.

The Rock versus a mutated gorilla, wolf, and croc — a video-game adaptation that's dumb, loud fun and little else.

Roland Emmerich's much-maligned version so annoyed Toho that it later renamed the creature 'Zilla' to distance it from the real Godzilla.

An infamously inept eco-horror film whose static, poorly animated attacking birds make it a staple of 'worst movies ever' lists.