10 Best Movies about Giants
It wasn’t until the 21st century that film-making technologies progressed enough for a photo-realistic giant to appear on-screen. Camera-tricks, and miniature sets, allowed over-sized ‘characters’ decades before then, but visual effects were often unconvincing. Just see Bert I. Gordon’s The Amazing Colossal Man (1957) for a typical failure. No robots, or apes... Basically, for this list... giants are people, or humanoids, only. Best movies first, judged by quality of their ‘gigantism’!
HULK (2003)
With amazing visuals and plenty of action scenes against military weapons, Ang Lee’s masterpiece is the first truly great superhero movie of the last 25 years.
BIG MAN JAPAN (2007)
Hitoshi Matsumoto is director, co-writer, and star, of Dai-Nihonjin, a clever satire, in mock-documentary style, of superhero movies... with Lovecraftian kaiju adventures.
TROLL (2022) / TROLL 2 (2025)
FANTASTIC FOUR: FIRST STEPS (2025)
The comic-book authentic depiction, of cosmic super-villain Galactus, grants this fine remake something that previous F4 movies lacked. Marvel gets sci-fi action just right.
Since his debut in Captain America: Civil War (2016), Marvel’s clumsy Giant Man, the monstrous alternate to shrinking hero Ant-Man, hits new heights (sorry) in this franchised sequel.
A strangely under-valued superheroes movie, Alex Proyas’ mythical fantasy presents its ancient ‘gods’ as giants, and gets its romanticised actioner formula almost perfect. It’s undeniably spectacular!
Starring Daryl Hannah, this cult-worthy TV-movie remake updates the 1958 original, with greater UFOlogy charm, and genuinely witty feminism about its gaslighting plot.
ALICE (1988)
Czech animator Jan Svankmajer’s darkly surreal fantasy adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s ‘Wonderland’ is perhaps the best - certainly the weirdest - version of this fairy story.
Terry Gilliam’s anarchic fantasy adventure has only one sequence with a giant, but it’s a memorable shipwreck.
First sequel in a comedy franchise (started by Honey, I Shrunk The Kids, 1989), this farcical mad-scientist adventure, set in Las Vegas, features a towering toddler terror. It’s the big baby of giant movies.
10 Best ‘Giant’ Movies... a chronology
TIME BANDITS (1981)
ALICE (1988)
HONEY, I BLEW UP THE KID (1992)
ATTACK OF THE 50 FT. WOMAN (1993)
HULK (2003)
BIG MAN JAPAN (2007)
GODS OF EGYPT (2016)
ANT-MAN & THE WASP (2018)
TROLL (2022) / TROLL 2 (2025)
FANTASTIC FOUR: FIRST STEPS (2025)
Top 10 ‘Giants’ movies... an A - Z list
ALICE (1988)
ANT-MAN & THE WASP (2018)
ATTACK OF THE 50 FT. WOMAN (1993)
BIG MAN JAPAN (2007)
FANTASTIC FOUR: FIRST STEPS (2025)
GODS OF EGYPT (2016)
HONEY, I BLEW UP THE KID (1992)
HULK (2003)
TIME BANDITS (1981)
TROLL (2022) / TROLL 2 (2025)
