100 Years of Movie Visual SFX (Special Effects) in 5 Minutes

Written by Martin Dolan

100 years of amazing movie visual special effects from early silent black & white through to sci-fi, fantasy and the latest greats.

This visual feast was originally intended for educational use as an introduction to a classroom lecture.

It Features:

1900 - The Enchanted Drawing
1903 - The Great Train Robbery
1923 - The Ten Commandments (Silent)
1927 - Sunrise
1933 - King Kong
1939 - The Wizard of Oz
1940 - The Thief of Baghdad
1954 - 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
1956 - Forbidden Planet
1963 - Jason and the Argonauts
1964 - Mary Poppins
1977 - Star Wars
1982 - Tron
1985 - Back to the Future
1988 - Who Framed Roger Rabbit
1989 - The Abyss
1991 - Terminator 2: Judgment Day
1992 - The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles
1993 - Jurassic Park
2004 - Spider-Man 2
2005 - King Kong
2006 - Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
2007 - Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End
2007 - The Golden Compass
2008 - The Spiderwick Chronicles
2008 - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Well, actually it's around 110 years, but who's counting!

The missing milestones would be The Matrix, and then add Avitar at the end, and you are good to go!

Thanks to bengraphics for putting this together!

The music track is "Rods and Cones" by the Blue Man Group, album "Audio"

[via Youtube via gizmodo]

Tags: Movies Trailer Video CGI DIY Filmmaking News Technology Terminator Star Wars

Comments (22)

22 Thursday, 10 June 2010 17:38

VItaliy

Found your site through Stumbleupon, loved the video even though it wasn't a blockbuster, which I doubt you originally anticipated anyway. Thanks for making it, if you did make it of course, went a head with a thumbs up on with Stumbleupn and shared it with others on Facebook, I know they'll enjoy it as well.

21 Tuesday, 06 April 2010 15:07

Dylan

Am I the only one that can't tell what the effect is in The Great Train Robbery?

20 Tuesday, 30 March 2010 21:45

B0B

Sweet video! Thanks

Also had a look around the rest of the site man, love your sculptures. It's people like you who make scifi movies great with the imagination!

19 Tuesday, 30 March 2010 03:29

Aabid Surti

Though vital touches are missing, its awesome.

18 Sunday, 28 March 2010 05:44

Auntie Hosebag

Very well done. Of course there are all kinds of other things that could be here, but those who would dis the missing are always welcome to provide their own clip(s), yes? Not so many do.

Sunday, 28 March 2010 21:53

Martin Dolan

Well said my friend... well said... Wink

17 Friday, 20 November 2009 11:06

Chris

Yeah, I'm just going to throw some out there:

-A Trip to the Moon (1902)
-Metropolis (1927)
-2001 A Space Odyssey (1968)
-Blade Runner (1982)
-The Matrix (1999)
-Sin City (2005)
-The Fountain (2006)

I'm not crazy about The Matrix (at all) but it definitely belongs on the list. I think most of these were already mentioned but they're really no-brainers. I would also include The Fall (2006), but that's more my personal opinion than general consensus. I'd throw Pleasantville on there too.

16 Monday, 28 September 2009 10:36

Juleedee

I miss The Thing in this line Up. The special effects of that movie were second to none! 2001 is also a glaring omission

15 Wednesday, 09 September 2009 02:31

Kevin

Really fun video to watch!

As a Star Wars nerd, I have to point out though that some of those explosions were from the remastered version, so it kind of throws the chronology off a little bit.

Otherwise though, very cool!

14 Sunday, 06 September 2009 22:40

Robert

I love the big computer jump at The Abyss and T2.

13 Sunday, 06 September 2009 06:01

Ross

What about Metropolis

12 Friday, 04 September 2009 16:03

el duderino

Overall I liked the whole presentation. I do agree that there were a few movies left out (Bladerunner, the matrix, total recall, etc.), but its still cool without them... the only really critical one is the Fifth Element. It i still so good that many manufacturers still test the quality of DVD players with it. My only issue is that one of the Star wars clips included is not from the original Star wars release, but instead from the re-released and digitally remastered version.... not representative of FX evolution in the 70's at all... more like 2000-something.

11 Thursday, 03 September 2009 11:13

Crystal

Oh, shut up D-bags, this is great. Quit with the suggestions. Especially the first guy up there talking about un-american innovations. Everyone already knows Americans aren't the only ones who make good movies. You're a *total* D-bag.

10 Sunday, 30 August 2009 09:09

nom-nom-nom

good comments, but not sure about the validity of awards being a criteria, Hollywood regularly misses out on the little guy, and pats its chums on the back.. one of the reasons that Sci-fi movies rarely win awards...
"voyage to the moon" is a great suggestion...

9 Sunday, 30 August 2009 06:30

David

Amazingly pedestrian and ignores all the innovations outside mainstream Hollywood. Whoever created this needs to look at the foreign market especially in the early years. You'll see work that wasn't done in America till the influx of the Europeans in the mid-twenties and then again in the thirties.
Also from the seventies on you can see the deterioration of actual artistry in creating a visual fantasy to be replaced by the crappy computer generated cartoons of today. That is art that is programming.

8 Sunday, 30 August 2009 04:15

I liked watching this but...
Ghostbusters? denied!
Alien? denied!
A Trip to the Moon?
The Gold Rush?
Fifth Element?
Nosferatu?

7 Saturday, 29 August 2009 20:27

kevin

good concept here, could have been more comprehensive--perhaps guided by a list of awards for special effects (i.e., oscars) and a list of classic movie milestones that feature good special effects (such as 2001/matrix).
I would love to see this concept fleshed out and polished up a bit more because i enjoyed this video.