20 Most Important Blockbusters That Changed Cinema Forever

1. Star Wars

Fox fanfare, studio logo, then silence. Ten words on screen and fade to black. What follows would change everything.

Jaws may have started the blockbuster formula but it was Star Wars that truly cemented it in the minds of studios and audiences. Summer was now the time for massive movies with wide appeal that everyone wanted to see straight away.

Hearkening back to the Flash Gordon serials of the thirties and taking a lot of plot inspiration form Akira Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress, George Lucas created a film seeped in well-worn elements brought to life with cutting edge effects; at once it was both incredibly new and comfortably classical (the same trick Cameron pulled with Titanic). Star Wars was expansive storytelling that captured the imagination of audiences en masse; it's the story of one boy taking on an evil, but there's also the pairing of two robots walking almost obliviously through this massive war, a mercenary questioning what's important in life and a near extinct group of wizards. How could it not be a phenomenon?

Of course as well as the cinematic effect there's also that massive merchandising issue. Everyone knows how Lucas smartly kept the merchandising rights to Star Wars, leading to an empire of products all emblazoned with that logo. As well as giving Hollywood the future of their movies, he'd given them another way to make money from a property.

What did you make of our list? Which major blockbusters did we miss? Get involved in the discussion down in the comments.