King Kong (1933) reviews

The Fuzzy Mushroom take on King Kong

By Fuzzy Mushroom · Updated 11 November 2026 · The Pros 96 · The Punters 91 · Spore Score 95 · How we write our takes

Why The Pros rate it so highly

King Kong is more than ninety years old, and both camps still treat it with respect. The Pros give it 96, The Punters 91, and the Spore Score is 95. The 5-point gap is unusual in that it runs towards the critics: film historians value it as a landmark, while some modern viewers, used to computer effects, find the stop-motion and acting of the early sound era harder going.

What it does well

Filmmaker Carl Denham (Robert Armstrong) sails to an uncharted island to shoot a picture, bringing out-of-work actress Ann Darrow (Fay Wray). On Skull Island the locals kidnap Ann as an offering to Kong, a giant ape, and the crew, led by first mate Jack Driscoll (Bruce Cabot), give chase through a jungle full of dinosaurs. Denham captures Kong and puts him on show in New York. It does not end well.

Willis O'Brien's stop-motion animation gives Kong real personality: curious, tender with Ann, savage with everything else. The fight with the tyrannosaurus is still exciting, and the climb up the Empire State Building, with biplanes circling, is one of cinema's defining images. Max Steiner's score was among the first big orchestral scores written for a sound film.

Where people push back

The film reflects its time. The depiction of Skull Island's inhabitants is crude and racist, and Wray's role is mostly to scream. The acting is stagey by modern standards and the first act takes a while to get going.

Context

Directed by Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack, King Kong opened in 1933, in the depths of the Depression, and was a huge hit for RKO. It has been remade and rebooted many times since, most recently in the Monsterverse films.

The Fuzzy Mushroom verdict

Must-see, with a Spore Score of 95. Watch it with its age in mind and it is still astonishing: the original monster movie, and still one of the most moving.