Shin Godzilla (2016)

In 2016, the Japan Coast Guard investigates an abandoned yacht in Tokyo Bay, its boat is destroyed, and the Tokyo Bay Aqua-Line is flooded with blood. After seeing a viral video of the incident online, Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Rando Yaguchi believes it was caused by a living creature, which is confirmed as news reports reveal a giant tail emerging from the bay. Shortly thereafter, the creature moves inland, crawling through the Kamata district and the Shinagawa area of Tokyo, leaving a path of death and destruction during a disorganized and chaotic evacuation. The creature quickly evolves into a bipedal form but overheats and returns to the sea.

The government officials focus on military strategy and civilian safety; Yaguchi is put in charge of a task force researching the creature. With high radiation readings from the creature's path, the task force realizes that it is energized by nuclear fission. The U.S. sends a special envoy, Kayoco Anne Patterson, who reveals that Goro Maki, a disgraced, anti-nuclear zoology professor, studied mutations caused by radioactive contamination, predicting the appearance of the creature. Maki was disbelieved by both American and Japanese scientific circles. The U.S. then prevented him from making his conclusions public. The abandoned yacht in Tokyo Bay belonged to Maki, who left his research notes, jumbled into a code, on the boat before disappearing.

Goro Maki named the monster "Gojira" before his death, and after investigation, Gojira reappears in his fourth form, twice as large as his original size, making landfall at Kamakura. The Japan Self-Defense Forces mobilize but prove ineffective as Gojira breaks through their defenses into Tokyo. The U.S. intervenes with a massively destructive airstrike plan, prompting the evacuation of civilians and government personnel. Gojira is wounded with Massive Ordinance Penetrator "bunker-buster" bombs but responds with destructive atomic rays fired from his mouth and dorsal plates, destroying a helicopter carrying the prime minister, along with top government officials and incinerating large swaths of Tokyo. Depleted of his energy, Gojira shuts down and goes into hibernation.

Yaguchi's team discovers that Gojira's plates and blood work as a cooling system, theorizing that it could use a coagulating agent to freeze Gojira. Analyzing tissue samples, it is discovered that Gojira is an ever-evolving creature, being capable of reproducing asexually. The United Nations, aware of this, informs Japan that thermonuclear weapons will be used against Gojira should the Japanese fail to subdue him in a few days; evacuations are ordered in multiple prefectures in preparation. Unwilling to see nuclear weapons detonated in Japan again, Patterson uses her political connections to buy time for Yaguchi's team, in which the interim government has little faith.

Yaguchi's team manages to decipher Goro Maki's encoded research using origami. The team adjusts its plan and procures the means to conduct its deep-freeze plan with international support. Hours before the planned nuclear attack, Japan enacts the deep-freeze plan. Gojira is provoked into expending its atomic breath and energy against Predator and Reaper drones. The team then detonates nearby buildings and sends unmanned trains loaded with explosives toward Gojira's feet, subduing it, and enabling tankers full of coagulant to inject it into Gojira's mouth. Many are killed, but Gojira is frozen solid.

In the aftermath, scientists discover that Gojira's isotope has a half-life of 20 days, and that Tokyo can soon be rebuilt. The international community agrees to cancel the nuclear attack on condition that, in the event of Gojira's reawakening, an immediate thermonuclear strike will be executed. An unknown amount of time appears to have passed. The ending shot closes up on Gojira 's tail. Up close, humanoid creatures appear frozen in the process of emerging, as the monster realised the power of humanity.