‘Every Kaiju Movie ever made’: fan collecting and curation of the kaijū film

There were no Godzilla films in either the critics' or filmmakers' Sight and Sound polls in 2022. 1 No giant monster movies made the top 250 critics' choices, nor the top 100 filmmakers' picks. Even Guillermo del Toro, who once described Gojira (Honda Ishir, 1954) as 'deep and affecting', 2 and directed Pacific Rim (2013), his own take on the giant monster film, didn't vote for a Godzilla film. The polls include classics of Japanese national cinema, with Tokyo Story (Tokyo Monogatari, Ozu Yasujir, 1953) and Seven Samurai (Shichinin no Samurai, Kurosawa Akira, 1954) in the top 20 of both. Not counting coproductions, 3 there are six Japanese films in the top 100 directors' choices, all directed by Ozu and Kurosawa, and none produced after 1957. The critics' poll, unsurprisingly since it's a longer list (250 as opposed to 100), features 13 Japanese films, again not counting coproductions, 4 8 directed by Ozu and Kurosawa, 2 by Mizoguchi Kenji, and 3 produced by Studio Ghibli. This produces a very limited view of Japanese cinema, in specific national contexts and mostly aligned with conventional auteurist notions of art cinema traditions.