10 Giant Robot Movies Like Pacific Rim To Watch Before Sydney Sweeney’s Gundam

Published Oct 4, 2026, 9:45 AM EDT

Karlis has been obsessing over television and movie news since he first learned how to read. He has worked in tech, as a musician, and in journalism with a well-rounded knowledge base of pop-culture throughout the eras. He claims that he has memorized the entire Internet Movie Database, and to date no one has been able to refute this.
Holding a Bachelor's Degree in Religion and Culture from Wilfrid Laurier University, Karlis loves to examine the intersections of popular science-fiction and culture. His latest novel MASS. is available now on Amazon and examines a world where obesity has become a federal crime.

Sydney Sweeney's upcoming Gundam movie is going to be fantastic, but these ten giant robot movies are the perfect films to watch before its 2027 release. The upcoming epic film is set to star Sweeney and Noah Centineo in a live-action adaptation of the popular Japanese series that began all the way back in 1979.

Sydney Sweeney's Gundam movie is a huge project for Netflix. The original series was revolutionary for stories about giant robots, reassessing their powerful potential and giving them a realistic grounding as military weapons. This began with Yoshiyuki Tomino's original series, Mobile Suit Gundam, which was quickly followed by countless spinoffs and sequels.

There are multiple giant robot movies in the works, with Gundam having completed its filming this past summer. The other giant robot project from another popular streamer, Prime Video, is next year's Voltron, which has been in post-production since wrapping filming in 2025. That film is set to star Henry Cavill and Sterling K. Brown.

Still, there is no such thing as too many movies about giant robots. The scale of such stories, rendered in powerful, state-of-the-art special effects, has made for several of the most exciting and special cinematic experiences through the years. While waiting for next year's big movies about these enormous machines, these ten films are ideal watches.

Evangelion: 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone

Neon Genesis Evangelion and its subsequent film, The End of Evangelion, are an essential watch. However, as a quicker entry point to the series, Evangelion: 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone, the first film in the animated Rebuild of Evangelion remake series, is a fantastic view for new audiences.

Rendered in striking, contemporary animation, the Rebuild films are beautiful, while also giving a contemporary update on the original material. Still filled with raw emotion and heavy philosophical ideas, this first film does a great job of making the complex material its most accessible.

While some of the quiet philosophy of the original series is replaced by visual splendor in the Rebuild films, including this one, they still provide a fantastic story of a young boy forced to pilot an enormous robot in order to save humanity, and deserve to be seen.

Robot Jox

Robot Jox is far from perfect, but it is a fantastically entertaining movie with some excellent robot action. The film is set in the future where, following a nuclear apocalypse, humankind's global conflicts are fought between giant robots, piloted by the titular robot jox.

Often cheesy and over the top, the film is still a genuinely entertaining experience, and did a great job with updating the visuals of the popular genre from animation into live action with a decent eye for realism.

Robot Jox has not held up perfectly, but its influence on movies like Transformers is still evident. It remains a cult classic, and an especially satisfying and entertaining late-night watch.

The Mysterians

The 1957 film The Mysterians is an incredibly exciting alien invasion movie from Godzilla director Ishiro Honda. The film has a great deal in common with other Toho kaiju films, depicting giant aliens coming from space and using a mech called MOGUERA in an attempt to overthrow Earth.

The film is beautifully rendered, and taps into some great themes around global cooperation against an enormous existential threat. The use of the MOGUERA mech throughout the film provided significant influence on stories like the original Gundam.

Holding some great ideas about the threat of nuclear war, but wrapping them up in an enormously entertaining package, The Mysterians remains a must-see.

Transformers One

A devastatingly underseen animated feature, Transformers One is arguably the best adaptation of the Hasbro media franchise since it began in 1984. Despite being based on toys, Transformers has crafted some surprisingly deep characters throughout its historic run, and this film really gives them time to shine.

Optimus Prime and Megatron are at the heart of this, and the origin of their story is told here in a striking and refreshing way. With new voice performances at its core, and brilliant animation, this version of the iconic characters chronicles the origins of Orion Pax and D-16 incredibly well.

Surprisingly emotional and deep, Transformers One provides one of the most humanizing looks at giant robots ever seen on screen, and remains an essential watch.

Sky Captain And The World Of Tomorrow

A visually stunning achievement from director Kerry Conran, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow remains an enormously underrated achievement in science fiction storytelling. Drawing from old adventure serials from the 1930s and 40s, the film embraces an unusual style to fanastic effect.

The opening of the film sees its hero, the titular Sky Captain, taking on Dr. Totenkopf's overwhelming army of giant robots. This scene immediately sets an incredible scale for the film, and clearly wears its influences on its sleeve, including The Mechanical Monsters, a 1941 Superman serial.

Full of powerful images, Sky Captain's use of giant robots is only the start of a truly unique and genuinely thrilling movie experience.

Real Steel

Shawn Levy's best sci-fi movie remains the 2011 Hugh Jackman-starring Real Steel. Based on a story by Richard Matheson, the film depicts a future world where boxing occurs between robots rather than humans.

The effects are great, but the real core of the film is its human story. Alongside great sports drama and robot action, the heart of the film comes from Charlie Kenton, played by Jackman, as he works to become a better father to his son and to repair their fractured relationship.

A beautiful film with great appeal for all ages, this refreshing look at giant robots remains one of the best movies of the 2010s.

Pacific Rim

While there are many movies like Pacific Rim, few are as adept at constructing an enormous science fiction that is so believable. This explosive Guillermo del Toro film depicts a world ravaged by kaiju that must be fought back against by a human military and their incredible technology.

This results in Jaegers, enormous robots that are operated by two pilots who share a neural link. The film uses this to examine some great human drama, in addition to showing off some beautiful visuals as fantastic combat is waged against terrifying monsters.

The film is one of the best realizations of a Gundam-like story on the big screen to date, and features excellent performances by Charlie Hunnam, Idris Elba, and many others.

The Iron Giant

Before moving over to Pixar and making the fantastic The Incredibles and Ratatouille, director Brad Bird made his feature directorial debut with the incredible 1999 Warner Bros. film The Iron Giant.

A period story set in 1957, the movie chronicles the friendship between a young boy named Hogarth and an enormous alien robot that fell down to Earth. Throughout this, the two must evade pursuit by the U.S. military, which believes the robot to be a foreign threat.

This animated classic used Cold War tensions to tell a fantastic story about deep friendship and choosing one's path in life. Rendered in stunning 2D animation, this 1990s family movie remains one of the best and most emotional giant robot stories that has ever been put to screen.

Godzilla Vs. Kong

Image via MovieStillsDB

Arguably the best American kaiju film, Godzilla vs. Kong is a fantastic and enormous culmination of the Monsterverse, pitting the two famous foes against one another. The effects are stunning, and the balance between human and monster focus is perfectly handled by director Adam Wingard.

Where this anime-like action film fits into this list, however, comes toward the end. After Kong and Godzilla fight, they are forced to reconcile their differences in order to take on the much larger threat of the enormous robot Mechagodzilla.

With great action and powerful visuals, Godzilla vs. Kong is a fantastic and enormous film that genuinely lives up to the powerful premise promised by its title.

Bumblebee

Transformers is likely the strongest American franchise about giant robots, and as a result, deserves a second entry on this list. Notably different from the animated entry noted earlier, Travis Knight's Bumblebee is the best live-action Transformers film, and taps into the franchise's 1980s origins.

Crafted with a strong female lead at its core, Hailee Steinfeld's Charlie, the film breaks away from the military action thrillers that Michael Bay directed to tell a smaller, more character-focused story. In this, it often resembles 1980s classics like E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial.

There are quite a few great giant robot movies to watch while waiting for Sydney Sweeney's new Gundam movie, and many of them are surprisingly good. Hopefully her upcoming entry to the genre will live up to the excellent legacy that has already been set with films like Bumblebee.