Tall tales: the 20 best giants in film – ranked!

Not a first-person-shooter BFG, alas, but one of Steven Spielberg’s worst films, reducing Roald Dahl’s story to digital pap. Mo-cap Mark Rylance, whose cutesy ungrammatical babbling should have been left on the printed page, is the 24ft Big Friendly Giant who kidnaps an orphan girl, Sophie. Ugh. Big Creepy Giant, more like.

19. Jack the Giant Slayer (2013)

Nicholas Hoult plays the farmhand who forms an implausible alliance with a princess in a fairytale cluttered with extraneous characters. Bill Nighy plays half of a two-headed giant, but the actors are swamped by digital effects and anti-giant propaganda. The best bit is when a massive chef rolls an extraneous Ewan McGregor in pastry and puts him in an oven.

18. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012)

“Stone giants!” JRR Tolkien seemingly preferred dwarves to the big people, but Peter Jackson’s three-part rendering of his stand-alone children’s classic is briefly enlivened by stone colossuses hurling boulders at each other in a thunderstorm. Though one can’t help thinking how awesome a Ray Harryhausen version might have been.

17. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005)

Robbie Coltrane, at his least Cracker-esque, embodies lovable half-giant Rubeus Hagrid, Hogwarts groundskeeper, throughout the Potter saga, but in the standout fourth instalment we also meet Madame Maxime (Frances de la Tour), a gigantic headmistress whose academy is competing in the Triwizard Tournament. A giant love awaits.

16. The Amazing Colossal Man (1957)

An army colonel is accidentally exposed to a plutonium blast in Bert I Gordon’s low-budget B-movie. Instead of killing him, the radiation makes him grow to over 60ft tall. Unfortunately, it also drives him insane, and he stomps all over Las Vegas like a colicky baby in a makeshift nappy.

15. Gulliver’s Travels (1939)

The Jack Black version from 2010 is barely watchable, so try this Max Fleischer production from the animation studio that brought you Popeye. Gulliver is washed up on the shores of Lilliput, where he looms large over the tiny inhabitants. On the downside, it’s a musical, and you will never be able to scrub It’s a Hap-Hap-Happy Day from your brain.

14. Attack of the 50ft Woman (1958)

Best avoided by anyone allergic to rubbish special effects, this B-movie lives up to its iconic poster only in its final 10 minutes – but it’s such an infuriating account of an unfaithful husband gaslighting his wife that you look forward to her wreaking vengeance. Sure enough, alien radiation triggers a growth spurt and she goes on the rampage in a makeshift bikini.

13. Ulysses (1954)

Kirk Douglas plays the wily voyager in a Dino De Laurentiis/Carlo Ponti production, co-starring a stunning Silvana Mangano as both Circe and Penelope. Uncredited Mario Bava directed the scenes with the Cyclops (Italian wrestler Umberto Silvestri) during which Ulysses and his crew steal not just the giant’s sheep but also his cheese. Can you blame him for trying to eat the home invaders? Justice for Polyphemus!

12. Troll Hunter (2010)

André Øvredal made his solo directing debut with a found-footage account of students stumbling across a government conspiracy to conceal the existence of Norway’s national folk monster. Taking a cue from Theodor Kittelsen’s paintings, a wide range of trolls are depicted, the biggest being the 50-metre-tall Jötunn – an Old Norse word for giant.

11. Big Fish (2003)

Albert Finney tells his son porky pies about a colourful past full of witches and freaks, including a giant called Karl – a dignified performance by Matthew McGrory, who was 2.29 metres (7ft 6in) tall and holder of the Guinness World Record for longest toe. In my case, 100 minutes of yelling at Tim Burton’s exasperating whimsy are followed by a last half-hour of blubbing as the tall stories are revealed as true, sort of.

10. Monsters vs Aliens (2009)

Susan, voiced by Reese Witherspoon, is rejected by her fiance after she is hit by a meteorite and grows to gargantuan size. But when Earth is threatened by aliens, it’s up to her and fellow freaks (including an insect-headed boffin) to save the planet, in a lovely animated homage to 1950s sci-fi.

9. Hulk (2003)

“You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry.” Before Mark Ruffalo, the angst-ridden green giant was played by Eric Bana in Ang Lee’s live-action Greek tragedy wrapped in comic-book clothes. Marvel fans never fully embraced it, but is there another film in which Hulk hurls tanks around? Or fights a mutant killer poodle? I rest my case.

8. The Iron Giant (1999)

Gort from The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) is the obvious choice for your outstanding giant robot, but I’m picking the metal-munching alien in Brad Bird’s directorial debut, an animated anti-war fable set in 1950s Maine during the cold war. That gravelly robo-voice belongs to Vin Diesel! And, yes, this is probably the only film where he makes you cry.

7. Three Thousand Years of Longing (2022)

Idris Elba plays a pointy-eared djinn in George Miller’s daft but captivating romantic folly. Tilda Swinton polishes a bottle she buys in Istanbul and shazam! The tale-spinning, wish-granting djinn’s size varies from roof-raisingly gigantic to just very, very tall. His lower half is kingfisher blue and oddly indistinct, but he is probably the only giant in these rankings you, or indeed Tilda, might wish to get intimate with.

6. Fellini’s Casanova (1976)

Casanova (Donald Sutherland) is about to drown himself in a Cinecittà version of the Thames when he is distracted by a female giant, played by Sandra Elaine Allen (2.31 metres, or 7ft 7in). He follows her to a fair, where they arm wrestle, one of the many surreal episodes in Fellini’s exquisite, melancholy adaptation of the 18th-century libertine’s memoirs. Nino Rota contributes one of his most haunting scores.

5. The Odyssey (2026)

One of the most thrilling set-pieces in Christopher Nolan’s epic Homer adaptation is when Odysseus and his men are trapped in a cave by the 60ft Cyclops, played by Bill Irwin with a combination of animatronics, puppetry, on-set performance and a single sideways eye. Justice (at last) for Polyphemus!

4. The Green Knight (2021)

Sir Gawain (Dev Patel) has encounters both earthly and supernatural as he rides to meet the Green Knight’s challenge in David Lowery’s fantasy epic. He and a fox watch from a hill as ethereal giants drift through the landscape. Are the otherworldly entities real, or a consequence of swallowing some dubious berries?

3. The Thief of Bagdad (1940)

A posse of directors, including Michael Powell, bring Alexander Korda’s Arabian Nights fantasy to the screen. The special effects still look impressive, especially the towering genie (Rex Ingram in a red loincloth) who tries to crush child actor Sabu beneath his enormous foot. Check out those huge toenails!

2. The Princess Bride (1987)

French wrestler André the Giant (2.24 metres, or 7ft 4in) said his favourite thing about taking part in Rob Reiner’s postmodern fairytale was: “Nobody looks at me.” In other words, as Fezzik the rhymester, he was treated like an actor. He duly delivers cinema’s most moving and authentic performance by a real-life giant, no special effects necessary.

1. Jason and the Argonauts (1963)

Ray Harryhausen’s stop-motion bronze statue turning its head is one of the most awe-inspiring moments in film history, the acme of cinema giants, supplemented as it is by an epic Bernard Herrmann score. Knuckleheaded Hercules steals from the treasure chamber of the gods, so Talos creaks into life and flips the Argos upside down. Hard not to feel sorry for the big lug when Jason drains it of life-giving ichor; it was only doing its job. Justice for Talos!