1. Gravity (2013)
In the wake of Avatar, a 3D boom hit Hollywood and a plethora of big budget blockbusters sought to exploit the new craze for maximum profit. This resulted in a few hasty post conversions of 2D films that were not intended to be 3D. Particularly egregious examples of poor 3D conversions like 2010's Clash of the Titans soured some portions of the audience on 3D; some moviegoers began to view 3D as a cheap gimmick, often not adding much to the experience of the film beyond an inflated ticket price. By 2013, 3D had lost much of its luster and 3D ticket sales had begun to decline, possibly heralding the end of the fad. Enter Alfonso Cuarón, acclaimed director of such memorable films as Children of Men and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Cuarón wanted to tell the tale of an astronaut's life-and-death struggle to survive a catastrophe in outer space; however, when he began to work on the project, an undertaking that he believed would only take one and a half years, Cuarón realized that the current technology available to him couldn't translate his vision adequately. Over the course of Gravity's four and a half year production Cuarón's team had to develop new technologies to accommodate the story Cuarón wanted to tell. Cuarón animated the entire film, shot by shot, before adding any CGI or filming any of his actors because he needed to know precisely what shots he needed to achieve before production began. In a bid to get the lighting absolutely correct Cuarón's team developed a device dubbed the Lightbox: a cube containing over 4,000 LED bulbs and a rig to suspend star Sandra Bullock in place while the camera moved around her and also helped give the impression that her character, Dr. Stone, floated through a zero gravity environment. To maintain the illusion of a zero gravity environment when Dr. Stone enters a space station, puppeteers manipulated Bullock's movements via extremely thin carbon wires, keeping her movement in line with how a person would actually float in zero gravity. The sustained illusion of zero gravity helped Cuarón create the film's extremely long takes, which Cuarón felt would add to the immersive effects of the 3D. Gravity's strong critical reception, empathizing how critical 3D was to Gravity's success, made Gravity a must-see in 3D and 3D accounted for 80% of the revenue earned on the film's record-breaking opening weekend. There's our list. Any notable exceptions we missed out on? Let us know in the comments below.