King Kong is a 1933 American monster film co-directed by Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack. The film tells of a gigantic island-dwelling gorilla called Kong who falls in love with a young woman and dies in an attempt to protect her from what he perceives as danger. King Kong is notable for its stop-motion animation and its musical score. In 1991, the film was deemed "culturally, historically and aesthetically significant" by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry. King Kong launched the "giant beast" subgenre of science-fiction, inspiring the 1950's atomic mutant creature features and the Japanese giant movie monsters like Godzilla, Gamera, Rodan, etc.