The Correct Order To Watch The King Kong Movies

Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack's 1933 mega-hit "King Kong" was a marvel of special effects. It employed stop-motion animation, outsize models, rear-projection, and novel composting methods to convince audiences that a giant ape was interacting with human co-stars. Compared to modern, ultra-slick CGI effects, the 1933 King Kong may not look as realistic, but the ape shimmers with life and personality beyond what many modern effects can accomplish. Kong is the most sympathetic character in the movie, as he was kidnapped from his home and exploited by would-be entertainment moguls. Using bi-planes to shoot Kong off the top of the Empire State Building wasn't a moment of triumph for a masterful humanity, but the tragic execution of an animal that doesn't understand what it was thrust into. Not bad for a film that's going to celebrate its 91st birthday in April of 2024. 

Interpreting "King Kong" in 2024 is fraught. Cooper and Schoedsack were piggybacking their film from colonialist documentaries of their era, including William S. Campbell's "Ingagi," a film full of racist tall tales, as well as their own mostly-staged "Chang: A Drama of the Wilderness," the only documentary ever nominated for Best Picture. "King Kong" not only has racist images of "wild natives," a common trope in colonialist fantasies, but Kong himself is often seen as a racist metaphor for Blackness (see the "King Kong" essay in the BFI's "The Cinema Book"). One might even recall the race-based interpretation of "King Kong" being employed by a Nazi in the 2009 film "Inglourious Basterds."

However bleak its origin, "King Kong" leaked into the mass American consciousness in perpetuity, creating a monster that is still appearing in films to this day. As of this writing, Kong has appeared in 14 feature films. 

Here they are:

In release order, the King Kong films are: 

• Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack's "King Kong" (1933)
• Ernest B. Schoedsack's "Son of Kong" (1933)
• Soya Kumagai's "The King Kong That Appeared in Edo" (1938)
• Ishiro Honda's "King Kong vs. Godzilla" (1962)
• Ishiro Honda's "King Kong Escapes" (1967)
• John Guillermin's "King Kong" (1976)
• John Guillermin's "King Kong Lives" (1986)
• Art Scott's "The Mighty Kong" (1998)
• Peter Jackson's "King Kong" (2005)
• Patrick Archibald's "Kong: King of Atlantis" (2005)
• Stuart Evans' "Kong: Return to the Jungle" (2006)
• Jordan Vogt-Roberts' "Kong: Skull Island" (2017)
• Adam Wingard's "Godzilla vs. Kong" (2021)
• Adam Wingard's "Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire" (2024)

The continuity across these Kong movies never extends more than three chapters. Unlike many other long-running pop film series, "King Kong" hasn't ever played the "soft reboot" gambit and presented a film as a sequel to the original that ignores previous sequels (see: "Halloween," "Godzilla," etc.). "Son of Kong," for instance, is a sequel to the original "King Kong," but that's where that continuity ends. "King Kong Lives" is a sequel to the 1976 "King Kong." The most expansive American King Kong mythology to date comes from the much-ballyhooed MonsterVerse movies which will soon incorporate five movies and two high-profile TV shows. 

"Mighty," "Atlantis," and "Jungle" are animated stand-alone films.

"The King Kong That Appeared in Edo" was made in Japan without the permission of RKO, and only uses King Kong's name. The monster of that film is an anthropoid that kidnaps people at the behest of its master. The actual size of the monster is up for debate, however, as "Edo" has been completely lost to time. Thanks to surviving promotional materials, we know that "Edo" was released in two parts, and that it had complicated special effects.

"King Kong vs. Godzilla" and "King Kong Escapes," meanwhile, are directly tied into the many, many films in Toho's Showa era of Godzilla movies. Godzilla's Showa era ran from 1954 to 1975, and includes as many as 27 movies, provided one includes every solo monster film that starred a creature that would eventually fight Godzilla. Of course, if one wants to extrapolate from there — and who doesn't want to make a marathon as long as possible? — one could also include Disney's "Bambi" movies, as "Bambi Meets Godzilla" is on that list. 

From there, one could also start folding in all the additional Godzilla films. If one were to do that, a King Kong/Bambi/Godzilla marathon would include 67 films: 

• "King Kong" (1933)
• "Song of Kong"
• "The King Kong That Appeared in Edo"
• "Bambi"
• "Gojira"
• "Godzilla Raids Again"
• "Godzilla: King of the Monsters!"
• "Rodan"
• "The Mysterians"
• "Varan"
• "Mothra"
• "King Kong vs. Godzilla"
• "Atragon"
• "Mothra vs. Godzilla"
• "Dogora"
• "Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster"
• "Frankenstein Conquers the World"
• "Invasion of Astro-Monster"
• "War of the Gargantuas"
• "Ebirah, Horror of the Deep"
• "King Kong Escapes"
• "Son of Godzilla"
• "Destroy All Monsters"
• "Bambi Meets Godzilla"
• "All Monsters Attack"
• "Space Amoeba"
• "Godzilla vs. Hedorah"
• "Godzilla vs. Gigan"
• "Godzilla vs. Megalon"
• "Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla"
• "Terror of Mechagodzilla"
• "King Kong" (1976)
• "The Return of Godzilla"
• "Godzilla 1985"
• "King Kong Lives"
• "Godzilla vs. Biollante"
• "Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah"
• "Godzilla vs. Mothra"
• "Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II"
• "Godzilla vs. Space Godzilla"
• "Godzilla vs. Destoroyah"
• "Rebirth of Mothra"
• "Rebirth of Mothra II"
• "Rebirth of Mothra III"
• "The Mighty Kong"
• "Godzilla" (1998)
• "Godzilla 2000"
• "Godzilla vs. Megaguirus"
• "GMK: Godzilla, Mothra, and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack"
• "Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla"
• "Godzilla: Tokyo S.O.S."
• "Godzilla: Final Wars"
• "King Kong" (2005)
• "Kong: King of Atlantis"
• "Bambi II"
• "Kong: Return to the Jungle"
• "Godzilla" (2014)
• "Shin Godzilla"
• "Kong: Skull Island"
• "Kaiju Bunraku"
• "Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters"
• "Godzilla: City on the Edge of Battle"
• "Godzilla: The Planet Eater"
• "Godzilla: King of the Monsters"
• "Godzilla vs. Kong"
• "Godzilla Minus One"
• "Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire"

I'll get the popcorn ready. You bring the coffee and gin.