"Good" kaiju movies.

[Svengoolie 3]

OK fair's fair. I started a bad kaiju movie thread, so to be fair and balanced I'll start a good kaiju thread.

Need I say I love shin Godzilla? It's not everyone's cup of tea I know, but I  love it.

"The x from outer space". Oh man this one had it all! Spaceships, alien flying omelette saucer, moon base, wonderfully cheesy monster, SCIENCE!, a couple real WTF moments, one almost scary scene and weird monster defeat. I could have done without the subtle "xxxx Americans!" theme, but let it pass due to the wonderful b movie vibe.

The green slime. Kaiju or not? Well, the monsters weren't gigantic, but they made up for lack of size with huge numbers.  As cheesy as a movie can get but by ghawd the actors played it totally straight, giving it an air of surreality and camp equal to the batman series.

War of the monsters. The only original gamera movie without a g#dd@m Kenny and thus the best one. Better effects and darker tone than most, actually the most mature one of the lot and a lot more mature than most Godzilla movies, with graphic human on human violence and cruelty. Also one of the few kaiju movies to show a person graphically being eaten by a kaiju with a closeup of a giant tongue pulling him into the life sized mouth prop.

"Godzilla, mothra and king ghidorah" featured an honestly scary looking Godzilla who was pure evil. The white eyes and realistic looking teeth made him look genuinely frightening. It also had the guts to mention Japan's past, as in ww2 atrocities equalling Nazi Germany's, as the cause for this Godzilla. No "blame the Americans!" this time, and a bout time Japan owned up to its past Ghidorah still looked like ghidorah, mothra still looked like mothra and the third monster still looked kinda like a big, not to bright but loveable dog.

[LilCerberus]

I caught the original Godzilla (1954) earlier this year, in Japanese with subtitles, and no Raymond Burr.
It was much more coherent than the U.S. release I've been seeing all these years.

Also caught a Svenghoulie edit of 20 million miles to earth a few weeks ago.
Stop Motion has it's own thing, & once it got going, I thought Ymir was pretty effective.

[WingedSerpent]

Godzilla: KOTM  The original King Kong and Beast from 20,000 Fathoms are some personal favorites.

The Giant Behemoth is pretty good as well.  Haven't watched it in a while, but I remember liking it and it having some good stop motion.  I hear different stories about whether or not Wills O'Brien (the stop motion animator that created the original King Kong ) actually worked on it or merely supervised

[Leah]

Godzilla: Final War is probably my favorite without the peanut gallery. Gamera vs. Guiron is my favorite with the MST3K crew.

[RCMerchant]

The Giant Behemoth is pretty good as well.  Haven't watched it in a while, but I remember liking it and it having some good stop motion.  I hear different stories about whether or not Wills O'Brien (the stop motion animator that created the original King Kong ) actually worked on it or merely supervised

What I liked about it was it showed people getting killed in horrible ways- not just big monsters knocking down landmarks and buildings.

[Allhallowsday]

I caught the original Godzilla (1954) earlier this year, in Japanese with subtitles, and no Raymond Burr.
It was much more coherent than the U.S. release I've been seeing all these years.
...

Ech Raymond Burr version... The original edit GODZILLA (1954 ~ aka GOJIRA) is the best of the good.   

[Ticonderoga 64]

I have to say that a few I would consider "good" would be:

Gojira(1954)
Rodan(1956)
Mothra vs Godzilla(1964)
Invasion Of the Astro-Monster(1966)
Frankenstein Conquers the World(1965)(international version)

[Pacman000]

I actually liked Monster from a Prehistoric Planet. Models were a bit under detailed, but I enjoyed it just the same.

The 90's Gamera movies have gotten some praise, tho I've only seen one.

King Kong, The Lost World, & Beast from 20,000 Fathoms are all good too.

[Criswell]

The Gamera movies from the 90s are all well made and fun films.

[RCMerchant]

SKULL ISLAND the most recent Kong movie, is great....but it still an't hold a candle to the 1933 KING KONG.
I quite enjoyed GORGO (1961)  the Mama searching for her baby.
Call me weird, but I have a soft spot for KING KONG ESCAPES with Mecha Kong. Maybe cuz I saw it on the big screen back in the 70's.

[Ticonderoga 64]

I overlooked this one, certainly made with a bit of quality:

DAIMAJIN(1966)

http://youtu.be/Do_hmU-8GjE