King Kong

King Kong (1933) is the adventure-horror classic you can watch online on iFILM. Directed by Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack, the film stars Robert Armstrong, Fay Wray and Bruce Cabot. A showman filmmaker drags his crew to a remote island and finds something the locals have feared for generations.

Carl Denham doesn't see a monster — he sees box office gold. Kong is chained and shipped across the Atlantic to dazzle Broadway crowds. It goes wrong fast. The giant ape breaks free on the streets of Manhattan, and no amount of military firepower seems equal to the task. Only one thing holds any power over the beast at all, and it isn't a weapon.

Shot with stop-motion puppets, optical compositing and meticulous miniature sets, the film set the template for every creature feature that followed. Nearly a century later it still moves — partly because the monster turns out to be the most sympathetic character on screen. Watch King Kong (1933) in full online on iFILM.