Godzilla Minus Zero’s First Reactions Are In, and So Is Its Franchise-First R Rating

September 26, 2026 Noah

Godzilla Minus Zero, Takashi Yamazaki’s direct sequel to the Oscar-winning Godzilla Minus One, had its world premiere Saturday night at the New York Film Festival’s NYFF64 Spotlight Gala, with Yamazaki and members of the cast in attendance. The first wave of reactions from critics who caught the Alice Tully Hall screening are overwhelmingly positive, and several are already calling it one of the best sequels in recent memory. Adding to the buzz is confirmation that the film carries the franchise’s first ever R rating from the MPA.

What Critics Are Saying After the Premiere

Full reviews are still under embargo, but reactions posted right after Saturday’s screening set a high bar:

Brandon Lewis called it “an overwhelming achievement of kaiju filmmaking” and admitted he “never thought I’d cry to Godzilla.”
Jacob Fisher wrote that the film “takes some of the most bold swings I’ve seen a sequel take.”
Anthony Orlando went further, saying Minus Zero “joins Terminator 2 and The Dark Knight as one of the greatest sequels ever made.”

That is a high bar to set. Godzilla Minus One sits at a rare 99 percent from critics and 98 percent from audiences on Rotten Tomatoes, on top of the 2024 Academy Award for Best Visual Effects. A full Tomatometer average for Minus Zero will take shape once formal reviews start posting closer to release.

A Franchise First: Godzilla Minus Zero Is Rated R

Alongside the reactions came word that the MPA rated Godzilla Minus Zero R, citing “some violent content and bloody images.” It is the first R rating in the Godzilla franchise’s 72 year history, going back to the original 1954 film. Even Minus One, which includes scenes of mass casualties and a harrowing ocean rescue, only carried a PG-13 for “creature violence.” Neither Toho nor North American distributor GKIDS has commented on what pushed the rating up, but the early reactions suggest Yamazaki leaned into a heavier, more visceral tone for the follow-up.

Sakura Ando as Sumiko Ota in Godzilla Minus Zero

Sakura Ando returns as Sumiko Ota in Godzilla Minus Zero, which just had its world premiere at NYFF64

What Godzilla Minus Zero Is About

The film picks up in 1949, two years after the events of Godzilla Minus One, following Koichi and Noriko Shikishima (Ryunosuke Kamiki and Minami Hamabe) as a new catastrophe disrupts Japan’s fragile postwar recovery. Hidetaka Yoshioka, Yuki Yamada, Sakura Ando, Kuranosuke Sasaki, and Min Tanaka all return from the first film, and Yamazaki is once again writer, director, and visual effects supervisor. Runtime clocks in at 135 minutes, and the sequel is also being marketed as the first Japanese production ever filmed for IMAX, a detail we covered when its trailer sparked King Ghidorah theories earlier this month.