Ever since he first broke onto the silver screen in 1933, King Kong has been one of the most iconic figures in cinema. The image of Kong climbing the Empire State Building and swatting at passing fighter planes has become synonymous with the arrival of the Golden Age of Hollywood, and has carried the character through every era of film, right into modern movie theaters.

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Since his origin, Kong has appeared in 7 follow-up movies of varying quality, with another on the way in 2024, all of which further established the mythos of the legendary giant ape. While King Kong has been represented as having a fluctuating degree of strength throughout his history, one surefire way of confirming which iteration of Kong is the strongest is by tallying up and analyzing his kill count in each film.

Updated on May 7th, 2024, by Evan Regan: There's a new King Kong movie on the market! In this case, it's a new Monsterverse movie, Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire. A continuation of the "story" from Godzilla vs Kong, this latest movies features Kong at his most human and, in many ways, his most vulnerable. However, he's still Kong, and therefore he's still absurdly powerful. With that in mind, the latest version of Kong has been given a place on this list with this latest update, showing where he ranks among the all time great King Kongs of cinema history.

9 King Kong Escapes (1967)

Kill Count: 7

• People Killed: 4
• Dinosaurs/Monsters Killed: 2
• Robots/Mechs Killed: 1

The second film produced by the Toho Company as part of their Godzilla series, King Kong Escapes features a showdown between Kong and the scientifically-engineered Mechani-Kong.

The enigmatic Dr. Who (no, not that one) has developed Mechani-Kong to mine for the valuable Element X at the North Pole. However, the Doctor soon kidnaps King Kong from his home, hypnotizes him, and brings him to the North Pole to further the same goal. Dr. Who's plan is undone by Kong's love for a human woman, Lt. Susan Watson, a nod to Ann Darrow from the 1933 film.

In the end, Kong and Mechani-Kong battle it out at the base of Tokyo Tower. Kong defeats his mechanical rival, and kills Dr. Who and his henchmen, before swimming back to his island home. While Mechani-Kong is no slouch, this version of King Kong is a relative pacifist compared to his other incarnations.

8 King Kong Lives (1986)

Kill Count: 27

• People Killed: 27

King Kong Lives is the sequel to the 1976 remake of the original film. It was also the last time King Kong was portrayed by a human in an ape suit, with every iteration of the character that followed being 100% CGI.

Seemingly killed after scaling the Empire State Building in the previous film, King Kong is revealed to have been revived and kept in a coma for 10 years. The revival required a blood transfusion, and so an expedition set out to capture "Lady Kong," whose blood is used to revive the dead King Kong, along with an artificial heart transplant.

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Naturally, since no one thought any of this was a bad idea, King Kong and Lady Kong escape. It is revealed upon her re-capture that Lady Kong is pregnant with Kong's child. Kong, his artificial heart slowly giving out, rescues his mate and goes on a rampage, slaughtering most of the military squadrons tasked with his containment. Then, slowly dying, Kong lives just long enough to see the birth of his infant son. While his rampage through the military was certainly a show of strength, it pales in comparison to the other iterations of Kong.

7 King Kong Vs. Godzilla (1962)

Kill Count: 44

• People Killed: 43
• Dinosaurs/Monsters Killed: 1

While King Kong vs. Godzilla's kill count is a large jump from the previous entry on this list, this first King Kong film from the Toho Company is almost exclusively focused on Godzilla, with King Kong primarily being an afterthought, used mainly as a deterrent to the original kaiju.

Kong's susceptibility to Farolacton juice is his undoing on several occasions. First, Kong kills a giant octopus that is in search of the juice, then drinks a bunch of the stuff himself, causing him to fall asleep. After his sleeping form is captured, Kong breaks free and runs amok in Japan, only for Godzilla to stop him in his tracks with a heat blast. Later, Kong, seemingly powered by electricity, scales the National Diet Building in Tokyo, before capsules of vaporized Farolacton juice put him down once again.

Eventually, Kong and Godzilla are turned loose on each other in the hopes that their battle will prevent them both from terrorizing Japan. This is where Kong does the most damage, tossing the passengers and conductor of a train that Godzilla derails. After both beasts go tumbling into the ocean and have a brief bout underwater, Kong is the only beast to resurface, implying that he killed Godzilla. However, subsequent Godzilla movies confirm that to be untrue.

6 King Kong (1976)

Kill Count: 35

• People Killed: 34
• Dinosaurs/Monsters Killed: 1

Kong's kill count in the 1976 King Kong, the first American Kong film in 43 years, may be lower than what he managed in King Kong vs. Godzilla, but it's how he does the killing that elevates this version of the mighty ape.

This retelling of the 1933 classic tells an almost identical story beat-for-beat, although it's wrapped in anti-oil themes that give it a bit more poignancy in the modern era. The film follows an expedition to a previously undiscovered island in the Indian Ocean, where a tribe of indigenous people worship a God named Kong. Kong is captured, falls in love, is taken back to America, breaks loose, causes destruction, and is eventually killed. Nothing new here.

However, the level of destruction wrought by Kong is far more visceral in this retelling. On top of snapping the jaws of a giant python in classic Kong fashion, he also manages to stomp people to death, toss them out of cars and trains, blow them up, and smash them into the sides of buildings, not to mention sending four members of the original expedition falling to their deaths by tipping them off a giant log.

5 King Kong (1933)

Kill Count: 53

• People Killed: 50
• Dinosaurs/Monsters Killed: 3

For a film made in the 1930s, the original version of King Kong depicts the giant ape in a shockingly violent manner. The kill count speaks for itself, but the original Kong was a beast that should never have been trifled with.

The story is well known by this point and has been covered in the summary for the 1976 remake. Subtract the anti-oil themes, and that's the plot of this movie. What's different here is just how brutal Kong is.

1933's Kong kills 18 people before he's even captured and taken from Skull Island, with many of them being members of the indigenous tribe who worshiped him. Add to that the three dinosaurs whose jaws Kong snaps in half, leading to his iconic kills in nearly every adaptation that followed. Then there's New York. After Kong escapes, his rampage results in the deaths of 29 civilians, many of whom are trapped on an elevated train that Kong crushes. Once he scales the Empire State Building, the iconic showdown that follows sees Kong destroy two fighter planes before they're eventually able to shoot the great ape down.

4 Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire (2024)

Kill Count: 24

• Dinosaurs/Monsters Killed: 24

The latest entry in the "Monsterverse," Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, gives viewers a version of King Kong that is more relatable than ever before. For all intents and purposes, Kong is a Marvel superhero in this movie, from his human-like comedic reactions to his vastly-expanded emotional range, this is as empathetic a King Kong as there has ever been. That isn't necessarily a good thing, because, as this movie's Kong kill count suggests, it really tones down the strength of the character to make him more relatable (Godzilla, meanwhile, is absolutely merciless, but this list isn't about him).

Kong is lonely in Hollow Earth, and he has a toothache. In seeking a remedy for his toothache (seriously, this is the plot), Kong travels to the surface, unwittingly alerting Godzilla to his presence and setting in motion the events that open a path leading deep under Hollow Earth, to a place where the Great Apes were banished thousands of years ago. There, Kong meets Shar King, the defacto ruler of the Great Apes who attempted to lead a revolution on the surface world millennia ago before he got himself and his kind exiled (by Godzilla, no less) to a prison beneath Hollow Earth. Shar King has been plotting his revenge ever since.

The thing that stands out most about this version of Kong is that he doesn't kill a single human, ever. He kills some dog-like monsters, he kills a few apes, and he very nearly kills Godzilla, which is an impressive enough body of work to rank him at this spot high on the list, but Kong is far from ruthless in this film. It's not even Kong who eventually kills Shar King. It's the combined efforts of Kong, Suko (aka. Baby Kong, who King Kong ferries around throughout the film like a hairier Kratos), Mothra, and Shimo, the kaiju (or Titan) that Shar King had enslaved. Despite all this, the humans give King Kong a full-on power glove in this movie. A power glove easily trumps the axe he was using in the previous Monsterverse movie, so how weak can Kong really be with that thing on?

3 Kong: Skull Island (2017)

Kill Count: 50

• People Killed: 46
• Dinosaurs/Monsters Killed: 4

Acting as both a loose retelling of the original film and an introduction of King Kong to the Monsterverse,Kong: Skull Island introduced audiences to one of the toughest versions of Kong to date.

Set in 1973, an American military operation to the newly discovered Skull Island goes awry when the soldiers are attacked by a giant ape. Naturally, the ape is Kong, and he's none too fond of intruders. Skull Island is Kong's ancestral home, and the ape's family have all been killed by creatures called Skullcrawlers, leaving Kong as the last surviving member of his race.

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Naturally, the soldiers initially try to kill Kong, but those plans go awry, and Kong manages to kill 44 soldiers before they retreat. Eventually, the real threat, a beast known as the Skull Devil, reveals itself. Kong, with the help of the remaining soldiers, kills and brutally eviscerates the Skull Devil, and with their newfound trust, Kong allows the rest of the soldiers to leave his island in peace. It's the Skull Devil kill that elevates this Kong above the others, as before this, no other Kong had killed a beast so formidable.

2 Godzilla Vs. Kong (2021)

Kill Count: 41

• People Killed: 12
• Dinosaurs/Monsters Killed: 28
• Robots/Mechs Killed: 1

While amassing a lower kill count than some of his previous entries, it's really the final kill of the movie that cements this version of Kong as one of the strongest of all time. While he does battle with Godzilla throughout the movie, the two eventually team up against a much greater threat.

That threat is MechaGodzilla, a cybernetic version of Godzilla telepathically controlled by Ren Serizawa via neural pathways in King Ghidorah's decapitated head. After the final battle between Godzilla and Kong leaves Kong lying defeated and near death, he is revived by the detonation of a HEAV as a pseudo-defibrillator. Kong and Godzilla team up, and eventually, Kong decapitates MechaGodzilla, saving Tokyo and, presumably, the world.

Several elements make this one of the strongest Kong's in the character's history. For one, defeating MechaGodzilla is arguably the single greatest accomplishment by any version of King Kong ever. Even though he had Godzilla's help, Kong's victory is a massive triumph. Second, Kong uses a freaking ax forged specifically for the King of the Apes, an ax that can absorb Godzilla's heat rays and puncture his scales. King Kong was already strong, but now he's carrying a weapon.

1 King Kong (2005)

Kill Count: 52

• People Killed: 36
• Dinosaurs/Monsters Killed: 16

Peter Jackson's remake of the original 1933 film has become the iconic King Kong depiction for modern audiences. This version of Kong is the biggest and strongest iteration ever put on film. Not only that, but before King Kong even shows up, Jackson's Skull Island is shown to be by far the most dangerous version of Kong's homeland.

2005's King Kong features the all-too-familiar crew of intrepid expeditionists setting out to explore the recently discovered Skull Island in the 1930s. There, of course, they find Kong. Not only that, they find dinosaurs, giant worms, and so much more.

Long story short, Kong slaughters almost all of them, human and beast alike. He kills an entire V-Rex family, a baker's dozen of giant bats, and, of course, lots and lots of humans. Despite the extreme violence Kong portrays, he is also the most humanized version of Kong ever put on screen, with Andy Serkis' masterful motion capture performance driving the film forward (and leading to his future role as Caesar in the modern Planet of the Apes trilogy). All in all, this version of King Kong is the most brutal, most powerful, and most relatable version of the character ever made.

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