Godzilla Minus Zero Draws Rave First Reactions at NYFF and the Franchise's First R Rating

"Godzilla Minus Zero" had its press screening at the New York Film Festival on September 26, 2026, and the first reactions that followed were strongly positive. Variety collected the early notices and found critics reaching for phrases like "jaw-dropping spectacle" and "a glorious continuation of the first film." That evening the film had its world premiere at Alice Tully Hall in Lincoln Center, where Variety reported multiple rounds of applause during the screening.

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It is Toho's sequel to 2023's "Godzilla Minus One," again written and directed by Takashi Yamazaki, and it opens in U.S. theaters on November 6. One note before anything else: these are first-watch festival impressions, not a finished review cycle. The movie has not been released, general audiences have not weighed in, and the early aggregate scores that appeared in the days after the premiere are still moving.

What the first reactions actually said

The praise focused on scale and effects work, and on an unexpectedly emotional family story.

• Jonathan Sim called it "a truly epic cinematic feat," adding that it has "unmatched VFX, action, and scale."
• Brandon Lewis described it as "an overwhelming achievement of kaiju filmmaking," with "jaw-dropping spectacle" and "an emotional wallop."
• Marissa Hill called it a "worthy successor to 'Minus One'" with "jaw-dropping monster battles," and said it "works in the quieter moments too."
• Amy Kim wrote that it is "a glorious continuation of the first film, taking its themes & character arcs to new heights."
• The JoBlo.com account went furthest: "Should be nominated for best picture," it posted, and the film "needs to be seen in IMAX."

Other posts struck the same note. Hoai-Tran Bui wrote that she "cried" and "gasped." David Gonzalez called the emotional family drama the film's "biggest surprise." Eric Francisco said it was "a true escalation from MINUS ONE," adding that "that R rating is legit." Anthony Orlando compared it to "Terminator 2 and The Dark Knight" and called it "one of the greatest sequels ever made."

Variety's own headline summed up the mood, calling the sequel "epic" and "jaw-dropping."

The enthusiasm was not unanimous. Reviews published on September 27 found things to question. Inverse called it a worthy follow-up and a major spectacle but said the human story is less tightly organized than in "Minus One." TheWrap placed it among the stronger Godzilla sequels without ranking it with the franchise's best, arguing that the later passages grow sillier. The South China Morning Post praised the imagery and surprises while finding the ending weaker. RogerEbert.com put the split plainly: the sequel "doesn't quite reach the miraculous highs of its predecessor, but the old boy still has plenty of bite."

The festival gave the film a prominent slot. New York Film Festival director Dennis Lim acknowledged to the premiere audience that the Godzilla series is not the first thing people associate with a major fall festival. "We thought it was about time to bring a giant monster movie here," he said. Yamazaki took the stage to applause before and after the screening and asked the crowd to keep the film's surprises off social media. "You are the first to see this film," he said. "No spoilers, please! I am trusting all of you guys."

The franchise's first R rating

Days before the premiere, the Motion Picture Association gave "Godzilla Minus Zero" an R rating for "some violent content/bloody images." It is the first film in the 72-year-old franchise to carry an R in the United States, Variety reported. The trade described the film as containing "the first R-rated action set pieces in the long-running kaiju franchise."

Yamazaki defended the rating at the premiere. "In spite of that, though, there were certain scenes that, for me as a director, were so essential to the film," he told Variety. "Censoring it or cutting it was just not an option for me." He said securing the rating was "essential to the film."

An R rating has historically been a commercial deterrent for a big-budget franchise film, since viewers under 17 cannot attend in the United States without a parent or guardian. That stigma has faded. Variety noted that 2016's "Deadpool" earned $782 million, 2019's "Joker" became the first R-rated film to cross $1 billion, 2024's "Deadpool & Wolverine" reached $1.33 billion, and 2026's "The Odyssey" has grossed $1.72 billion.

A bigger monster on a bigger map

The official description places the story in 1949, two years after the events of "Minus One," and continues the story of the Shikishima family. The Godzilla in this film is bigger than before and heads to New York City. The IMAX trailer released on September 8 revealed the sequel's new threat: King Ghidorah, the three-headed monster, Ars Technica reported.

"Godzilla Minus Zero" is the first Japanese feature shot for IMAX, according to Toho and GKIDS. Kamiki Ryunosuke and Hamabe Minami return in the lead roles, with a broader ensemble reprising parts from "Minus One," including Yuki Yamada, Kuranosuke Sasaki, Sakura Ando and Hidetaka Yoshioka. Jun Kunimura, Masami Nagasawa and Min Tanaka join as new characters.

Production was larger than its predecessor. "Minus One" was made for less than $15 million, and Yamazaki has said the sequel's bigger budget let him expand the effects team and add more complex shots. Shirogumi again handled visual effects, with Kiyoko Shibuya, Takayuki Ueki and Eishin Okubo credited as visual effects supervisors alongside Yamazaki, who wrote, directed and oversaw the VFX himself.

Yamazaki has described the sequel as more ambitious in every technical respect, with more effects cuts than "Minus One" and each one harder to build. After reviewing one unfinished sequence, he called it "probably one of the best kaiju sequences that I've ever seen," and said audiences would "see something they've never seen before." The official synopsis is deliberately vague, promising that "a new threat strikes, crushing hope in an instant" and that "there is no third time. Everything ends here."

The official film count depends on who is counting. Variety calls "Godzilla Minus Zero" the 38th film in the franchise and the 34th produced by Toho, while other tallies, which handle spinoffs and animated entries differently, list it as the 39th film overall and the sixth in the Reiwa era.

Why Toho is betting bigger

"Godzilla Minus One" was the franchise's commercial and awards high point. It earned $116 million worldwide, more than any previous Japanese Godzilla film, and won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects. A sequel was never guaranteed. Yamazaki has said he did not plan one, and that Toho executives began asking about a follow-up after seeing an early cut of "Minus One."

Minus One's U.S. run made it the third highest-grossing live-action foreign-language film in American box-office history, at more than $57 million, according to Toho and GKIDS. The studio has spent recent years pushing the character further into global markets; Bloomberg reported in July 2025 that Toho planned more films, sequels and anime as it sought a broader international audience.

Toho is now treating the second film as a global event, with a Japanese release and a U.S. release three days apart and an IMAX-first presentation. The timing also fits the studio's long-standing agreement with Legendary Pictures, which keeps competing Godzilla films out of the same calendar year; Legendary's next Monsterverse entry, "Godzilla x Kong: Supernova," is set for 2027.

The awards math is less settled. The visual effects category is the clearest target: "Minus One" won it on a fraction of a Hollywood budget, and the sequel's larger scale and IMAX photography raise the technical bar. A Best Picture nomination would be harder. The category has rarely made room for monster movies, and an R rating narrows a film's mainstream reach, even as it signals that nothing was softened for it.

The early scores are strong but not quite at the original's level. As of late September, Rotten Tomatoes showed 97% positive from more than 30 reviews, with an average rating of 8.3 out of 10, and Metacritic's weighted average was about 80 from 13 critics. "Minus One" finished at 99% and 81. A few points of separation is not a verdict, and both numbers will keep moving as more reviews arrive.

Caveats

Everything above comes from a festival press screening and a premiere, not a release. Festival crowds are self-selected and generous; a room at Alice Tully Hall is not a global audience. The aggregate scores are early and volatile, and some of the loudest reactions are social posts, not full reviews. This is not a finished review, and the film has not opened anywhere.

The R rating matters on its own. It fits the film's more violent battles, but it also excludes younger viewers in the United States unless an adult accompanies them. The spoiler concern cuts both ways: Yamazaki asked the premiere audience not to spoil the film's surprises, so the plot details available now come mostly from trailers and official materials, including the reveal of King Ghidorah.

There is also the sequel question. "Minus One" set an unusually high bar for a franchise that has run for seven decades, and a strong follow-up does not automatically mean another step up. Yamazaki joked at the premiere about the pressure of a third film: "With your reactions tonight I hope they don't offer a third movie."

What to watch

Three dates will shape the story. The Tokyo International Film Festival centerpiece on November 1 tests the film in front of a Japanese festival audience. The Japan release on November 3 and the U.S. release on November 6 will produce the first real box-office numbers, the clearest signal of whether the R rating and the larger scale broaden the audience or narrow it. A final trailer is set to debut in Japanese theaters on October 8, during a re-release of "Minus One."

Then comes awards season. A repeat in the visual effects category is the obvious target. The Best Picture talk is one critic's post, with no campaign behind it yet, and the film has not been through a single awards precursor.

Image: Wpcpey / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.