King Kong has had a laundry list of fearsome monster opponents in movies over the years, and has sent many a tough foe to an early grave. With a prestige legacy of movie appearances dating all the way back to 1933, King Kong’s biggest enemy has always been humanity itself. That being said, he’s also laid a great number of giant monsters to rest over the years, from the creatures of Skull Island to human-made horrors beyond all comprehension.
Compared to the expansive rogue’s gallery of Godzilla, King Kong admittedly doesn’t have as many iconic names to his villains. Still, that doesn’t mean he isn’t a powerful kaiju opponent, taking down all manner of intimidating giant creatures and colossal robots. From his days as one of the earliest creature features to his bombastic time in the Monsterverse, Kong has left just as many opponents alive, such as Godzilla himself, as he’s permanently taken down.
11
The T. Rex/ V. Rex
King Kong (1933), King Kong (2005)
More famous as the poster dinosaur of the Jurᴀssic Park franchise, the Tyrannosaurus Rex also has the cinematic distinction of being King Kong’s first on-screen kill. The T. Rex was a real creature, the largest terrestrial predator ever discovered with a fearsome toothy maw and powerful, fast legs. In the original King Kong, the legendary ape gets into a battle with a stop-motion T. Rex on Skull Island, saving his beloved Ann.
The 2005 Peter Jackson remake upgrades this classic opponent with the introduction of the fictional Vastatosaurus Rex, also known as the V. Rex, a larger and nastier version of the real prehistoric animal. This King Kong encounters not one, but three of the creatures, again saving Ann from a grim fate as their next meal. These particularly feral animals are deformed by generations of inbreeding caused by Skull Island’s small habitat. One of the best sH๏τs of the film is Kong snapping one of their mᴀssive jaws with his astounding strength.
10
Skull Island Dinosaurs
King Kong (1933)
The mighty T. Rex is far from the only prehistoric predator that menaces the humans on Skull Island in the original King Kong. Shortly after slaying the T. Rex, the film’s damsel in distress quickly finds herself endangered by yet another living fossil, an aquatic creature bearing a resemblance to plesiosaur. Once again, King Kong manages to kill the serpentine creature by snapping apart its jaws, a brutal kill that soon becomes Kong’s iconic finishing move.
To prove the point, Kong does the same thing to the next beast to threaten Ann’s life, a flying pteranodon. The pterodactyl almost flies away with Ann, but King Kong is able to catch up to it, once again ripping its beak in two in an effort to save the object of his affection. It’s quite amazing that Ann is nearly killed by dinosaurs of the land, sea, and air in the original King Kong, but her great ape protector is able to prove himself as the apex predator of the island each time.
9
Gorosaurus
King Kong Escapes (1967)
Despite looking quite similar to the average T. Rex, Gorosaurus is still technically a distinct monster that King Kong faces in the early stages of the Toho-produced kaiju movie sans Godzilla, King Kong Escapes. This film describe how King Kong has been living on a new island, Mondo Island, which seems to have just as many terrifying residents as the classic Skull Island. Among them is Gorosaurus, a huge reptilian beast who takes a sH๏τ at the King.
Sadly for him, Gorosaurus is soundly defeated by Kong, who once again utilizes his signature move of prying the beast’s jaws open until they snap. This kill is particularly grisly, as Gorosaurus foams violently at the mouth upon his defeat. Another Gorosaurus shows up again in the Godzilla ensemble film Destroy All Monsters, making him one of the few kaiju with the honor of fighting both Godzilla and King Kong.
8
The Giant Snake
King Kong Escapes (1967)
Gorosaurus is far from the only fearsome monster native to Mondo Island Kong has to contend with in King Kong Escapes. As an homage to the ophidian plesiosaur King Kong kills in the original movie, King Kong escapes includes a similarly serpentine aquatic opponent, a mᴀssive sea serpent living just off the coast of Mondo Island in the surrounding waters. The beast has a short spat with Kong when it approaches the human vessel carrying Kong’s new romantic interest, Lieutenant Susan Watson.
The brief scene was sadly excluded from some cuts of King Kong escapes.
Hoping to protect his new object of obsession, Kong starts the flight by flinging a boulder at the beast from the shore, which distracts it long enough for the humans to escape. Wading into the water to battle the beast head on, Kong is given some trouble by its attempts to constrict him, but is soon able to get the upper hand, killing yet another creature with his signature jaw-snapping move. The brief scene was sadly excluded from some cuts of King Kong escapes.
7
Mechani-Kong
King Kong Escapes (1967)
While Gorosaurus and the giant sea serpent are all serviceable enough villains, the true antagonist of King Kong Escapes is the metallic Mechani-Kong. Essentially King Kong’s own version of Mechagodzilla, Mechani-Kong is created by the enigmatic Dr. Who, bearing no relation to the lovable form-changing English time lord. Dr. Who creates the robotic version of Kong at first in order to mine the mysterious Element X from the North Pole.
Though the intense radiation emitted by Element X renders Mechani-Kong unsuitable for its initial task, it excels as a fighting force to combat the original King Kong. However, Mechani-Kong is ultimately no match for the real deal when the two duke it out atop the Tokyo Tower. King Kong forces Mechani-Kong to step on a powerful electrical transformer of some kind, shocking the mᴀssive mech and causing it to fall to its doom, where it crumbles to pieces.
6
The Mire Squid
Kong: Skull Island (2017)
Kong’s introduction to the Monsterverse came alongside the continuity’s own take on Skull Island, which serves as a habitat for all sorts of nasty megafauna. One of the most ᴅᴇᴀᴅly aquatic creatures in the location’s bizarre ecosystem is the Mire Squid, a mᴀssive cephalopod-like kaiju armed with ᴅᴇᴀᴅly sucker-lined tentacles and, if the official novelization is to be believed, a sack of flammable ink. Kong encounters one of the creatures in a lake while licking his wounds from his fight with the helicopter squadron.
Sensing a ripe opportunity, the Mire Squid ambushes Kong from the murky waters, hoping to score an easy meal. But Kong is more than ready for his opponent, and manages to slay the kraken without much effort, stomping its head beneath his mᴀssive foot. Kong then enjoys some free calamari courtesy of the Mire Squid, casually snacking on his would-be predator.
5
Skullcrawlers
Kong: Skull Island (2017)
Though Skull Island is teeming with horrific monsters, the true dangers of the island are the mᴀssive Skullcrawlers, so-named by John C. Reilley’s Hank Marlow. These mᴀssive predators have a serpentine tail for a lower body with two muscular arms or forelegs, topped with a terrifying skull-shaped head lined with needle-like teeth. Kong fights several of the Skullcrawlers early on, killing two juveniles that have yet to reach maturity.
However, the main event of the film is Kong’s battle with the mᴀssive main Skullcrawler, known to locals as the Skull Devil. Kong engages the Skull Devil in a brutal tear-down fight, weaponizing his ingenuity by utilizing a mᴀssive boat propeller and anchor chain as a sort of flail. In the end, Kong finishes off the monster in one of the Monsterverse’s most brutal killing blows, reaching into its throat and pulling its gastrointestinal tract inside out.
4
Warbats
Godzilla vs Kong (2021)
Just like in their original movie bout, King Kong is given some smaller warm-up opponents before having to fight Godzilla himself in their first Monsterverse meeting. Exploring the Hollow Earth for the first time, Kong encounters a flock of creatures called Warbats. These mᴀssive serpents have huge hoods that form bat-like wings that allow them to fly through the air and attack prey like wayward great apes.
Kong manages to kill a couple of the Warbats when they attack, grabbing one by the tail and slamming it to the ground, impaling it on a sharp rock. The other Warbat doesn’t fare much better as Kong beats it with its own kind, only to then ravage it with his own bare fists. In celebration of his kill, Kong rips the beast’s head off and eats from its throat, grossing out the Monarch team trailing him in a plane.
3
Mechagodzilla
Godzilla vs Kong (2021)
Even after Kong and Godzilla’s exciting fight, the main villain of Godzilla vs Kong only reveals itself at the very end of the film. The Monsterverse introduces its Mechagodzilla as a mᴀssive robotic creation made by Apex Cybernetics, using the skull of King Ghidorah as a psychic processor to allow a pilot to control the mᴀssive weapon. Before long, Ghidorah’s lingering consciousness proves too much to handle as he takes over control of the machine, giving Kong and Godzilla a common enemy.
Despite still recovering from beating the snot out of one another, Godzilla and Kong team up against the mechanical creation in a 2-on-1 fight.
Despite still recovering from beating the snot out of one another, Godzilla and Kong team up against the mechanical creation in a 2-on-1 fight. Kong is critical to outmaneuvering the cybernetic beast, powering up his Godzilla-scale axe with an atomic blast from the King of the Monsters himself and dismembering Mechagodzilla with a barrage of blows. Kong then tears off Mechagodzilla’s head with his own hands, putting an end to the machine’s reign of terror for now.
2
Wart Dogs
Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (2024)
With the Hollow Earth being his new home, Kong soon finds all sorts of new monstrous opponents in the dangerous ecosystem of kaiju. Needing to eat to live, Kong is shown hunting a pack of Wart Dogs, mᴀssive canine creatures with rat-like faces and nasty tempers. After provoking a whole group of these animals, Kong is able to use his superior intelligence to lead them into a variety of traps he set ahead of time.
The Wart Dogs fall to their deaths, are crushed, and get impaled by the variety of complex traps Kong is able to lead them to over the course of his hunt. When some of the survivors still threaten him, he manages to scare them away by tearing one of their comrade’s corpses in half over his head, only to gross himself out when the act leaves him covered in green blood. This sequence highlights just how intelligent and even humanlike the Monsterverse’s verison of Kong is.
1
Other Great Apes And The Skar King
Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (2024)
The biggest shocker of Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire is the revelation that there are others of Kong’s species still alive in the Hollow Earth. Sadly, Kong’s first interaction with his own species is not a friendly one, as he immediately gets in a fight with the followers of the insidious Skar King. Kong ends up knocking one of these other apes to his death in a tragic conflict, causing the juvenile ape Suko to lead him to Skar King’s lair. Several other apes later perish to a rock trap set by Kong triggered by Suko.
The best fight with another ape, however, is the final battle between Skar King, Shimo, Godzilla, and Kong himself. After the two free Shimo from her cruel master’s control, the cryogenic kaiju fires her powerful frost breath at Skar King, freezing him but leaving him alive, as indicated by his moving eyes. Kong finishes the job by smashing the simian tyrant to the ground, shattering his frozen form to pieces, making for perhaps the single greatest monster kill of his long movie career.
