10 Most Imaginative Shots On Film

2. Bullet Time - The Matrix

If you're old enough to have seen The Matrix during its original release, you'll remember just how utterly insane it was to watch that iconic bullet time sequence for the first time (and the hundred times more when it came out on DVD).

The shot of course depicts Neo (Keanu Reeves) defying conventional physics by dodging a series of bullets fired at him by an agent, all while the camera smoothly rotates around him in slow-motion.

It's perhaps the single most memorable movie image of the 1990s and of the action genre as a whole.

The brain-breakingly complex shot was achieved by setting up a computer-programmed series of cameras around Keanu Reeves as he performed the dodging manoeuvre against a green screen, with frames being strategically sewn together from these cameras to create the illusion of fluid movement around him. The rooftop background was then inserted digitally.

It's probably the best-aged visual effect from any of the Matrix films, and almost two decades later, still remains a high-point of cinematic VFX in spite of the many subsequent movies that imitated the technique.