10 Movies That Pushed The Boundaries Of Visual Effects

10. Metropolis (1927)

Most moviemakers are concerned with how to convincingly destroy a city: back in 1927, Fritz Lang's Metropolis showed how a city could be created using fantastic artistry and painstaking accuracy. Metropolis is generally regarded as the first sci-fi film, portraying a dystopian future and focussing on the efforts of two of its citizens to overcome a the vast class differences of the city. The Schüfftan Process, named after its creator Eugen Schüfftan, became the first real visual effect to be used in film. It worked using an elaborate series of mirrors which were aligned to give the impression that the actors were actually a part of the miniature city that had been created. The effect was also used to add animated cars, trains and even flying planes into the cityscape.

The process was incredibly intensive, and a real technological feat considering a version of this technique is still used today - but created with computers. Other methods of placing actors into scenes such as travelling matte (what we now call bluescreen) wouldn't appear for at least another 10 years.