What are some movies that use crazy good practical effects?

Jurassic Park Sure everyone remembers the groundbreaking CGI, but without the practical effects of the dinosaurs close-up, it wouldn't have nearly the same impact.

The Thing (1982) still makes modern CGI look like a school project.

Aliens

2001: A Space Odyssey

The Lord of the Rings had an amazing array of practical effects. They used forced perspective a lot, and had some sets that would articulate with the movement of the camera to keep the perspective illusion. They developed what they called “big rigs” which were oversized human puppets to appear in the same shot as the hobbit actors, and ended up only using them in one scene. They also used old school painted matte backgrounds in some scenes that were then digitally composited with the foreground. The behind the scenes features are well worth watching.

The transformation scene in " american werewolf in london" no cgi just practical effect. And "dog soldiers" 10 foot tall werewolves walking around in the woods.

The Dark Crystal. Is it cheating to bring up Jim Henson? Loved this movie as a kid, loved rediscovering it as an adult, and really loved showing it to my kids.

Dracula by Francis Ford Coppola he used all classic staging special effects

The newly released Project Hail Mary used practical effects that were so convincing I didn’t even notice them while watching the film. As someone who likes to see practical effects being used well in movies, they usually stand out to me in a good way where I’m like “oh no way they used practical effects here that’s awesome” whenever I spot them. It wasn’t until the day after I saw the film that I stumbled across an interview with the directors and had this realisation that they had made significant use of practical effects throughout the movie. It’s not that the practical effects LOOK like CGI to be clear. It’s moreso that while watching the film nothing stood out to me in a way that made me notice on the spot that it was practical and not CG. Looking back now it seems obvious that it was practical, but at the time I simply didn’t take note of whether it was practical or not and just subconsciously must have assumed that if anything it would be well executed CGI.

Mad Max: Fury Road is one of my favorite modern examples because so much of the movie has real weight to it. You can feel the difference when the vehicles, stunts, and environments actually exist in front of the camera.

American Werwolf in London

Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind. Got to the point the effects were so smooth I forgot they were effects, had to remind myself how impressive they were that they hadn't been distracting in the slightest.

I saw a great simple trick/effect employed the other night when I watched Kurosawa's **Yojimbo** (the inspiration for Eastwood's **A Fistful of Dollars**). When, late in the film, the rōnin/samurai Yojimbo is badly beaten by the bad guys, he hides out in a small, isolated temple near a cemetery. While he's healing, he practices his knife-throwing skills. This is when the amazing, simply-created effect happens. From Yojimbo's POV, we watch as a stray fallen leaf is whipped about by the wind and blown in fast unpredictable patterns all around one corner of the room he's in --before suddenly zipping off in a new direction. Instantly, Yojimbo's thrown knife pins it to the floor. It's a perfect, impossible-seeming bit of marksmanship. But the trick was so simple it's virtually impossible to detect. >!All they did was pin the leaf to the floor with the knife, which had an invisible thread attached to its handle. Then the leaf was hit with a powerful directional fan...and the rigged knife was quickly yanked away, releasing the leaf to be blown into the corner where it spun and twisted in fast crazy patterns.!< For the actual film, they just >!reversed the footage, which is completely indistinguishable played forwards or backwards.!<

Pan's Labyrinth

The Wizard of Oz (1939) really had some great effects. The tornado in Kansas at the beginning is astoundingly good.

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Watch Tremors! There is only one scene in the entire movie that looks out of place from a green screen shot that is maybe 3 seconds long. Everything else in the movie is practical effects. One of the best 90s callbacks to classic 50s style b-horror movies out there. Kevin Bacon, Fred Ward and Reba. That should be all that you need!

The Thing (1982) is prob the first one everyone will say, but for good reason. Still looks insane today. Also check out An American Werewolf in London, the transformation scene alone is worth it...if u want something a bit different, Mad Max Fury Road is packed with practical stunts even if it doesn’t look like it at first. And for horror, The Fly (1986) and Hellraiser have some wild practical work that still hits.

Dead alive

Alien(s), The Thing, The Fly, pretty much everything Del Toro made, to name a few of my favourites. I think The Substance had some insane practical effects as well.

Terminator 2 has much less CGI than people aasume. The T-1000 is still practical animatronic and in-camera 90% of the time. Thw entire movie is a special fx masterclass. Even the rear screen projection is seamless with absolutely masterful light-matching. You can’t even tell unless you’re either looking for it or have been told which scenes use it.

The Howling (1981)

The Autopsy of Jane Doe is a cool pick if you like more subdued, disturbing practical work instead of just splatter.

It's subtle but I always loved how the creative ways the filmmakers dealt with scale in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. The scene in Bag End when Bilbo is serving tea to Gandalf, the dining table was split into two halves -- hobbit-scale and human-scale -- and each half was slaved to the camera on the dolly, giving the correct parallax effect. Unfortunately if you watch closely you can see Ian McKellen bump his half of the table, showing that it's separate to Ian Holm's half which doesn't wobble.

Interstellar has some absolutely insane practical effects

The Void American Werewolf in London The Blob 89

Recently watched Society (1989) and while I thought it was pretty bad the last 30 minutes have insane practical body horror.

Recently "Project Hail Mary" was amazing. The co-star was done with practical effects.

Blade Runner (1982)

Mad Max: Fury Road Everything Everywhere All At Once

The Exorcist… for the early 70s, really impressed me

Dracula. Coppola. Very interesting how they were developed. Gave the film such an amazing visualization.

Apollo 13. The space scenes were shot in the “vomit comet” so the actors actually were floating the way one would in space.

The Fall. Maybe not special effects per se, but the visuals are out of control.

Star Wars E4, 5, 6 LoTR Jurassic Park The Thing In The Mouth of Madness

Army of darkness.. 0% CGI slight horror/comedy but it's a treasure of a movie

Nightbreed, Hellraiser, American Mary and The Terminator. Very different approaches.

The Fountain

[Dragon Slayer](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWVJr7JbJZc) (1981). The dragon is legit.

Another vote for The Thing

anything by Stan Winston

Sorcerer (1977, William Friedkin)

Independence Day The cgi stands out by now. But the practical sets, miniatures and explosions. Top notch.

Underworld (the first one) had great effects. They did scenes with cgi and practical fx and picked which looked better on tape.

Jason and the Argonauts and most of Ray Harryhausen's other movies

Pacific rim... Totally sold the cgi

the sets in the movie 'Hook' are absolutely f****** ridiculous. The pirate town set is just insane aswell as the lost boys hideout. Alot of celebs went through that place. the same goes for batman returns where they kept the sets super cold for all the live penguins which i believe laid eggs they were so happy.

Sorcerer's apprentice with nick cage has a ton of practical effects. It's actually pretty surprising how much of the magic was real.

Silent Hill. The nurses were disturbing, but in a good way. I wish more practical effects were used in movies nowadays. Some movies are nearly all CGI and it’s distracting in a bad way.

Mad Max became instantly famous because of this exact thing.

Legend. All the effects in a fantasy movie are practical and it is still amazing looking today.

Return of the Living Dead. In parts, anyway. The Tarman scene in particular was just especially fantastic.

Inception, specifically the corridor fight sequence. When I first watched it. I assumed it had to be CGI of some kind as I couldn’t understand how it could be practical. Then watching a behind the scenes clip about it made it even more impressive.

Christopher Nolan loves practical effects. The [plane hijack scene](https://screenrant.com/dark-knight-rises-bane-airplane-hijack-filmed-how/) in "Dark Knight Rises" was a real effect but done with miniatures for part of it. The [18-wheeler flip ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWu5LaeKGFU)in "The Dark Knight" was done for real with a full-size truck. The [rotating hallway fight](https://youtu.be/4h_DpCFQ99w) in "Inception" was a giant hallway build on hydraulics.

Alien (1979) I rewatched it recently, and was especially impressed by the *sets*. The ship actually feels real, it's incredibly immersive. Can't think of a recent movie that evokes a similar feeling.

Robocop!

Innerspace - the effects are amazing and it never gets mentioned.

Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992) used a whole variety of miniatures, matte paintings, reverse photography, front projection, and in-camera forced perspectives to create a wide variety of its effects - mostly using the same techniques that would have been used in the classic 1931 version.

Someone on a disk review site mentioned "From Dusk Till Dawn". He claimed that the movie was created as a demo for a practical effects shop.

Project Hail Mary

A lot of the effects in independence day were practical. Those scenes of cities being blown up were all done practically.

Raiders of the Lost Ark. Some of the fx they used dated back to early westerns.

Fall Guy deserves a shout out for using a ton of real stunt people and practical effects instead of CGI.

Just saw Project Hail Mary and am in love with a rock spider puppet.

Inception has some insane moments. I think the rotating hallway is one that everyone has heard of. But it never gets old.

Project Hail Mary, the thing, the fly, titanic

The Fountain All the space stuff was primarily close up footage of chemical reactions, rather than traditional CGI. It looks incredible and I was very annoyed it didn't when the Oscar that year. 

The thing The fly Nightmare on elm street 1-4 The Labyrinth

Citizen Kane

The Thing (1982) is a masterpiece of practical effects.

Fall Guy

Day of the Dead honorable mention—some spotty, some incredibly good

Day of the Dead (the Original) had great effects.

Starship Troopers. This movie is a really good movie for practical and CGI effects.

Scanners (1981, I think) was pretty crazy.

Inception, Nolan's space movie whose name escapes me.

Ive always been impressed with the makeup and effects for Jim Carrey's How the Grinch Stole Christmas

The Void (2016)

Saw Wishmaster recently. A dudes skeleton rips out of his body in the first scene. Primo move.

Dragonslayer (1981) used real dragons.

Tremors

Practical effects are the main point of the Terrifier movies

The Thing (John Carpenter's)

2001 is an amazing example of what can be done with set design and lighting 

Terminator Salvation

Brazil has an amazing scene at a cosmetic surgeon. The Witches I still to this day do not know how they did that effect with Angelica Huston pulling off her face with the witches face beneath it Death Becomes Her goes without saying An American Werewolf in London has the best werewolf transformation makeup ever

Of course The Thing & American Werewolf.....HOWEVER! The 1988 remake of THE BLOB is usually overlooked. There is some crazy cool practical gloppy, translucent MUFX in that flick.

Tremors

Project Hail Mary

Every time Christine "comes back to life" it's just the crew beating the shit out of the car and filming it in stop motion and then reversing it.

Two by Copolla: * One From the Heart * Bram Stoker's Dracula 1992

Legend. That movie was way ahead of its time.

Planet Terror was a nice blend of both.

Despite the use of other special effects, The Abyss has many impressive practical effects.

Star Wars original trilogies, The Force Awakens and Rogue One/Andor

This Avatar film was crazy. It had a bunch of tall people in blue makeup just doing crazy stuff and riding on aliens. Now I know the animals were probably CGI but I'm pretty sure they just had all the actors get knee lengthening surgery for the characters

Harbinger Down. It's not a good movie, per se. The movie is just there to get you from amazing practical set piece to amazing practical set piece. The 'plot' is fan-film level. Everything shot outside of the effects scenes is weirdly flat and video-like. But holy \*c***\* are the effects baller. From my understanding, the effects crew who did it were ex VFX artists on the reboot of the reboot of The Thing and they were mad that the practical stuff all got painted over with CGI. It's glorious.

Mad Max Fury Road and it ain’t even close.