If you caught Godzilla vs. Kong on HBO Max, you're probably going to want more of the two title monsters. It's understandable. They are very large, and very good. But with decades of films between them, just jumping into Kong and Zilla's filmography can be daunting, especially for completists who want to do this thing in the proper order. (Not that there's a "correct" order. The first Kong movie I ever saw was King Kong Lives, which is about as close to objectively "incorrect" as possible.) For Godzilla's long, multi-era history, head here.
Below, you'll find a list of how to watch every Kong movie in chronological order, followed by how to watch them in order of release.
King Kong Movies in Chronological Order of Events
RKO Pictures
King Kong (1933)
The Eighth Wonder of the World was first introduced to audiences in 1933's King Kong. Filmmaker Carl Denham (Robert Armstrong), a crew led by Jack Driscoll (Bruce Cabot), and leading lady Ann Darrow (Fay Wray) travel to Skull Island, where they encounter dangers, dinosaurs, and the ape-like beast known as Kong. Humans being humans, they capture Kong and bring him back to America, where things almost immediately go horribly wrong. Parts of this film have aged like potato salad in the sun, but there's no denying it's a pivotal moment for visual effects, its influence still felt in everything from monster movies to horror franchises to big-budget blockbusters.
Son of Kong
Released just nine months after King Kong, this direct sequel once again follows Denham as he attempts to find redemption for the time he brought a ten-story-tall gorilla to Manhattan and got a few people killed. In the process, he returns to Skull Island looking for a fabled treasure and meets Kong's son, the adorable Little Kong. Important note: this film hard-left turns into one of the most soul-shattering endings of all time.
Toho
King Kong vs. Godzilla
After a truly wild series of events I highly recommend looking up, original Kong animator Willis O'Brien's pitch for King Kong vs. Frankenstein ended up at Toho and was reimagined as King Kong vs. Godzilla, which completely ignores the events of the original King Kong. (It's also the first time the big guy was an actor in a suit, not stop-motion animation.) Directed by original Gojira helmer Ishirō Honda, this historic monster-mash features, among many other things, a scene in which Kong is dropped from the sky by a balloon contraption and immediately struck by lightning. Flawless cinema. Fans of both monsters have debated for ages whether the end of this film is ambivalent or crowns a real winner, so watching this movie is worth it for that decades-long argument alone. Note: A heavily edited American version of this film was released in 1963, but it adds almost nothing to the experience.
King Kong Escapes
Once again directed by Honda, this wonderful, underseen sequel pits Kong against his robot lookalike Mechani-Kong in a showdown orchestrated by mad scientist Dr. Who (Hideyo Amamoto).
John Guillermin Films
King Kong (1976)
Four decades after the original, producer Dino De Laurentiis decided it was time for a King Kong remake and set British director John Guillermin—known primarily for big-budget adventure films and being an absolute wild man on set—to the task. The 1976 movie shares the same basic structure as the 1933 film, with a few notable exceptions. The trip to Skull Island is no longer a filmmaking voyage, but a more greed-motivated expedition undertaken by the Petrox Oil Company. Jessica Lange plays Dwan, a woman the crew finds drifting after a shipwreck, while Jeff Bridges is Jack Prescott, a paleontologist who sneaks aboard. While there is a tragic lack of T-Rex in this movie, the 1976 remake is a bright spot in the big guy's filmography. I argue it's the best of the three movies bearing the title King Kong.
King Kong Lives
The rights to King Kong are an absolute nightmare, so it took ten years for Guillermin to set up a direct sequel to his remake, King Kong Lives. Also taking place ten years later, the movie not only reveals that Kong survived his plummet off the World Trade Center in the previous film but also introduces another of his species who comes to be called "Lady Kong."
Peter Jackson Film
King Kong (2005)
After delivering three straight smash hits and awards darlings with the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Peter Jackson pretty much had a blank check to do what his heart desired. That turned out to be King Kong, the filmmaker's lifetime passion project. Jackson's love for the original 1933 film shows across all three hours of his remake, which stretches out every moment of that story while still sticking close to the basic blueprint. It's a bloated movie, yeah, but there's some really beautiful stuff in there. Andy Serkis once again does imitable mo-cap work as Kong himself, while the human highlights include spectacular performances from Naomi Watts and Jack Black.
Jackson's film never got a sequel, but at one point there were plans for a follow-up to be helmed by eventual Godzilla vs. Kong director Adam Wingard. Speaking of!
Warner Bros. MonsterVerse
Kong: Skull Island
The Warner Bros. MonsterVerse, which kicked off in 2014 with Gareth Edwards' Godzilla, set Kong on an alternate path, one where he never gets shipped off to Manhattan and instead lives, the last of his kind, as the benevolent Titan of Skull Island. Jordan Vogt-Roberts' takes place in 1973, introducing both monster research agency Monarch and a relatively young Kong, as he tangoes with a squad of Vietnam vets led by Colonel Preston Packard (Samuel L. Jackson).
Godzilla vs. Kong
Wingard's colossal monster brawl takes place 51 years after Kong: Skull Island and finds a much larger Kong living in a Monarch containment center on Skull Island. This film is also a sequel to Godzilla (2014) and Godzilla: King of the Monsters, so check those out, too.
King Kong Movies in Order of Release Date
Here is every Kong movie in order of when they were released. I've included three animated films here, as well, all of which are remakes of the original or spinoffs from Kong: The Animated Series.
King Kong - March 2, 1933
Son of Kong - December 22, 1933
King Kong vs. Godzilla - August 11, 1962
King Kong Escapes - July 22, 1967
King Kong - December 17, 1976
King Kong Lives - December 19, 1986
The Mighty Kong (animated) - June 16, 1998
Kong: King of Atlantis (animated) - November 22, 2005
King Kong - December 14, 2005
Kong: Return to the Jungle (animated) - November 14, 2006
Kong: Skull Island - March 10, 2017
Godzilla vs. Kong - March 24, 2021