All 3 Movies Called 'King Kong,' Ranked

While legendary cinematic characters like James Bond and Godzilla have been in more movies than King Kong, that iconic giant ape has 007 and the King of the Monsters beat in terms of how long he’s been around for. The first King Kong movie came out more than 90 years ago, and much of it still holds up better than you’d probably expect a film of its age to do. Since then, there have been two other King Kong movies that have shared its title, and both are remakes of the original film, albeit one was set in then-contemporary times, and the other had a period setting in line with the 1933 original. Of course, there are various other King Kong movies with longer titles, but they’re not really the focus here.

These three “King Kong” movies might all have the same basic premise, but they all stand out from each other due to how far apart they were made, and also because each film had a different primary way of bringing the titular character to life (stop-motion in the first, a suit in the second, and computer animation in the third). It’s also easy to rank these, because there is a pretty obvious best film of the bunch, and an even more obvious worst film of the three. So, that sets it apart from The Mummy series, with all the movies in said series that share the same name, but puts it in line with the three Godzilla movies that are all just called “Godzilla.” Actually, with Godzilla, there’s a super obvious worst one, and thankfully, none of the three King Kong movies are quite as bad as that one, for as faint praise as “Oh, you’re not as bad as 1998’s Godzilla” might be.

3

‘King Kong’ (1976)

The King Kong movie with that exact title you’re probably least likely to be familiar with is the 1976 film, which is the previously alluded to movie that used the “man in the suit” technique for the most part. That puts it in line with the Godzilla movies all made before 2014, since suitmation was the primary technique there (albeit the later ones had some CGI used). If you like King Kong as a dude in an ape suit, stomping around a bunch of miniatures, then you’ve also got the likes of King Kong vs. Godzilla, King Kong Escapes, and King Kong Lives to enjoy… well, King Kong Lives is a bit hard to enjoy. That’s probably the worst King Kong film of all. But to stick with King Kong (1976), it is the worst of them that has the most familiar Kong-related premise: people discover a giant ape on a dangerous island, the ape becomes infatuated with a young woman, and then the people who discover the ape bring him back to New York City, where he causes general havoc before the inevitable tragic ending. That can’t be considered a spoiler for, like, anyone, right?

The finale makes use of the then-contemporary setting by having things conclude with Kong climbing the World Trade Center (the Twin Towers having only been completely built in 1973), rather than the Empire State Building.

If you want to find slightly notable things about King Kong (1976), there is the cast, since it’s a fairly early role for Jeff Bridges, and it was also the big screen debut of Jessica Lange. Neither gives anything close to a career-best performance, but neither is bad, considering the somewhat underwhelming material they have to work with. It’s a broad monster movie and the characters are all quite broad/simple, too, and not in a charming or surprisingly effective way, like Godzilla Minus One. Also, the finale makes use of the then-contemporary setting by having things conclude with Kong climbing the World Trade Center (the Twin Towers having only been completely built in 1973), rather than the Empire State Building, and so that stretch of the movie is kind of unintentionally eerie, when watched post-2001, for hopefully obvious reasons. Overall, though, with this King Kong film, other than those fairly slim already-mentioned aspects, it’s really just the big ape that’s offered, but if you’re really just after some kind of goofy monster-related mayhem, you could do worse.

2

‘King Kong’ (2005)

After completing The Lord of the Rings, Peter Jackson set his sights on remaking King Kong, having things return to the setting seen in the first movie, rather than doing another updated version like King Kong (1976) did, with its 1970s setting. Call it a return to the series roots, if you want, but don’t call it a direct remake, since King Kong (2005) is somewhat infamously almost twice as long as the original, with its 187-minute runtime absolutely dwarfing the 100-minute runtime of that first film. The length is the biggest obstacle to enjoying the movie, or at least enjoying all of the movie. It’s still a fairly simple story, what with a movie shooting in/around Skull Island, and the discovery of Kong leading to a plan that involves taking him back to New York City and charging people to see the so-called “eighth wonder of the world.” You get quite a lot by way of scenes that take place before Skull Island is arrived at, then a lot more sequences on the island itself, all before getting to the final act, which is – you guessed it – also more drawn-out than the final act of the 1933 original.

Much of the spectacle does impress, and there’s probably a really good 2 to 2.5-hour-long movie buried somewhere in King Kong (2005). It’s also not as bloated as The Hobbit trilogy would ultimately be, yet, in hindsight, it does kind of foreshadow that Peter Jackson project in all its bombast and gratuitous runtime (or runtimes). After The Lord of the Rings, though, who was going to be able to tell Peter Jackson “no”? He’d arguably earned the right to do whatever he wanted, and what he wanted was to direct a three-hour monster movie that was also a remake of one of the best monster movies ever made. Again, it’s not as good as one of his trilogies based on a J.R.R. Tolkien novel, but it was a good deal better than his other trilogy based on a J.R.R. Tolkien novel. And after yapping about all that, there’s only one other movie to address, and – quite obviously – it is…

1

‘King Kong’ (1933)

…1933’s King Kong. It was always the obvious pick, given 1976’s King Kong is a little forgettable, and 2005’s King Kong suffers from some pretty serious bloat, being one of those “you have to take the good with the bad” kind of movies. With the original King Kong, it is pretty much all good all the way through. This is potentially the most important giant monster movie of all time, or is right there alongside Godzilla (1954) if you want to consider that the most significant. King Kong did come out first, and so it’s inevitably the longer series of the two, but Godzilla (1954) did spawn a series that didn’t take long to overtake King Kong in terms of the number of movies. Funnily enough, 1962’s King Kong vs. Godzilla can count itself as both the third King Kong movie and the third Godzilla movie overall, making it kind of wild that they first “met” on screen rather early on, all things considered.

Sorry to dodge, dip, duck, dive, and dodge around talking about 1933’s King Kong, but there’s not much more that can be said. It’s got the same basic story as the previously discussed 2005 film, just with better pacing (and it’s odd that a movie so much older has better pacing, but it all comes down to that runtime being so long). Kong himself is brought to life with stop-motion animation, and it was one of only two times that such a technique was used in a King Kong movie. The other was Son of Kong, which is notable for coming out the exact same year as the first King Kong, suggesting no one wanted to waste time capitalizing on that first movie’s success. But what success that first film had. Sure, if you say it earned $10 million, that doesn’t sound all that impressive, but $10 million was worth a ton in 1933, and that box office haul was almost 15 times the movie’s budget ($672,000). It’s one of the most technically impressive movies of all time, absolutely essential as far as the giant monster sub-genre’s concerned, and ultimately influential in paving the way for plenty of ambitious adventure films to follow (in other words, its importance/influence goes much further than just the series it ultimately kicked off).