Introduction: From even its earliest days, films have used visual magic ("smoke and mirrors") to produce illusions and trick effects that have startled audiences. In fact, the phenomenon of persistence of vision is the reason why the human eye sees individual frames of a movie as smooth, flowing action when projected.

Cel animation, scale modeling, claymation, digital compositing, animatronics, use of prosthetic makeup, morphing, and modern computer-generated or computer graphics imagery (CGI) are just some of the more modern techniques that are widely used for creating incredible special or visual effects.

(See this site's film terms glossary for definitions and examples, the History of Film by Decade, and an extensive timeline of other Milestones and Turning Points in Film History.)

Note: The films that are marked with a yellow star are the films that "The Greatest Films" site has selected as the 100 Greatest Films.

Revolutionary computer effects made it the Oscar winner for Best Achievement in Visual Effects, defeating the other nominee Apollo 13 (1995); the lips of animals moved in sync with speech so it looked like they were really talking.

Jumanji (1995)

ILM created the first computer-generated photo-realistic hair and fur for the digital lion and monkeys in this film. This movie also featured a stampede scene with dozens of elephants, rhinos, zebras and pelicans - all computer-generated.

Waterworld (1995)

First realistic CG water.

Independence Day (1996)

This blockbuster disaster film was the winner in the Academy Award race for Best Achievement in Visual Effects (defeating Twister (1996) and Dragonheart (1996)). A remake, unofficially, of the original The War of the Worlds (1953), this world doomsday film displayed a monstrous, asteroid-sized UFO that entered Earth's atmosphere, and a spectacular, well-publicized scene of the destruction of the White House.

Twister (1996)

This was a phenomenal special-effects film with incredible atmospheric FX (digital tornadoes, such as the film's 200 foot tower of wind) produced by ILM, including many hand-held camera shots taken through windshields at composited CGI animated tornadoes. Although nominated for the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects, along with Dragonheart (1996), both were defeated by Independence Day (1996).

Contact (1997)

Robert Zemeckis' film contained, reportedly, the longest single digital effects shot ever created - the opening shot (Powers of Ten). It began with an image of the Earth, and then the camera slowly pulled back to reveal the Moon, the rest of the solar system, various layers of nebula and stellar debris, and the Milky Way. The shot moved deeper into space to reveal hundreds of other galaxies...and then pulled back to reveal that the light from all of these stars was actually the highlight in a young girl's eye.

Conceiving Ada (1997)

First 2D all-CGI backgrounds (virtual sets) with live actors. The filmmakers used a new bluescreen filming process in which a number of photographs, taken in Victorian bed and breakfasts in the San Francisco Bay area, were placed into the main protagonist's world as backgrounds - they were inserted into the film in real time, so that the actors could see their interactions with the background on set.

The Fifth Element (1997)

There were an extra-ordinary amount of individual FXs in this film, including a futuristic New York City skyline, a regeneration sequence during the creation of Leeloo (Mila Jovovich) in which a sophisticated machine built her skeleton, and strapped muscle tissue onto the bones, and its most celebrated sequence - the cab chase with flying cars. The cars were created both as motion-control models and CGI versions. The immense 2000 foot long pleasure cruiser - the Fhlostin Paradise - was a motion-control model.

[The film also referenced Heavy Metal (1981).]

Starship Troopers (1997)

An army of humans were locked in visceral, gory combat against a frightening array of thousands of giant alien bugs. This was the first film to feature a large-scale CGI battle.