10 Movies That Introduced Groundbreaking Special Effects Techniques

A Trip to the Moon is a 1902 science fiction film about a group of astronomers who go to the moon. 

Though a lot of the special effects and tools used in A Trip to the Moon would be considered basic today, they were groundbreaking and definitive at the time. The film uses tools such as dissolves, multiple exposures, or even the basic substitution splice or “stop trick.”

Dissolves are what you would expect, it is a transition between two scenes that fades from one into another. Multiple exposures is a film technique where you open a camera shutter more than once to expose the film to multiple images. 

Lastly, the “stop trick” is when a director poses actors in the middle of an action, stops rolling the scene, and then changes positioning or something from the image before, starting to shoot again, to surprise the audience. 

Though these tools are simple editing skills used all the time today, A Trip to the Moon normalized these tools, changing the game of film editing and special effects in Hollywood. 

King Kong follows a film crew that travels to a tropical island for a shoot, where they capture a massive, deadly ape and bring it back to New York City. 

King Kong was very much ahead of the curve when it comes to special effects, bringing to life the colossal ape. Thanks to the impressive work of animator Willis H. O’Brien, combined with top-notch employment of matte painting, miniatures and especially rear projection, King Kong was able to succeed. 

What King Kong is best known for masterfully using is stop-motion animation. This technique  is employed in sequences like the battle between Kong and the Tyrannosaurus Rex of Skull Island. This scene took seven weeks of backbreaking stop-motion work to film but altered the course of special effects. 

The Wizard of Oz is the 1939 classic film starring Judy Garland. The film follows Dorothy and her dog Toto, who are swept away in a tornado to the magical land of Oz. They then journey to the city center with new friends along the way, to meet the powerful Wizard of Oz to return home to Kansas. 

The Wizard of Oz was a masterpiece in special effects when it was made. For example, to depict a massive, chaotic, all encompassing tornado, 35 feet of muslin cloth wrapped around a steel gantry and sprayed with dirt via compressed air hoses was used. 

At another moment, we see Dorothy step from black and white to the colorful land of Oz. This is a classic example of what is known as the “Texas Switch.” This is done by painting the interior of a room entirely black and white and using a black-and-white painted body double for Judy Garland. The black and white girl is seen only from behind, and as she exits the frame to enter the colorful land of Oz, she is replaced by Garland stepping into the frame.

It is this switch from black and white to color film that has made The Wizard of Oz one of the definitive movies that introduced groundbreaking special effects. 

Gojira, also known as the original Godzilla, is about a dinosaur-like monster, awoken from undersea by an atomic bomb testing, and then ravages the city of Tokyo. 

Though the film does not have one specific special effect that sets it apart, Godzilla is known for the way it fuses many elements together such as the man in the suit, the miniature sets, the reaction shots, and forced perspective citizenry running for their lives. Combining these elements brought the film to life. 

The iconic Steven Spielberg movie Jaws is another one of the movies that introduced groundbreaking special effects. The film is about a beach town off of Cape Cod where a killer shark unleashes chaos and terror. 

In the original film, a mechanical shark was used, and it felt quite realistic. It is surrounding this mechanical shark that a bunch of problems and havoc arose, though. However, it is the mechanical shark that is one of the most memorable aquatic animals in film history and not the many CGI sharks to come. 

Read More: 10 Best Steven Spielberg Movies and Where to Stream Them 

Star Wars: A New Hope is the original installment of the legendary Star Wars franchise. The film follows Luke Skywalker as he joins forces with a Jedi Knight, a pilot, a Wookie, and two droids to not only save the galaxy from the battle station trying to destroy the Empire and save Princess Leia from Darth Vader. 

George Lucas and the cutting edge technicians at Industrial Light and Magic who worked on Star Wars: A New Hope, raised the bar for what special effects could look like, completely altering the film industry forever. 

Some of these special effects include the use of matte paintings to bring alien worlds and starships to life, and its sets depicting aspects of the film like starship interiors, living quarters, and alien dive bars. 

It is the miniature sets though, with their impressive, detailed, and textured buildings and starships, that bring the film to life and make it one of the best movies that introduced groundbreaking special effects. 

Read More: Ranking the Star Wars Movies Streaming on Disney+

Alien is a 1979 science fiction space movie about the crew of a commercial spacecraft that encounters deadly aliens. 

Alien is known for its complete rejection of the spic-and-span nuclear age sci-fi aesthetic, something audiences hadn’t really seen much of at the time. However, this was an immensely influential choice in terms of production and set design. 

The film serves a scathing critique of corporate America, as each hatch of the rusted door screeches open, it displays to audiences how little care corporations have for its starship crew and the exploitation of these workers. 

Jurassic Park is another one of the classic Steven Spielberg movies that introduced groundbreaking special effects. The film follows a paleontologist who is tasked with protecting a couple of kids at a theme park on an island in Central America when a power failure causes the park’s cloned dinosaurs to run loose on the island. 

Jurassic Park was a huge leap forward in cinematic special effects in both the computer-generated and practical effects camps. 

The computer-generated dinosaurs were absolutely groundbreaking and attracted the most attention. Audiences had never seen such a realistic depiction of these creatures we have never laid eyes on. 

The animatronics were also absolutely stunning, bringing to life full-scale models of some of the most massive, mysterious, and awe-inspiring creatures to have ever walked the earth. Jurassic Park is another one of the films that altered the course of the film industry forever with its special effects. 

Related: Where Was Jurassic Park Filmed? 

The Matrix is a 1999 science fiction, dystopian film about a hacker named Neo who learns about The Matrix, a simulated reality that intelligent machines have created to distract humans. 

The Matrix is a definitive movie for the use of CGI (computer-generated imagery). Though the film has numerous memorable action sequences, the film extends its visual effects influence far beyond some of its most famous sequences. 

The innovative ways that CGI was incorporated into action sequences and world-building altered the course of the use of CGI because it demonstrated what was possible when using special effects. 

Avatar follows a U.S. marine named Jake Sully who becomes involved in a program where human colonizers exploit an alien species in a world called Pandora.

Avatar is not only the most commercially successful film of all time, grossing $2.9 billion, but it is also probably the most groundbreaking film in the history of special effects. 

The film used a combination of CGI and practical effects to create the stunning, fantastical world of Pandora. 

Avatar is not only one of the movies that introduced groundbreaking special effects, but it became the new template for what a truly massive, beautiful, CGI spectacle could look like, raising the bar for special effects forever.