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* In the late '60s, when Jack Valenti, then head of the MPAA, proposed doing away with UsefulNotes/TheHaysCode, he cited two films released several years prior as justification for the Hayes Code Boeing outdated and a voluntary movie ratings being a better replacement, Theatre/WhosAfraidOfVirginiaWoolf and {{Film/Blowup}}. The former had become notorious for it frank dialog and was a first not approved by under the Haye’s Code by the MPAA but they eventually agreed to release it after cuts to some of it’s controversial dialogue along with the requirement the movie posters for the film include a warning that this was a film intended for adult audiences. The was not granted a seal of approval by the MPAA due to nudity in the film (it was also condemned by the Legion of Decency), but the releasing studio MGM decided to bypass the MPAA and the Hayes Code by releasing it under a subsidiary, to wide audiences.
* Following the imposition of the new [[UsefulNotes/MediaClassifications MPAA ratings system]] and as a result the death of the Haye’s Code in 1968, a trio of films marked the birth of the UsefulNotes/NewHollywood movement. Their success marked the ascent of a new generation of film-school-educated, boundary-pushing writers and directors, who unleashed a massive burst of creativity in Hollywood that lasted until the end of TheSeventies.
* Following the imposition of the new [[UsefulNotes/MediaClassifications MPAA ratings system]] and as a result the death of the Haye’s Code in 1968, a trio of films marked the birth of the UsefulNotes/NewHollywood movement. Their success marked the ascent of a new generation of film-school-educated, boundary-pushing writers and directors, who unleashed a massive burst of creativity in Hollywood that lasted until the end of TheSeventies.
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* In the late '60s, 1968, when Jack Valenti, then head of the MPAA, proposed doing away with UsefulNotes/TheHaysCode, he cited two films released several years prior in 1966 as justification for the Hayes Code Boeing being outdated and a voluntary movie ratings being a better replacement, Theatre/WhosAfraidOfVirginiaWoolf replacement: ''Theatre/WhosAfraidOfVirginiaWoolf'' and {{Film/Blowup}}. ''Film/{{Blowup}}''. The former had become notorious for it its frank dialog and was a at first not approved by under the Haye’s Code by the MPAA MPAA, but they eventually agreed to release it after cuts to some of it’s its controversial dialogue along with the requirement the movie that posters for the film include a warning that this was a film intended for adult audiences. The audiences -- the first time that the MPAA gave a film a stamp other than "approved" or "not approved", a precursor to [[UsefulNotes/MediaClassifications the multi-tiered rating system that the MPAA eventually adopted]] in 1968. ''Blowup'', meanwhile, was not granted a seal of approval by the MPAA due to nudity in the film (it was also condemned by the Legion of Decency), but the releasing studio MGM decided to bypass the MPAA and the Hayes Hays Code by releasing it under a subsidiary, to wide audiences.
audiences and box-office success.
*Following With the imposition of the new [[UsefulNotes/MediaClassifications MPAA ratings system]] and as a result the death of the Haye’s Hays Code in 1968, tatters, a trio of films in the late '60s marked the birth of the UsefulNotes/NewHollywood movement. Their success marked the ascent of a new generation of film-school-educated, boundary-pushing writers and directors, directors who unleashed a massive burst of creativity in Hollywood Hollywood, one that lasted until the end of TheSeventies.
*
* Starting with 1967's ''Film/TheProducers'', Creator/MelBrooks brought the style of Jewish humor popularized in the BorschtBelt to Hollywood, focusing on RefugeInAudacity, social and cultural satire, and a lack of concern for the boundary between high-brow and low-brow humor.
* Creator/WoodyAllen's films in the '70s and '80s popularized a more intellectual style of film comedy, and helped popularize the GiveGeeksAChance trope by frequently having nerdy guys (often [[AuthorAvatar played by himself]]) as RomanticComedy leads as opposed to the more traditional leading men of postwar Hollywood.
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** 1974's ''The Godfather Part II'', meanwhile, gave movie sequels a respectability that they previously lacked. The general opinion of many critics and moviegoers before then was that sequels were installments in {{Cash Cow Franchise}}s that, even when they were good on their own merits, [[FirstInstallmentWins never lived up to the original]]. ''The Godfather Part II'', on the other hand, built upon the story of its predecessor in such a way that many hailed it as [[EvenBetterSequel even better than the first movie]], and it became the first sequel to ever win the UsefulNotes/AcademyAward for Best Picture. Since then, sequels and stories that span multiple films have become more widely accepted in Hollywood, especially with the success of the ''Franchise/StarWars'' trilogy soon after. It also popularized NumberedSequels in Hollywood film.
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** 1974's ''The Godfather Part II'', meanwhile, not only popularized NumberedSequels in Hollywood film, it gave movie sequels a respectability that they previously lacked. The general opinion of many critics and moviegoers before then was that sequels were installments in {{Cash Cow Franchise}}s that, even when they were good on their own merits, [[FirstInstallmentWins never lived up to the original]]. ''The Godfather Part II'', on the other hand, built upon the story of its predecessor in such a way that many hailed it as [[EvenBetterSequel even better than the first movie]], and it became the first sequel to ever win the UsefulNotes/AcademyAward for Best Picture. Since then, sequels and stories that span multiple films have become more widely accepted in Hollywood, especially with the success of the ''Franchise/StarWars'' trilogy soon after. It also popularized NumberedSequels in Hollywood film.
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* Early [[AttackOfThe50FootWhatever giant monster movies]] like the 1927 version of ''Film/TheLostWorld'' or ''Film/KingKong1933'' had their monsters as prehistoric forces unleashed on the modern world. 1953's ''Film/TheBeastFromTwentyThousandFathoms'', on the other hand, was the first to have its monster as a blend of primordial chaos and the contemporary, future-fear of [[ILoveNuclearPower the atom bomb]]. For most of the remainder of the 20th Century, giant monsters were nuclear-powered (''Film/{{Gojira}}'' and ''Film/{{Them}}'' being the best of those that followed), and in a post-Cold War world, giant monsters still tend to represent some real-world, human-derived panic -- ''Film/JurassicPark'' and [[GeneticEngineeringIsTheNewNuke genetic engineering]], ''Film/{{Cloverfield}}'' and [[PostNineElevenTerrorismMovie terrorism]], etc.
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* Early [[AttackOfThe50FootWhatever giant monster movies]] like the 1927 version of ''Film/TheLostWorld'' or ''Film/KingKong1933'' had their monsters as prehistoric forces unleashed on the modern world. 1953's ''Film/TheBeastFromTwentyThousandFathoms'', on the other hand, was the first to have its monster as a blend of primordial chaos and the contemporary, future-fear of [[ILoveNuclearPower the atom bomb]]. For most of the remainder of the 20th Century, giant monsters were nuclear-powered (''Film/{{Gojira}}'' (''Film/Godzilla1954'' and ''Film/{{Them}}'' being the best of those that followed), and in a post-Cold War world, giant monsters still tend to represent some real-world, human-derived panic -- ''Film/JurassicPark'' and [[GeneticEngineeringIsTheNewNuke genetic engineering]], ''Film/{{Cloverfield}}'' and [[PostNineElevenTerrorismMovie terrorism]], etc.
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* [[Franchise/UniversalHorror Universal's monster films]], from their 1923 breakthrough ''Film/TheHunchbackOfNotreDame'' through 1941's ''Film/{{The Wolf Man|1941}}'' (generally considered the last great film in that cycle), wrote down most of the cinematic language of horror. Their takes on [[ClassicalMovieVampire vampires]], [[WolfMan werewolves]], FrankensteinsMonster, {{mumm|y}}ies, and other horror monsters colored people's perception of them for decades; even [[Film/HammerHorror Hammer Film Productions]], while cranking up the sex and violence with their remakes in the '50s and '60s, still remained mostly faithful to how Universal drew them. Countless makeup and creature effects were also invented and pioneered at Universal by the likes of Creator/LonChaney and Jack Pierce to bring their monsters to life, techniques that are in many cases still in use to this day.
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* [[Franchise/UniversalHorror Universal's monster films]], from their 1923 breakthrough ''Film/TheHunchbackOfNotreDame'' ''[[Film/TheHunchbackOfNotreDame1923 The Hunchback of Notre Dame]]'' through 1941's ''Film/{{The Wolf Man|1941}}'' (generally considered the last great film in that cycle), wrote down most of the cinematic language of horror. Their takes on [[ClassicalMovieVampire vampires]], [[WolfMan werewolves]], FrankensteinsMonster, {{mumm|y}}ies, and other horror monsters colored people's perception of them for decades; even [[Film/HammerHorror Hammer Film Productions]], while cranking up the sex and violence with their remakes in the '50s and '60s, still remained mostly faithful to how Universal drew them. Countless makeup and creature effects were also invented and pioneered at Universal by the likes of Creator/LonChaney and Jack Pierce to bring their monsters to life, techniques that are in many cases still in use to this day.
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* Creator/AmericanInternationalPictures.
** They may have been in the business of making [[BMovie B-grade]] teen comedies and horror movies rather than {{summer blockbuster}}s, but they pioneered the marketing strategy that those films would use much later on. They called it "Franchise/PeterPan Syndrome", the idea that marketing towards teenage and twentysomething men was the best way to reach the widest possible audience, on the grounds that young children will watch anything that their older siblings will but that adults and teenagers [[AnimationAgeGhetto won't watch "kiddie" movies]], and that girls will watch anything that boys will but that [[GirlShowGhetto boys won't watch]] "{{chick flick}}s". When the major studios in TheEighties took that idea and put some bigger budgets behind it, the basic outline of the "four-quadrant" blockbuster was born.
** Following on from that strategy came Samuel Z. Arkoff's formula for making his movies popular: fill them with just enough action, sex appeal, edgy themes, teenage WishFulfillment, and HighConcept premises to attract young viewers without running afoul of [[UsefulNotes/TheHaysCode the Hays Office]]. If this formula looks familiar, it's because, once you swap out "running afoul of the Hays Office" with "getting an R rating", it's the one that virtually every teen-oriented PG-13 comedy and horror movie has used since.
** They may have been in the business of making [[BMovie B-grade]] teen comedies and horror movies rather than {{summer blockbuster}}s, but they pioneered the marketing strategy that those films would use much later on. They called it "Franchise/PeterPan Syndrome", the idea that marketing towards teenage and twentysomething men was the best way to reach the widest possible audience, on the grounds that young children will watch anything that their older siblings will but that adults and teenagers [[AnimationAgeGhetto won't watch "kiddie" movies]], and that girls will watch anything that boys will but that [[GirlShowGhetto boys won't watch]] "{{chick flick}}s". When the major studios in TheEighties took that idea and put some bigger budgets behind it, the basic outline of the "four-quadrant" blockbuster was born.
** Following on from that strategy came Samuel Z. Arkoff's formula for making his movies popular: fill them with just enough action, sex appeal, edgy themes, teenage WishFulfillment, and HighConcept premises to attract young viewers without running afoul of [[UsefulNotes/TheHaysCode the Hays Office]]. If this formula looks familiar, it's because, once you swap out "running afoul of the Hays Office" with "getting an R rating", it's the one that virtually every teen-oriented PG-13 comedy and horror movie has used since.
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* Creator/KennethAnger was a seminal influence on Hollywood's counterculture from the [[TheForties late '40s]] up through TheSeventies. He helped write much of the language of gay cinema and American gay culture in general, in particular codifying {{leatherm|an}}en, [[HelloSailor sailors]], and BDSM as parts of the latter. He was among the first filmmakers to incorporate large amounts of contemporary pop and rock music into his soundtracks and draw on occultism (especially that of Creator/AleisterCrowley's Thelema) for themes beyond just portraying it as a source of baddies for the heroes to fight. A number of the filmmakers of the UsefulNotes/NewHollywood period and after, including Creator/MartinScorsese, Creator/DavidLynch, and Creator/JohnWaters, have cited his work as an inspiration. And going beyond the films themselves into the culture surrounding them, his 1965 book ''Hollywood Babylon'' codified the HorribleHollywood trope and popularized numerous UrbanLegends about various famous actors. Before, celebrity gossip had been driven by the PR pieces put out by the studios on one hand and the moral outrage of ''Confidential'' magazine on the other, while after, it became just as much a source of entertainment in its own right as people grew fascinated by the sordid personal lives of the rich and famous.
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* ''Film/Deadpool2016'' and ''Film/{{Logan}}'', while almost [[SpiritualAntithesis diametrically-opposed works]], demonstrated in 2016, after several high-profile failures, that R-rated superhero films were capable of being box-office and critical successes. Notably, both achieved this in different ways by taking an entire tonal and stylistic approach that justified the rating, rather than simply being generic superhero films with added swearing and graphic gore.
* ''Film/{{Wonder Woman|2017}}'' (2017) is the first female-led superhero movie since the failures of ''Film/{{Catwoman}}'' and ''Film/{{Elektra}}'' over a decade prior to its release, and the first ''ever'' to be very well received at that, and ended up a massive box office hit. Perhaps more importantly, the film represents the first time a major movie franchise with a budget of over $100 million has been directed solely by a woman, opening the door for other female directors to handle larger projects (something people had been calling on Hollywood to do for a while prior to this film's release).
* ''Film/{{Wonder Woman|2017}}'' (2017) is the first female-led superhero movie since the failures of ''Film/{{Catwoman}}'' and ''Film/{{Elektra}}'' over a decade prior to its release, and the first ''ever'' to be very well received at that, and ended up a massive box office hit. Perhaps more importantly, the film represents the first time a major movie franchise with a budget of over $100 million has been directed solely by a woman, opening the door for other female directors to handle larger projects (something people had been calling on Hollywood to do for a while prior to this film's release).
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* ''Film/Deadpool2016'' and ''Film/{{Logan}}'', while almost [[SpiritualAntithesis diametrically-opposed works]], demonstrated in 2016, 2016 and 2017, after several high-profile failures, that R-rated superhero films were capable of being box-office and critical successes. Notably, both achieved this in different ways by taking an entire tonal and stylistic approach that justified the rating, rather than simply being generic superhero films with added swearing and graphic gore.
* ''Film/{{Wonder Woman|2017}}'' (2017) is the first female-led superhero movie since the failures of ''Film/{{Catwoman}}'' and ''Film/{{Elektra}}'' over a decade prior to its release, and the first ''ever'' to be very well received at that, and ended up a massive box office hit. Perhaps more importantly, the film represents the first time a major movie franchise with a budget of over $100 million has been directed solely by a woman, opening the door for other female directors to handle larger projects (something people had been calling on Hollywood to do for a while prior to this film'srelease).release, to no avail).
* ''Film/{{Wonder Woman|2017}}'' (2017) is the first female-led superhero movie since the failures of ''Film/{{Catwoman}}'' and ''Film/{{Elektra}}'' over a decade prior to its release, and the first ''ever'' to be very well received at that, and ended up a massive box office hit. Perhaps more importantly, the film represents the first time a major movie franchise with a budget of over $100 million has been directed solely by a woman, opening the door for other female directors to handle larger projects (something people had been calling on Hollywood to do for a while prior to this film's
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* In the late '60s, when Jack Valenti, then head of the MPAA, proposed doing away with UsefulNotes/TheHaysCode, he cited two films released several years prior as justification for the Hayes Code Boeing outdated and a voluntary movie ratings being a better replacement, Theatre/WhosAfraidOfVirginiaWoolf and Film/Blowup. The former had become notorious for it frank dialog and was a first not approved by under the Haye’s Code by the MPAA but they eventually agreed to release it after cuts to some of it’s controversial dialogue along with the requirement the movie posters for the film include a warning that this was a film intended for adult audiences. The was not granted a seal of approval by the MPAA due to nudity in the film (it was also condemned by the Legion of Decency), but the releasing studio MGM decided to bypass the MPAA and the Hayes Code by releasing it under a subsidiary, to wide audiences.
* Following the imposition of the new {UsefulNotes/MediaClassifications MPPA ratings system} and as a result the death of the Haye’s Code in 1968, a trio of films marked the birth of the UsefulNotes/NewHollywood movement. Their success marked the ascent of a new generation of film-school-educated, boundary-pushing writers and directors, who unleashed a massive burst of creativity in Hollywood that lasted until the end of TheSeventies.
* Following the imposition of the new {UsefulNotes/MediaClassifications MPPA ratings system} and as a result the death of the Haye’s Code in 1968, a trio of films marked the birth of the UsefulNotes/NewHollywood movement. Their success marked the ascent of a new generation of film-school-educated, boundary-pushing writers and directors, who unleashed a massive burst of creativity in Hollywood that lasted until the end of TheSeventies.
to:
* In the late '60s, when Jack Valenti, then head of the MPAA, proposed doing away with UsefulNotes/TheHaysCode, he cited two films released several years prior as justification for the Hayes Code Boeing outdated and a voluntary movie ratings being a better replacement, Theatre/WhosAfraidOfVirginiaWoolf and Film/Blowup.{{Film/Blowup}}. The former had become notorious for it frank dialog and was a first not approved by under the Haye’s Code by the MPAA but they eventually agreed to release it after cuts to some of it’s controversial dialogue along with the requirement the movie posters for the film include a warning that this was a film intended for adult audiences. The was not granted a seal of approval by the MPAA due to nudity in the film (it was also condemned by the Legion of Decency), but the releasing studio MGM decided to bypass the MPAA and the Hayes Code by releasing it under a subsidiary, to wide audiences.
* Following the imposition of the new{UsefulNotes/MediaClassifications MPPA [[UsefulNotes/MediaClassifications MPAA ratings system} system]] and as a result the death of the Haye’s Code in 1968, a trio of films marked the birth of the UsefulNotes/NewHollywood movement. Their success marked the ascent of a new generation of film-school-educated, boundary-pushing writers and directors, who unleashed a massive burst of creativity in Hollywood that lasted until the end of TheSeventies.
* Following the imposition of the new
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* In the late '60s, following the end of UsefulNotes/TheHaysCode, a trio of films marked the birth of the UsefulNotes/NewHollywood movement. Their success marked the ascent of a new generation of film-school-educated, boundary-pushing writers and directors, who unleashed a massive burst of creativity in Hollywood that lasted until the end of TheSeventies.
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* In the late '60s, following when Jack Valenti, then head of the end of MPAA, proposed doing away with UsefulNotes/TheHaysCode, he cited two films released several years prior as justification for the Hayes Code Boeing outdated and a voluntary movie ratings being a better replacement, Theatre/WhosAfraidOfVirginiaWoolf and Film/Blowup. The former had become notorious for it frank dialog and was a first not approved by under the Haye’s Code by the MPAA but they eventually agreed to release it after cuts to some of it’s controversial dialogue along with the requirement the movie posters for the film include a warning that this was a film intended for adult audiences. The was not granted a seal of approval by the MPAA due to nudity in the film (it was also condemned by the Legion of Decency), but the releasing studio MGM decided to bypass the MPAA and the Hayes Code by releasing it under a subsidiary, to wide audiences.
* Following the imposition of the new {UsefulNotes/MediaClassifications MPPA ratings system} and as a result the death of the Haye’s Code in 1968, a trio of films marked the birth of the UsefulNotes/NewHollywood movement. Their success marked the ascent of a new generation of film-school-educated, boundary-pushing writers and directors, who unleashed a massive burst of creativity in Hollywood that lasted until the end of TheSeventies.
* Following the imposition of the new {UsefulNotes/MediaClassifications MPPA ratings system} and as a result the death of the Haye’s Code in 1968, a trio of films marked the birth of the UsefulNotes/NewHollywood movement. Their success marked the ascent of a new generation of film-school-educated, boundary-pushing writers and directors, who unleashed a massive burst of creativity in Hollywood that lasted until the end of TheSeventies.
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* Creator/JuddApatow can easily be argued as the 2000s' version of Creator/JohnHughes in terms of the impact he had on mainstream comedy. Whether behind the scenes or, later, in the director's chair himself, he helped shepherd the careers of most of the biggest comedy stars of the early 21st century, while popularizing a style of film comedy that fused R-rated raunch with a focus on character interactions and relationship dynamics.
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* [[Franchise/UniversalHorror Universal's monster films]], from their 1923 breakthrough ''Film/TheHunchbackOfNotreDame'' through 1941's ''Film/{{The Wolf Man|1941}}'' (generally considered the last great film in that cycle), wrote down most of the cinematic language of horror. Their takes on [[ClassicalMovieVampire vampires]], [[WolfMan werewolves]], FrankensteinsMonster, {{mumm|y}}ies, and other horror monsters colored people's perception of them for decades; even [[Film/HammerHorror Hammer Film Productions]], while cranking up the sex and violence with their remakes in the '50s and '60s, still remained mostly faithful to how Universal drew them. Countless makeup and creature effects were also invented and pioneered at Universal by the likes of Creator/LonChaney and Jack Pierce to bring their monsters to life, techniques that are in many cases still in use to this day.
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* [[Franchise/UniversalHorror Universal's monster films]] from the 1920s through the early '40s wrote down most of the cinematic language of horror. Their takes on [[ClassicalMovieVampire vampires]], [[WolfMan werewolves]], FrankensteinsMonster, {{mumm|y}}ies, and other horror monsters colored people's perception of them for decades; even [[Film/HammerHorror Hammer Film Productions]], while cranking up the sex and violence with their remakes in the '50s and '60s, still remained mostly faithful to how Universal drew them. Countless makeup and creature effects were also invented and pioneered at Universal by the likes of Creator/LonChaney and Jack Pierce to bring their monsters to life, techniques that are in many cases still in use to this day.
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* Creator/FritzLang codified many features of genre film-making in the 1920s and '30s. His ''Die Nibelungen'' was the first large-scale fantasy epic, ''Dr. Mabuse'' and ''Spies'' marked the start of the spy movies with NGOSuperpower and supervillains running society via surveillance networks, ''Film/{{Metropolis}}'' and ''The Woman in the Moon'' were the birth of the science-fiction epic, and the latter film invented the countdown. Lang's movies inspired superhero comics, with Superman's city named after his film, and his supervillains like Dr. Mabuse, Rotwang, and Haghi inspiring via PopculturalOsmosis everyone from Lex Luthor to Blofeld. ''Film/{{M}}'' likewise was the first major movie about a SerialKiller, and its greater realism and more accurate look at policework inspired the true crime genre and the police procedural, which in turned inspired the FilmNoir -- a genre that Lang also contributed to after he arrived in Hollywood.
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* Creator/FritzLang codified many features of genre film-making in the 1920s and '30s. His ''Die Nibelungen'' was the first large-scale fantasy epic, ''Dr. Mabuse'' and ''Spies'' marked the start of the spy movies with NGOSuperpower and supervillains running society via surveillance networks, ''Film/{{Metropolis}}'' and ''The Woman in the Moon'' were the birth of the science-fiction epic, and the latter film invented the countdown. Lang's movies inspired superhero comics, with Superman's city named after his film, and his supervillains like Dr. Mabuse, Rotwang, and Haghi inspiring inspired, via PopculturalOsmosis PopculturalOsmosis, everyone from Lex Luthor to Blofeld. ''Film/{{M}}'' likewise was the first major movie about a SerialKiller, and its greater realism and more accurate look at policework inspired the true crime genre and the police procedural, which in turned inspired the FilmNoir -- a genre that Lang also contributed to after he arrived in Hollywood.
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* [[Franchise/UniversalHorror Universal's monster films]] from the 1920s through the early '40s wrote down most of the cinematic language of horror. Their takes on [[ClassicalMovieVampire vampires]], [[WolfMan werewolves]], FrankensteinsMonster, {{mumm|y}}ies, and other horror monsters colored people's perception of them for decades; even [[Film/HammerHorror Hammer Film Productions]], while cranking up the sex and violence with their remakes in the '50s and '60s, still remained mostly faithful to how Universal drew them. Countless makeup and creature effects were also invented and pioneered at Universal by the likes of Creator/LonChaney and Jack Pierce to bring their monsters to life, techniques that are in many cases still in use to this day.
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* 1962’s ''Film/DrNo'', and the Creator/SeanConnery-era Film/JamesBond films as a whole, revolutionized both SpyFiction and action movies with their focus on sex appeal and debonair style, creating a template that future spy movies would copy for the rest of the century. Even today, with the rise of DarkerAndEdgier spy movies like ''Film/TheBourneSeries'', Bond is still the oft-homaged and frequently parodied template for a [[TuxedoAndMartini “Hollywood-style” secret agent]]. Furthermore, it marked the moment when European cinema, and especially British cinema, proved that it could have mass appeal beyond just arthouse theaters or low-budget horror, and that it could compete with Hollywood on its home turf in terms of both production values and American box-office receipts.
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* 2004's ''Film/ThePassionOfTheChrist'' invented the modern "faith-based" film. While Hollywood had been making films based on stories from Literature/TheBible, from {{epic|Movie}}s to comedies to dramas, since UsefulNotes/{{the Golden Age|OfHollywood}}, they aimed for a mass market with these films, rarely getting into specifics on religion beyond the basics so as to avoid theological criticism from any one side or another. Movies that were more explicitly religious in nature usually had NoBudget and amateurish production values to match. ''The Passion'', however, was made by the devout traditionalist Catholic Creator/MelGibson and aimed squarely at theologically conservative Catholics and evangelicals, and it was made independently without any input from major studios, with Gibson spending $45 million of his own money on the film and hiring top Hollywood talent. Its mammoth success, becoming the ninth-highest-grossing film of all time at the US box-office[[note]]As of 2018, it stands at #40[[/note]] largely on the back of promotion through churches even as [[NoSuchThingAsBadPublicity controversy swirled around it]], created a cottage industry of studios, both independent ones (most notably Creator/PureFlixEntertainment) and production arms of the majors, making religious films targeted explicitly at conservative Christians. Alissa Wilkinson, writing for ''Vox'', goes into more detail [[https://www.vox.com/culture/2018/1/31/16955448/passion-of-christ-sequel-mel-gibson-jim-caviezel-hell here.]]
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* 2004's ''Film/ThePassionOfTheChrist'' ''Film/ThePassionOfTheChrist''.
** In terms of its impact on cinema, it invented the modern "faith-based" film. While Hollywood had been making films based on stories from Literature/TheBible, from {{epic|Movie}}s to comedies to dramas, since UsefulNotes/{{the Golden Age|OfHollywood}}, they aimed for a mass market with these films, rarely getting into specifics on religion beyond the basics so as to avoid theological criticism from any one side or another. Movies that were more explicitly religious in nature usually had NoBudget and amateurish production values to match. ''The Passion'', however, was made by the devout traditionalist Catholic Creator/MelGibson and aimed squarely at theologically conservative Catholics and evangelicals, and it was made independently without any input from major studios, with Gibson spending $45 million of his own money on the film and hiring top Hollywood talent. Its mammoth success, becoming the ninth-highest-grossing film of all time at the US box-office[[note]]As of 2018, it stands at #40[[/note]] largely on the back of promotion through churches even as [[NoSuchThingAsBadPublicity controversy swirled around it]], created a cottage industry of studios, both independent ones (most notably Creator/PureFlixEntertainment) and production arms of the majors, making religious films targeted explicitly at conservative Christians. Alissa Wilkinson, writing for ''Vox'', goes into more detail [[https://www.vox.com/culture/2018/1/31/16955448/passion-of-christ-sequel-mel-gibson-jim-caviezel-hell here.]]]]
** Its influence has also been argued to stretch beyond the world of film, as argued in [[https://www.avclub.com/the-passion-of-the-christ-was-the-blunt-force-weapon-ev-1832999651 this piece]] by Randall Colburn of ''The Website/AVClub''. He asserts that the film marked a turning point in the history of American evangelical Christianity, and [[TropesAreTools not necessarily a good one]], seeing it as the moment at which insularity and [[PanderingToTheBase preaching to the already converted]] became its defining characteristic rather than evangelism and trying to spread its message to the rest of the world. Despite being made by a traditionalist Catholic and rooted in that viewpoint on the Gospels, the film resonated most strongly with evangelicals, who saw the film as a metaphor for their own perceived persecution and marginalization by the wider society, with the promise that Jesus' resurrection will see them inherit the Earth.
** In terms of its impact on cinema, it invented the modern "faith-based" film. While Hollywood had been making films based on stories from Literature/TheBible, from {{epic|Movie}}s to comedies to dramas, since UsefulNotes/{{the Golden Age|OfHollywood}}, they aimed for a mass market with these films, rarely getting into specifics on religion beyond the basics so as to avoid theological criticism from any one side or another. Movies that were more explicitly religious in nature usually had NoBudget and amateurish production values to match. ''The Passion'', however, was made by the devout traditionalist Catholic Creator/MelGibson and aimed squarely at theologically conservative Catholics and evangelicals, and it was made independently without any input from major studios, with Gibson spending $45 million of his own money on the film and hiring top Hollywood talent. Its mammoth success, becoming the ninth-highest-grossing film of all time at the US box-office[[note]]As of 2018, it stands at #40[[/note]] largely on the back of promotion through churches even as [[NoSuchThingAsBadPublicity controversy swirled around it]], created a cottage industry of studios, both independent ones (most notably Creator/PureFlixEntertainment) and production arms of the majors, making religious films targeted explicitly at conservative Christians. Alissa Wilkinson, writing for ''Vox'', goes into more detail [[https://www.vox.com/culture/2018/1/31/16955448/passion-of-christ-sequel-mel-gibson-jim-caviezel-hell here.
** Its influence has also been argued to stretch beyond the world of film, as argued in [[https://www.avclub.com/the-passion-of-the-christ-was-the-blunt-force-weapon-ev-1832999651 this piece]] by Randall Colburn of ''The Website/AVClub''. He asserts that the film marked a turning point in the history of American evangelical Christianity, and [[TropesAreTools not necessarily a good one]], seeing it as the moment at which insularity and [[PanderingToTheBase preaching to the already converted]] became its defining characteristic rather than evangelism and trying to spread its message to the rest of the world. Despite being made by a traditionalist Catholic and rooted in that viewpoint on the Gospels, the film resonated most strongly with evangelicals, who saw the film as a metaphor for their own perceived persecution and marginalization by the wider society, with the promise that Jesus' resurrection will see them inherit the Earth.
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* 2003's ''Film/HouseOf1000Corpses'' and 2004's ''Film/{{Saw|I}}'' brought ultraviolent horror into the mainstream in the form of TorturePorn, focusing on drawn-out, torturous violence and gore as a source of BodyHorror in its own right while having, as their villains, ordinary humans based on real-life {{serial killer}}s (and urban legends about such).
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* 2004's ''Film/{{Saw|I}}'' wasn't the first film in the TorturePorn boom of the 2000s; films like ''Film/CabinFever'', ''Film/HouseOf1000Corpses'', and ''Film/HighTension'' had laid the foundation for it in 2002 and '03. However, it ''was'' the film that brought it into the mainstream, while codifying a formula that many later films would follow: drawn-out, torturous violence and gore as a source of BodyHorror in its own right, often with ordinary humans based on real-life {{serial killer}}s (and urban legends about such) as their villains.
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** It also had an impact on how movies are watched and consumed. While [[UsefulNotes/{{VCR}} VHS]] had been a popular format since the start of TheEighties, the home video release of ''Top Gun'' in 1987 pushed it into the stratosphere. As [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YLlt1JWpRA this video]] by Tom Reimann of ''Website/{{Cracked}}'' explains, Hollywood once saw home video as [[NewMediaAreEvil a grave threat to their business model]], and so they charged [[CrackIsCheaper over $80 a pop]] for VHS copies of their films and sued video rental stores for copyright violations (many stores during that time had to operate on a "private club" model to cover themselves legally). Creator/{{Paramount}}, however, sold the ''Top Gun'' VHS for only $26.95, a low price that was paid for by [[ProductPlacement putting a Pepsi commercial before the movie]] at the beginning of each tape. With this highly lucrative strategy, Hollywood's bitter resistance to home video evaporated as they saw how much money they could make from these sorts of marketing deals. Theatrical rereleases of popular movies died out almost entirely, only experiencing a short-lived revival in the early 2010s with the rise of [[UsefulNotes/ThreeDMovie 3D conversions]], while video rental opened up and took its place as the primary second-run distribution network.
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** It also had an impact on how movies are watched and consumed. While [[UsefulNotes/{{VCR}} VHS]] had been a popular format since the start of TheEighties, the home video release of ''Top Gun'' in 1987 pushed it into the stratosphere. As [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YLlt1JWpRA this video]] by Tom Reimann of ''Website/{{Cracked}}'' explains, Hollywood once saw home video as [[NewMediaAreEvil a grave threat to their business model]], and so they charged [[CrackIsCheaper over $80 a pop]] pop for VHS copies of their films and sued video rental stores for copyright violations (many stores during that time had to operate on a "private club" model to cover themselves legally). Creator/{{Paramount}}, however, sold the ''Top Gun'' VHS for only $26.95, a low price that was paid for by [[ProductPlacement putting a Pepsi commercial before the movie]] at the beginning of each tape. With this highly lucrative strategy, Hollywood's bitter resistance to home video evaporated as they saw how much money they could make from these sorts of marketing deals. Theatrical rereleases of popular movies died out almost entirely, only experiencing a short-lived revival in the early 2010s with the rise of [[UsefulNotes/ThreeDMovie 3D conversions]], while video rental opened up and took its place as the primary second-run distribution network.
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* 2004's ''Film/ThePassionOfTheChrist'' invented the modern "faith-based" film. While Hollywood had been making films based on stories from Literature/TheBible, from {{epic|Movie}}s to comedies to dramas, since UsefulNotes/{{the Golden Age|OfHollywood}}, they aimed for a mass market with these films, rarely getting into specifics on religion beyond the basics so as to avoid theological criticism from any one side or another. ''The Passion'', however, was made by the devout traditionalist Catholic Creator/MelGibson and aimed squarely at theologically conservative Catholics and evangelicals, and it was made independently, without any input from major studios. Its mammoth success, becoming the ninth-highest-grossing film of all time at the US box-office[[note]]As of 2018, it stands at #40[[/note]] largely on the back of promotion through churches even as [[NoSuchThingAsBadPublicity controversy swirled around it]], created a cottage industry of studios, both independent ones (most notably Creator/PureFlixEntertainment) and production arms of the majors, making religious films targeted explicitly at conservative Christians. Alissa Wilkinson, writing for ''Vox'', goes into more detail [[https://www.vox.com/culture/2018/1/31/16955448/passion-of-christ-sequel-mel-gibson-jim-caviezel-hell here.]]
to:
* 2004's ''Film/ThePassionOfTheChrist'' invented the modern "faith-based" film. While Hollywood had been making films based on stories from Literature/TheBible, from {{epic|Movie}}s to comedies to dramas, since UsefulNotes/{{the Golden Age|OfHollywood}}, they aimed for a mass market with these films, rarely getting into specifics on religion beyond the basics so as to avoid theological criticism from any one side or another. Movies that were more explicitly religious in nature usually had NoBudget and amateurish production values to match. ''The Passion'', however, was made by the devout traditionalist Catholic Creator/MelGibson and aimed squarely at theologically conservative Catholics and evangelicals, and it was made independently, independently without any input from major studios.studios, with Gibson spending $45 million of his own money on the film and hiring top Hollywood talent. Its mammoth success, becoming the ninth-highest-grossing film of all time at the US box-office[[note]]As of 2018, it stands at #40[[/note]] largely on the back of promotion through churches even as [[NoSuchThingAsBadPublicity controversy swirled around it]], created a cottage industry of studios, both independent ones (most notably Creator/PureFlixEntertainment) and production arms of the majors, making religious films targeted explicitly at conservative Christians. Alissa Wilkinson, writing for ''Vox'', goes into more detail [[https://www.vox.com/culture/2018/1/31/16955448/passion-of-christ-sequel-mel-gibson-jim-caviezel-hell here.]]
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* 1972's ''Film/TheGodfather'' is the gangster movie to which all other gangster movies are compared. Its portrayal of members of TheMafia as complex figures as opposed to pure villains was revolutionary, to the point where its tropes were embraced by ''actual mafiosi'', who started basing their style of dress, speech, and presentation off of the Corleones as opposed to the use of rougher slang and more casual clothes that they had embraced in the past.
* ''Franchise/StarWars'' in 1977. While ''Film/{{Jaws}}'' is usually regarded as the first modern "blockbuster" movie, this was the one that proved that kids -- a demographic ignored by most 1970s movies -- were audience members too, that [[MerchandiseDriven merchandising spinoffs]] were a potential gold mine, that escapist sci-fi wasn't as [[BMovie disposable as once thought]], and that fantasy in general was an untapped resource. The whole GenreThrowback idea was popularized here, and while FollowTheLeader meant there were many crappy imitators within the years that followed, it did lead directly to Franchise/{{Superman}} getting [[Film/{{Superman}} a big movie of his own]], thus launching the rise of cinematic comic book adaptations. It also helped launch the revival of rival series ''Franchise/StarTrek''. Indeed, some blame this movie for hastening the end of the UsefulNotes/NewHollywood era and leading to the dumbed-down SummerBlockbuster mentality of the industry today, especially once the ''sequels'' arrived. Furthermore, ''Franchise/StarWars'' fundamentally changed how movies were made because of the huge success the franchise had with marketing. Sure, the movies were profitable, but the real money was made in action figures and toys and posters and other kinds of merchandising. Any kind of family-friendly blockbuster is going to have [[KidAppealCharacter a cute character of some sort designed to appeal to children and sell toys to them.]]
* ''Franchise/StarWars'' in 1977. While ''Film/{{Jaws}}'' is usually regarded as the first modern "blockbuster" movie, this was the one that proved that kids -- a demographic ignored by most 1970s movies -- were audience members too, that [[MerchandiseDriven merchandising spinoffs]] were a potential gold mine, that escapist sci-fi wasn't as [[BMovie disposable as once thought]], and that fantasy in general was an untapped resource. The whole GenreThrowback idea was popularized here, and while FollowTheLeader meant there were many crappy imitators within the years that followed, it did lead directly to Franchise/{{Superman}} getting [[Film/{{Superman}} a big movie of his own]], thus launching the rise of cinematic comic book adaptations. It also helped launch the revival of rival series ''Franchise/StarTrek''. Indeed, some blame this movie for hastening the end of the UsefulNotes/NewHollywood era and leading to the dumbed-down SummerBlockbuster mentality of the industry today, especially once the ''sequels'' arrived. Furthermore, ''Franchise/StarWars'' fundamentally changed how movies were made because of the huge success the franchise had with marketing. Sure, the movies were profitable, but the real money was made in action figures and toys and posters and other kinds of merchandising. Any kind of family-friendly blockbuster is going to have [[KidAppealCharacter a cute character of some sort designed to appeal to children and sell toys to them.]]
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* 1972's ''Film/TheGodfather'' ''Film/TheGodfather''.
** The original 1972 film is the gangster movie to which all other gangster movies are compared. Its portrayal of members of TheMafia as complex figures as opposed to pure villains was revolutionary, to the point where its tropes were embraced by ''actual mafiosi'', who started basing their style of dress, speech, and presentation off of the Corleones as opposed to the use of rougher slang and more casual clothes that they had embraced in the past.
* ** 1974's ''The Godfather Part II'', meanwhile, gave movie sequels a respectability that they previously lacked. The general opinion of many critics and moviegoers before then was that sequels were installments in {{Cash Cow Franchise}}s that, even when they were good on their own merits, [[FirstInstallmentWins never lived up to the original]]. ''The Godfather Part II'', on the other hand, built upon the story of its predecessor in such a way that many hailed it as [[EvenBetterSequel even better than the first movie]], and it became the first sequel to ever win the UsefulNotes/AcademyAward for Best Picture. Since then, sequels and stories that span multiple films have become more widely accepted in Hollywood, especially with the success of the ''Franchise/StarWars'' trilogy soon after. It also popularized NumberedSequels in Hollywood film.
* ''[[Film/ANewHope Star Wars]]'' in 1977. While ''Film/{{Jaws}}'' is usually regarded as the first modern "blockbuster" movie, this was the one that proved that kids -- a demographic ignored by most 1970s movies -- were audience members too, that [[MerchandiseDriven merchandising spinoffs]] were a potential gold mine, that escapist sci-fi wasn't as [[BMovie disposable as once thought]], and that fantasy in general was an untapped resource. The whole GenreThrowback idea was popularized here, and while FollowTheLeader meant there were many crappy imitators within the years that followed, it did lead directly to Franchise/{{Superman}} getting [[Film/{{Superman}} a big movie of his own]], thus launching the rise of cinematic comic book adaptations. It also helped launch the revival of rival series ''Franchise/StarTrek''. Indeed, some blame this movie for hastening the end of the UsefulNotes/NewHollywood era and leading to the dumbed-down SummerBlockbuster mentality of the industry today, especially once the ''sequels'' arrived. Furthermore, the ''Franchise/StarWars'' franchise fundamentally changed how movies were made because of the huge success the franchise had with marketing. Sure, the movies were profitable, but the real money was made in action figures and toys and posters and other kinds of merchandising. Any kind of family-friendly blockbuster is going to have [[KidAppealCharacter a cute character of some sort designed to appeal to children and sell toys to them.]]
** The original 1972 film is the gangster movie to which all other gangster movies are compared. Its portrayal of members of TheMafia as complex figures as opposed to pure villains was revolutionary, to the point where its tropes were embraced by ''actual mafiosi'', who started basing their style of dress, speech, and presentation off of the Corleones as opposed to the use of rougher slang and more casual clothes that they had embraced in the past.
* ''[[Film/ANewHope Star Wars]]'' in 1977. While ''Film/{{Jaws}}'' is usually regarded as the first modern "blockbuster" movie, this was the one that proved that kids -- a demographic ignored by most 1970s movies -- were audience members too, that [[MerchandiseDriven merchandising spinoffs]] were a potential gold mine, that escapist sci-fi wasn't as [[BMovie disposable as once thought]], and that fantasy in general was an untapped resource. The whole GenreThrowback idea was popularized here, and while FollowTheLeader meant there were many crappy imitators within the years that followed, it did lead directly to Franchise/{{Superman}} getting [[Film/{{Superman}} a big movie of his own]], thus launching the rise of cinematic comic book adaptations. It also helped launch the revival of rival series ''Franchise/StarTrek''. Indeed, some blame this movie for hastening the end of the UsefulNotes/NewHollywood era and leading to the dumbed-down SummerBlockbuster mentality of the industry today, especially once the ''sequels'' arrived. Furthermore, the ''Franchise/StarWars'' franchise fundamentally changed how movies were made because of the huge success the franchise had with marketing. Sure, the movies were profitable, but the real money was made in action figures and toys and posters and other kinds of merchandising. Any kind of family-friendly blockbuster is going to have [[KidAppealCharacter a cute character of some sort designed to appeal to children and sell toys to them.]]
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* In 2002, ''Film/TwentyEightDaysLater'' and the [[ForeignRemake American adaptation]] of ''Literature/TheRing'' both played a major role in pulling Western horror movies away from the focus on teenagers that they'd had since ''Halloween'' and back towards adult protagonists. Individually, they each also gave new life to various horror subgenres. ''28 Days Later'' not only brought [[ZombieApocalypse zombie fiction]] back from the dead, it added its own twist to the concept in the form of [[OurZombiesAreDifferent zombies that can run after their prey]] rather than shamble; while this wasn't a new idea (even the original ''Night of the Living Dead'' had some zombies capable of running), it became much more popular in its wake. ''The Ring'', meanwhile, set off a boom in horror remakes in the short term (especially American remakes of Japanese horror), and in the long term carved out new space for supernatural horror.
* 2003's ''Film/HouseOf1000Corpses'' and 2004's ''Film/{{Saw|I}}'' brought ultraviolent horror into the mainstream in the form of TorturePorn, focusing on drawn-out, torturous violence and gore as a source of BodyHorror in its own right while having, as their villains, ordinary humans based on real-life {{serial killer}}s (and urban legends about such).
* 2003's ''Film/HouseOf1000Corpses'' and 2004's ''Film/{{Saw|I}}'' brought ultraviolent horror into the mainstream in the form of TorturePorn, focusing on drawn-out, torturous violence and gore as a source of BodyHorror in its own right while having, as their villains, ordinary humans based on real-life {{serial killer}}s (and urban legends about such).
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* What ''Animal House'' didn't do, Creator/JohnHughes' teen movies probably did. ''Film/SixteenCandles'', ''Film/TheBreakfastClub'', ''Film/PrettyInPink'', and ''Film/FerrisBuellersDayOff'', all released in the span of just three years in the mid-'80s, took the problems of their teenage protagonists seriously in a way that few other teen movies had before, leaving a mark on a generation of filmmakers such that, if a teen comedy is not a SexComedy influenced by ''Animal House'', it's likely taking after Hughes' films. (Some draw influence from both, as seen with ''Film/AmericanPie''.) To this day, Hughes' takes on, and {{deconstruct|edCharacterArchetype}}ions of, various high school archetypes (the AlphaBitch, the JerkJock, the {{nerd}}, the {{delinquent|s}}, the [[LonersAreFreaks outcast loner]][[note]]As if to demonstrate the power that his films still have over the genre, you're probably thinking of the exact characters, all from the same film, that we're talking about here[[/note]]) still form the defining images of such seen in countless teen movies and TV shows.
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* What ''Animal House'' didn't do, Creator/JohnHughes' teen movies probably did. ''Film/SixteenCandles'', ''Film/TheBreakfastClub'', ''Film/PrettyInPink'', and ''Film/FerrisBuellersDayOff'', all released in the span of just three years in the mid-'80s, took the problems of their teenage protagonists seriously in a way that few other teen movies had before, leaving a mark on a generation of filmmakers such that, if a teen comedy is not a SexComedy influenced by ''Animal House'', it's likely taking after Hughes' films. (Some draw influence from both, as seen with ''Film/AmericanPie''.) To this day, Hughes' takes on, and {{deconstruct|edCharacterArchetype}}ions of, various high school archetypes (the AlphaBitch, the JerkJock, the {{nerd}}, the {{delinquent|s}}, the [[LonersAreFreaks outcast loner]][[note]]As if to demonstrate the power that his films still have over the genre, you're probably thinking of the exact characters, all from the same film, that we're talking about here[[/note]]) still form the defining images of such seen in countless teen movies and movies. Its influence stretches beyond film, too; Darren Star, co-creator of ''Series/BeverlyHills90210'' (itself listed in the Live-Action TV shows.section), said that his intention with that show was to create [[SpiritualAdaptation a TV version of a John Hughes teen movie]].
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* ''Film/TheDarkKnight'' in 2008 is the reason that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences now nominates as many as ''ten'' movies for the coveted Best Picture Oscar rather than the previously standard five. For that reason, it's often cited as an important contributor to the decline (though not outright ''death'') of OscarBait in TheNewTens. There had long been a bit of a backlash against studios who banked films' success on the possibility of being nominated for Oscars during the Winter months (reserving mere "[[SummerBlockbuster crowd-pleasers]]" for the Summer months), but the backlash became all but impossible to ignore when ''The Dark Knight'' failed to even get a nomination for Best Picture at the 81st Academy Awards, despite being one of the most critically acclaimed films of 2008. [[note]] Creator/HeathLedger's posthumous Best Supporting Actor award was the movie's only accolade in a non-technical category, and it might not even have gotten ''that'' if not for [[DeadArtistsAreBetter Ledger's untimely death bringing more attention to his critically acclaimed performance]].[[/note]] The resultant public outcry convinced the Academy to start nominating twice as many films for Best Picture, giving critically acclaimed genre films more space to be recognized by the Academy. Tellingly, ''Film/{{Avatar}}'', ''Film/{{District 9}}'', and ''WesternAnimation/{{Up}}'' were among the films nominated for Best Picture in 2009, while Creator/ChristopherNolan's own ''Film/{{Inception}}'' got nominated in 2010, as did ''WesternAnimation/ToyStory3''.
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* Creator/ChristopherNolan's ''Film/TheDarkKnightTrilogy'' also broke new ground:
** ''Film/BatmanBegins'' codified the concept of "back to basics" ContinuityReboot and SettingUpdate. It was openly cited as a model for Daniel Craig's turn as James Bond in ''Casino Royale'' as well as several others. It was also cited by Creator/JonFavreau as a model for ''Film/IronMan'' in telling a more psychological and character-motivated turn to altruism.
** ''Film/TheDarkKnight'' in 2008 is the reason that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences now nominates as many as ''ten'' movies for the coveted Best Picture Oscar rather than the previously standard five. For that reason, it's often cited as an important contributor to the decline (though not outright ''death'') of OscarBait in TheNewTens. There had long been a bit of a backlash against studios who banked films' success on the possibility of being nominated for Oscars during the Winter months (reserving mere "[[SummerBlockbuster crowd-pleasers]]" for the Summer months), but the backlash became all but impossible to ignore when ''The Dark Knight'' failed to even get a nomination for Best Picture at the 81st Academy Awards, despite being one of the most critically acclaimed films of 2008. [[note]] Creator/HeathLedger's posthumous Best Supporting Actor award was the movie's only accolade in a non-technical category, and it might not even have gotten ''that'' if not for [[DeadArtistsAreBetter Ledger's untimely death bringing more attention to his critically acclaimed performance]].[[/note]] The resultant public outcry convinced the Academy to start nominating twice as many films for Best Picture, giving critically acclaimed genre films more space to be recognized by the Academy. Tellingly, ''Film/{{Avatar}}'', ''Film/{{District 9}}'', and ''WesternAnimation/{{Up}}'' were among the films nominated for Best Picture in 2009, while Creator/ChristopherNolan's own ''Film/{{Inception}}'' got nominated in 2010, as did''WesternAnimation/ToyStory3''.''WesternAnimation/ToyStory3''.
** On a franchise note, Christopher Nolan's films codified the idea that superhero trilogies tell an ongoing character arc that builds on the previous film rather than simply repeat beats. Before Nolan, Superhero trilogies (Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, and the X-Men trilogy to some extent) generally had StaticCharacter[[note]]Creator/TobeyMaguire's Spider-Man is more or less the same character at the end of 1 as he is at 3, with only changes coming because of plot and character developments from his supporting cast and from devices such as the Symbiote suit, Christopher Reeve's Superman likewise, and Batman in the Schumacher/Burton movies was a SupportingCharacter to his villains who were the true stars of his movies[[/note]]. Nolan however had Batman and Bruce Wayne visibly grow and change from film to film, with the resolutions and events from the previous film carried forwards organically, which in ''Rises'' allowed Nolan to give his screen version of Batman an actual conclusion, which was unprecedented for any superhero movie, and which inspired ''Film/{{Logan}}'' a few years later. The MCU took inspiration from this in their ongoing serial nature, and while they have not indicated to go all the way as Nolan did, their movies have DynamicCharacter, with changes and actions carrying on from film-to-film especially in Phase 2 and Phase 3, and in general Nolan's movies are credited for raising the standard of storytelling in the superhero movie genre, as well as cementing the idea among audiences that each actor's take on a character is unique and separate from another's and deserves a conclusion to that version independent from the serial nature of the overall IP.
** ''Film/BatmanBegins'' codified the concept of "back to basics" ContinuityReboot and SettingUpdate. It was openly cited as a model for Daniel Craig's turn as James Bond in ''Casino Royale'' as well as several others. It was also cited by Creator/JonFavreau as a model for ''Film/IronMan'' in telling a more psychological and character-motivated turn to altruism.
** ''Film/TheDarkKnight'' in 2008 is the reason that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences now nominates as many as ''ten'' movies for the coveted Best Picture Oscar rather than the previously standard five. For that reason, it's often cited as an important contributor to the decline (though not outright ''death'') of OscarBait in TheNewTens. There had long been a bit of a backlash against studios who banked films' success on the possibility of being nominated for Oscars during the Winter months (reserving mere "[[SummerBlockbuster crowd-pleasers]]" for the Summer months), but the backlash became all but impossible to ignore when ''The Dark Knight'' failed to even get a nomination for Best Picture at the 81st Academy Awards, despite being one of the most critically acclaimed films of 2008. [[note]] Creator/HeathLedger's posthumous Best Supporting Actor award was the movie's only accolade in a non-technical category, and it might not even have gotten ''that'' if not for [[DeadArtistsAreBetter Ledger's untimely death bringing more attention to his critically acclaimed performance]].[[/note]] The resultant public outcry convinced the Academy to start nominating twice as many films for Best Picture, giving critically acclaimed genre films more space to be recognized by the Academy. Tellingly, ''Film/{{Avatar}}'', ''Film/{{District 9}}'', and ''WesternAnimation/{{Up}}'' were among the films nominated for Best Picture in 2009, while Creator/ChristopherNolan's own ''Film/{{Inception}}'' got nominated in 2010, as did
** On a franchise note, Christopher Nolan's films codified the idea that superhero trilogies tell an ongoing character arc that builds on the previous film rather than simply repeat beats. Before Nolan, Superhero trilogies (Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, and the X-Men trilogy to some extent) generally had StaticCharacter[[note]]Creator/TobeyMaguire's Spider-Man is more or less the same character at the end of 1 as he is at 3, with only changes coming because of plot and character developments from his supporting cast and from devices such as the Symbiote suit, Christopher Reeve's Superman likewise, and Batman in the Schumacher/Burton movies was a SupportingCharacter to his villains who were the true stars of his movies[[/note]]. Nolan however had Batman and Bruce Wayne visibly grow and change from film to film, with the resolutions and events from the previous film carried forwards organically, which in ''Rises'' allowed Nolan to give his screen version of Batman an actual conclusion, which was unprecedented for any superhero movie, and which inspired ''Film/{{Logan}}'' a few years later. The MCU took inspiration from this in their ongoing serial nature, and while they have not indicated to go all the way as Nolan did, their movies have DynamicCharacter, with changes and actions carrying on from film-to-film especially in Phase 2 and Phase 3, and in general Nolan's movies are credited for raising the standard of storytelling in the superhero movie genre, as well as cementing the idea among audiences that each actor's take on a character is unique and separate from another's and deserves a conclusion to that version independent from the serial nature of the overall IP.
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** Likewise, compared to Richard Donner's original ''Film/SupermanTheMovie'' and Tim Burton's ''Film/{{Batman}}'', both of which were essentially set in a ConstructedWorld and quasi-AlternateUniverse, and the science-fiction/fantasy focus of the ''X-Men'' movies, Creator/SamRaimi's ''Film/SpiderManTrilogy'' had a greater sense of realism. It visibly looked like 21st century New York, addressed the 9/11 attacks, and had characters who looked like contemporary adults grappling problems related to rent, work, and careers. This set the trend for greater realism and contemporary focus in the superhero films that came after, even in the [[Film/TheDarkKnightTrilogy revived Batman trilogy]] by Creator/ChristopherNolan. The rival films that avoided the contemporary focus (''Film/SupermanReturns'', ''Film/GreenLantern'') were failures, so the trend set by Spider-Man remains a major influence on the house style for both DC and Marvel properties.
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** Likewise, compared to Richard Donner's Creator/RichardDonner's original ''Film/SupermanTheMovie'' and Tim Burton's ''Film/{{Batman}}'', Creator/TimBurton's ''Film/Batman1989'', both of which were essentially set in a ConstructedWorld and quasi-AlternateUniverse, and the science-fiction/fantasy focus of the ''X-Men'' movies, Creator/SamRaimi's ''Film/SpiderManTrilogy'' had a greater sense of realism. It visibly looked like 21st century New York, addressed the 9/11 attacks, and had characters who looked like contemporary adults grappling problems related to rent, work, and careers. This set the trend for greater realism and contemporary focus in the superhero films that came after, even in the [[Film/TheDarkKnightTrilogy revived Batman trilogy]] by Creator/ChristopherNolan. The rival films that avoided the contemporary focus (''Film/SupermanReturns'', ''Film/GreenLantern'') were failures, so the trend set by Spider-Man remains a major influence on the house style for both DC and Marvel properties.
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* Creator/DWGriffith's ''Film/TheBirthOfANation1915'' established the popularity of movies as public entertainment, and codified the feature-length film with its extended running time, long-form narrative, new editing techniques, and film grammar (long-shot, medium-shot, close-up). Despite being [[ValuesDissonance reviled for its shocking racism]] (and in a subversion of FairForItsDay, it was considered shockingly racist even back in 1915), few historians deny that ''The Birth of a Nations''[='=]s giant box office success invented the blockbuster film and the EpicMovie and got many moviegoers and producers around the world invested in the movie business, thereby inventing Hollywood itself.
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* Creator/DWGriffith's ''Film/TheBirthOfANation1915'' established the popularity of movies as public entertainment, and codified the feature-length film with its extended running time, long-form narrative, new editing techniques, and film grammar (long-shot, medium-shot, close-up). Despite being [[ValuesDissonance reviled for its shocking racism]] (and in a subversion of FairForItsDay, (even at the time it was considered shockingly racist even back in 1915), came out, the NAACP unsuccessfully lobbied to have the film banned), few historians deny that ''The Birth of a Nations''[='=]s giant box office success invented the blockbuster film and the EpicMovie and got many moviegoers and producers around the world invested in the movie business, thereby inventing Hollywood itself.
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* 1954's ''Film/SevenSamurai'' invented the modern action movie. It not only pioneered [[TheMagnificentSevenSamurai a popular action movie plot]], it wrote much of the visual language that such films continue to use to this day. In particular, it had a great impact on the American [[TheWestern Western]] genre, the film being directly remade as ''Film/TheMagnificentSeven1960'' and a great deal of crossover developing between Westerns and Japanese samurai films as filmmakers on both sides of the Pacific realized that many of the tropes of each genre were [[{{Applicability}} applicable to both]]. (This influence was, in fact, recursive; Kurosawa had been heavily inspired by the films of Creator/JohnFord when making ''Seven Samurai''.)
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* In the late '60s, following the end of UsefulNotes/TheHaysCode, a trio of films marked the birth of the UsefulNotes/NewHollywood movement. Their success marked the ascent of a new generation of film-school-educated, boundary-pushing writers and directors, who unleashed a massive burst of creativity in Hollywood that lasted until the end of TheSeventies.
** First, there was ''Film/BonnieAndClyde'' in 1967. Its graphic violence and [[DracoInLeatherPants sympathetic treatment]] of its {{Villain Protagonist}}s were unprecedented for a mainstream film, setting off widespread debates among film critics and MoralGuardians alike about whether Hollywood was going too far -- a question that was answered when it became a box-office smash.
** A few months later that same year came ''Film/TheGraduate'', which similarly broke down taboos surrounding sexuality in film and brought the nascent sexual revolution to Hollywood.
** Finally, ''Film/EasyRider'' in 1969 was the film that codified [[NewAgeRetroHippie the counterculture of the era]], exploring the cultural changes and social tensions of TheSixties in a way that no Hollywood production before had dared to do.
** First, there was ''Film/BonnieAndClyde'' in 1967. Its graphic violence and [[DracoInLeatherPants sympathetic treatment]] of its {{Villain Protagonist}}s were unprecedented for a mainstream film, setting off widespread debates among film critics and MoralGuardians alike about whether Hollywood was going too far -- a question that was answered when it became a box-office smash.
** A few months later that same year came ''Film/TheGraduate'', which similarly broke down taboos surrounding sexuality in film and brought the nascent sexual revolution to Hollywood.
** Finally, ''Film/EasyRider'' in 1969 was the film that codified [[NewAgeRetroHippie the counterculture of the era]], exploring the cultural changes and social tensions of TheSixties in a way that no Hollywood production before had dared to do.
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* 1969's ''Film/TheWildBunch'' revolutionized how action films were edited, using quick cuts and [[AdrenalineTime slow motion]] to crank up the intensity of its action scenes. It also brought the revisionism of {{spaghetti Western}}s into Hollywood movies, with its story concerning the TwilightOfTheOldWest and aging gunfighters looking back on their lives.
* 1972's ''Film/TheGodfather'' is the gangster movie to which all other gangster movies are compared. Its portrayal of members of TheMafia as complex figures as opposed to pure villains was revolutionary, to the point where its tropes were embraced by ''actual mafiosi'', who started basing their style of dress, speech, and presentation off of the Corleones as opposed to the use of rougher slang and more casual clothes that they had embraced in the past.
* 1972's ''Film/TheGodfather'' is the gangster movie to which all other gangster movies are compared. Its portrayal of members of TheMafia as complex figures as opposed to pure villains was revolutionary, to the point where its tropes were embraced by ''actual mafiosi'', who started basing their style of dress, speech, and presentation off of the Corleones as opposed to the use of rougher slang and more casual clothes that they had embraced in the past.
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* 2004's ''Film/ThePassionOfTheChrist'' invented the modern "faith-based" film. While Hollywood had been making films based on stories from Literature/TheBible, from {{epic|Movie}}s to comedies to dramas, since UsefulNotes/{{the Golden Age|OfHollywood}}, they aimed for a mass market with these films, rarely getting into specifics on religion beyond the basics so as to avoid theological criticism from any one side or another. ''The Passion'', however, was made by the devout traditionalist Catholic Creator/MelGibson and aimed squarely at theologically conservative Catholics and evangelicals, and it was made independently, without any input from major studios. Its mammoth success, becoming the ninth-highest-grossing film of all time at the US box-office[[note]]As of 2018, it stands at #40[[/note]] largely on the back of promotion through churches even as [[NoSuchThingAsBadPublicity controversy swirled around it]], created a cottage industry of studios, both independent ones (most notably Creator/PureFlixEntertainment) and production arms of the majors, making religious films targeted explicitly at conservative Christians. Alissa Wilkinson, writing for ''Vox'', goes into more detail [[https://www.vox.com/culture/2018/1/31/16955448/passion-of-christ-sequel-mel-gibson-jim-caviezel-hell here.]]
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** And so, one could argue that they actually owe something to the genius of Creator/AkiraKurosawa, given that ''Fistful'' is almost a ShotForShotRemake of ''Film/{{Yojimbo}}''.
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** It was also a turning point in the respectability of horror, and the production values that were expected to go into a horror movie. Save for a handful of {{Cult Classic}}s, horror movies have historically been {{B Movie}}s, especially in the fifteen years or so prior to ''Scream'', with slashers in particular seen as the bottom of the barrel. Once Creator/DrewBarrymore attached herself to the project, however, numerous other popular actors were interested, and when the film became a SleeperHit, horror became much more respectable and mainstream. ''Film/IKnowWhatYouDidLastSummer'' is living proof -- Kevin Williamson wrote it before writing ''Scream'', and had trouble selling it, but once this film was picked up, it was immediately greenlit with TV stars like Creator/SarahMichelleGellar and Creator/JenniferLoveHewitt attached.
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** It was also a turning point in the respectability of horror, and the production values that were expected to go into a horror movie. Save for a handful of {{Cult Classic}}s, horror movies have historically been {{B Movie}}s, especially in the fifteen years or so prior to ''Scream'', with slashers in particular seen as the bottom of the barrel. Once Creator/DrewBarrymore attached herself to the project, however, numerous other popular actors were interested, and when the film became a SleeperHit, horror became much more respectable and mainstream. ''Film/IKnowWhatYouDidLastSummer'' is living proof -- Kevin Williamson wrote it before writing ''Scream'', and had trouble selling it, but once this film was picked up, it was immediately greenlit with TV stars like Creator/SarahMichelleGellar and Creator/JenniferLoveHewitt attached. One could argue that, by breaking the stigma around horror movies, ''Scream'' essentially killed the "UsefulNotes/{{scream queen|s}}" trope (ironically, given its title), as actors who appeared in horror movies were no longer typecast as only or primarily working in horror.
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The Avengers were not the first superhero team in film, the X-Men came first. Explaining a bit more what made the Avengers so significant (and that the X-Men still lacked)
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** First of all, the MCU was a SharedUniverse much like its source material. Before ''Film/IronMan'' and ''Film/{{The Avengers|2012}}'', the idea of a superhero team-up movie was considered a pipe dream among comics fans. Earlier superhero films, despite the odd MythologyGag and in-joke, had their heroes existing in the world as the only beings of their kind, be it ''Batman'', ''Superman'', or even Creator/SamRaimi's ''Film/SpiderManTrilogy'' and the ''Film/XMenFilmSeries''. The MCU changed the game when ''The Avengers'' proved that a big-budget live-action superhero ensemble film could and would work and be phenomenally successful, and it wouldn't be overcrowded with too many heroes or characters. It led to a renewal and modification of the blockbuster franchise mode and it directly spurred the creation of the ''Franchise/DCExtendedUniverse'' as well as myriad other attempts at a shared continuity.
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** First of all, the MCU was a SharedUniverse much like its source material. Before ''Film/IronMan'' and ''Film/{{The Avengers|2012}}'', the idea of a superhero team-up movie was considered a pipe dream among comics fans. Earlier superhero films, despite the odd MythologyGag and in-joke, had their heroes existing in the world as the only beings of their kind, be it ''Batman'', ''Superman'', or even Creator/SamRaimi's ''Film/SpiderManTrilogy'' and the ''Film/XMenFilmSeries''. The MCU changed the game when ''The Avengers'' proved that a big-budget live-action superhero ensemble film film, with characters and subplots already seen in standalone films merged into a single one, could and would work and be phenomenally successful, and it wouldn't be overcrowded with too many heroes or characters. It led to a renewal and modification of the blockbuster franchise mode and it directly spurred the creation of the ''Franchise/DCExtendedUniverse'' as well as myriad other attempts at a shared continuity.
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* ''Film/{{Scream 1996}}'' has several turning points associated with it, in relation to the horror genre.
** To start, Creator/WesCraven made it in an effort to kill the SlasherMovie once and for all. [[SpringtimeForHitler It did the exact opposite]], at least into the short term, [[PopularityPolynomial breathing new life]] into a once-dying genre and starting the late '90s/early '00s PostModernism craze in horror. In the long term, though, while it did reinvent the slasher for a new generation, it also killed off a lot of the tropes used in '80s slashers, such as DeathBySex and TheScourgeOfGod. Nowadays, most horror films in which young, horny, pot-smoking teens get killed off by a masked maniac, with the pure, virginal FinalGirl surviving to the end and defeating him, are either [[GenreThrowback tributes to the genre]] (like the ''Film/{{Hatchet}}'' and ''Film/WrongTurn'' series) or [[AffectionateParody parodies of it]] (like ''Film/TheCabinInTheWoods'' and ''Film/TheFinalGirls''), with straight examples often seen as cliched and trite due to ''Scream''[='=]s mockery of them. Indeed, one could argue that this was part of the reason why the slasher boom that followed ''Scream'' was so short-lived (besides the UsefulNotes/{{Columbine}} massacre sparking a TooSoon reaction) -- many of the lesser teen slashers that came out in its wake played those same tropes unironically, even though they were now much harder to take seriously.
** It was also a turning point in the production values that were expected to go into a horror movie. Save for a handful of {{Cult Classic}}s, horror movies since the late '70s were usually {{B Movie}}s, with slashers in particular seen as the bottom of the barrel. Once Creator/DrewBarrymore attached herself to the project, numerous other popular actors were interested, and when the film became a SleeperHit, horror became much more respectable and mainstream. ''Film/IKnowWhatYouDidLastSummer'' is living proof -- Kevin Williamson wrote it before writing ''Scream'', and had trouble selling it, but once this film was picked up, it was immediately greenlit with TV stars like Creator/SarahMichelleGellar and Creator/JenniferLoveHewitt attached.
** To start, Creator/WesCraven made it in an effort to kill the SlasherMovie once and for all. [[SpringtimeForHitler It did the exact opposite]], at least into the short term, [[PopularityPolynomial breathing new life]] into a once-dying genre and starting the late '90s/early '00s PostModernism craze in horror. In the long term, though, while it did reinvent the slasher for a new generation, it also killed off a lot of the tropes used in '80s slashers, such as DeathBySex and TheScourgeOfGod. Nowadays, most horror films in which young, horny, pot-smoking teens get killed off by a masked maniac, with the pure, virginal FinalGirl surviving to the end and defeating him, are either [[GenreThrowback tributes to the genre]] (like the ''Film/{{Hatchet}}'' and ''Film/WrongTurn'' series) or [[AffectionateParody parodies of it]] (like ''Film/TheCabinInTheWoods'' and ''Film/TheFinalGirls''), with straight examples often seen as cliched and trite due to ''Scream''[='=]s mockery of them. Indeed, one could argue that this was part of the reason why the slasher boom that followed ''Scream'' was so short-lived (besides the UsefulNotes/{{Columbine}} massacre sparking a TooSoon reaction) -- many of the lesser teen slashers that came out in its wake played those same tropes unironically, even though they were now much harder to take seriously.
** It was also a turning point in the production values that were expected to go into a horror movie. Save for a handful of {{Cult Classic}}s, horror movies since the late '70s were usually {{B Movie}}s, with slashers in particular seen as the bottom of the barrel. Once Creator/DrewBarrymore attached herself to the project, numerous other popular actors were interested, and when the film became a SleeperHit, horror became much more respectable and mainstream. ''Film/IKnowWhatYouDidLastSummer'' is living proof -- Kevin Williamson wrote it before writing ''Scream'', and had trouble selling it, but once this film was picked up, it was immediately greenlit with TV stars like Creator/SarahMichelleGellar and Creator/JenniferLoveHewitt attached.
to:
* ''Film/{{Scream 1996}}'' has several turning points associated with it, it in relation to the horror genre.
** To start, Creator/WesCraven made it in an effort to kill the SlasherMovie once and for all. [[SpringtimeForHitler It did the exact opposite]], at least into the short term, [[PopularityPolynomial breathing new life]] into a once-dying genre and starting the late '90s/early '00s PostModernism craze in horror. More substantially, it also marked a turning point in the reevaluation of older slashers in the minds of horror fans. In thelong term, though, early '90s, it was popular to blame slashers for "killing horror" by turning it into a series of LowestCommonDenominator gorefests, but as time went on, ''Scream'' showed that a slasher could be a thoughtful and even subtle horror film. This caused more people to go back and watch the older movies that ''Scream'' was riffing on, looking at them from new perspectives and recognizing the craftsmanship and subversion of many of them.
** At the same time, however, while it did reinvent the slasher for a new generation,it ''Scream'' also killed off a lot of the tropes used in '80s slashers, such as DeathBySex and TheScourgeOfGod. Nowadays, most horror films in which young, horny, pot-smoking teens get killed off by a masked maniac, with the pure, virginal FinalGirl surviving to the end and defeating him, are either [[GenreThrowback tributes to the genre]] (like the ''Film/{{Hatchet}}'' and ''Film/WrongTurn'' series) or [[AffectionateParody parodies of it]] (like ''Film/TheCabinInTheWoods'' and ''Film/TheFinalGirls''), with straight examples often seen as cliched and trite due to ''Scream''[='=]s mockery of them. Indeed, one could argue that this was part of the reason why the slasher boom that followed ''Scream'' was so short-lived (besides the UsefulNotes/{{Columbine}} massacre sparking a TooSoon reaction) -- many of the lesser teen slashers that came out in its wake played those same tropes unironically, even though they were now much harder to take seriously.
** It was also a turning point in the respectability of horror, and the production values that were expected to go into a horror movie. Save for a handful of {{Cult Classic}}s, horror moviessince the late '70s were usually have historically been {{B Movie}}s, especially in the fifteen years or so prior to ''Scream'', with slashers in particular seen as the bottom of the barrel. Once Creator/DrewBarrymore attached herself to the project, however, numerous other popular actors were interested, and when the film became a SleeperHit, horror became much more respectable and mainstream. ''Film/IKnowWhatYouDidLastSummer'' is living proof -- Kevin Williamson wrote it before writing ''Scream'', and had trouble selling it, but once this film was picked up, it was immediately greenlit with TV stars like Creator/SarahMichelleGellar and Creator/JenniferLoveHewitt attached.
** To start, Creator/WesCraven made it in an effort to kill the SlasherMovie once and for all. [[SpringtimeForHitler It did the exact opposite]], at least into the short term, [[PopularityPolynomial breathing new life]] into a once-dying genre and starting the late '90s/early '00s PostModernism craze in horror. More substantially, it also marked a turning point in the reevaluation of older slashers in the minds of horror fans. In the
** At the same time, however, while it did reinvent the slasher for a new generation,
** It was also a turning point in the respectability of horror, and the production values that were expected to go into a horror movie. Save for a handful of {{Cult Classic}}s, horror movies
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* Creator/WesCraven made ''Film/{{Scream 1996}}'' in an effort to kill the SlasherMovie once and for all. [[SpringtimeForHitler It did the exact opposite]], at least into the short term, [[PopularityPolynomial breathing new life]] into a once-dying genre and starting the late '90s/early '00s PostModernism craze in horror. In the long term, though, while it did reinvent the slasher for a new generation, it also killed off a lot of the tropes used in '80s slashers, such as DeathBySex and TheScourgeOfGod. Nowadays, most horror films in which young, horny, pot-smoking teens get killed off by a masked maniac, with the pure, virginal FinalGirl surviving to the end and defeating him, are either [[GenreThrowback tributes to the genre]] (like the ''Film/{{Hatchet}}'' and ''Film/WrongTurn'' series) or [[AffectionateParody parodies of it]] (like ''Film/TheCabinInTheWoods'' and ''Film/TheFinalGirls''), with straight examples often seen as cliched and trite due to ''Scream''[='=]s mockery of them. Indeed, one could argue that this was part of the reason why the slasher boom that followed ''Scream'' was so short-lived (besides the UsefulNotes/{{Columbine}} massacre sparking a TooSoon reaction) -- many of the lesser teen slashers that came out in its wake played those same tropes unironically, even though they were now much harder to take seriously.
to:
* Creator/WesCraven made ''Film/{{Scream 1996}}'' has several turning points associated with it, in relation to the horror genre.
** To start, Creator/WesCraven made it in an effort to kill the SlasherMovie once and for all. [[SpringtimeForHitler It did the exact opposite]], at least into the short term, [[PopularityPolynomial breathing new life]] into a once-dying genre and starting the late '90s/early '00s PostModernism craze in horror. In the long term, though, while it did reinvent the slasher for a new generation, it also killed off a lot of the tropes used in '80s slashers, such as DeathBySex and TheScourgeOfGod. Nowadays, most horror films in which young, horny, pot-smoking teens get killed off by a masked maniac, with the pure, virginal FinalGirl surviving to the end and defeating him, are either [[GenreThrowback tributes to the genre]] (like the ''Film/{{Hatchet}}'' and ''Film/WrongTurn'' series) or [[AffectionateParody parodies of it]] (like ''Film/TheCabinInTheWoods'' and ''Film/TheFinalGirls''), with straight examples often seen as cliched and trite due to ''Scream''[='=]s mockery of them. Indeed, one could argue that this was part of the reason why the slasher boom that followed ''Scream'' was so short-lived (besides the UsefulNotes/{{Columbine}} massacre sparking a TooSoon reaction) -- many of the lesser teen slashers that came out in its wake played those same tropes unironically, even though they were now much harder to takeseriously.seriously.
** It was also a turning point in the production values that were expected to go into a horror movie. Save for a handful of {{Cult Classic}}s, horror movies since the late '70s were usually {{B Movie}}s, with slashers in particular seen as the bottom of the barrel. Once Creator/DrewBarrymore attached herself to the project, numerous other popular actors were interested, and when the film became a SleeperHit, horror became much more respectable and mainstream. ''Film/IKnowWhatYouDidLastSummer'' is living proof -- Kevin Williamson wrote it before writing ''Scream'', and had trouble selling it, but once this film was picked up, it was immediately greenlit with TV stars like Creator/SarahMichelleGellar and Creator/JenniferLoveHewitt attached.
** To start, Creator/WesCraven made it in an effort to kill the SlasherMovie once and for all. [[SpringtimeForHitler It did the exact opposite]], at least into the short term, [[PopularityPolynomial breathing new life]] into a once-dying genre and starting the late '90s/early '00s PostModernism craze in horror. In the long term, though, while it did reinvent the slasher for a new generation, it also killed off a lot of the tropes used in '80s slashers, such as DeathBySex and TheScourgeOfGod. Nowadays, most horror films in which young, horny, pot-smoking teens get killed off by a masked maniac, with the pure, virginal FinalGirl surviving to the end and defeating him, are either [[GenreThrowback tributes to the genre]] (like the ''Film/{{Hatchet}}'' and ''Film/WrongTurn'' series) or [[AffectionateParody parodies of it]] (like ''Film/TheCabinInTheWoods'' and ''Film/TheFinalGirls''), with straight examples often seen as cliched and trite due to ''Scream''[='=]s mockery of them. Indeed, one could argue that this was part of the reason why the slasher boom that followed ''Scream'' was so short-lived (besides the UsefulNotes/{{Columbine}} massacre sparking a TooSoon reaction) -- many of the lesser teen slashers that came out in its wake played those same tropes unironically, even though they were now much harder to take
** It was also a turning point in the production values that were expected to go into a horror movie. Save for a handful of {{Cult Classic}}s, horror movies since the late '70s were usually {{B Movie}}s, with slashers in particular seen as the bottom of the barrel. Once Creator/DrewBarrymore attached herself to the project, numerous other popular actors were interested, and when the film became a SleeperHit, horror became much more respectable and mainstream. ''Film/IKnowWhatYouDidLastSummer'' is living proof -- Kevin Williamson wrote it before writing ''Scream'', and had trouble selling it, but once this film was picked up, it was immediately greenlit with TV stars like Creator/SarahMichelleGellar and Creator/JenniferLoveHewitt attached.
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* The most immediate impact of ''Film/ParanormalActivity'' in 2009 was to spawn a boom in FoundFootageFilms, but in the longer term, its greatest legacy came in its rejuvenation of supernatural horror in TheNewTens, fueled in part by a backlash against the worn-out tropes of TorturePorn. ''Film/{{Insidious}}'' and ''Film/TheConjuring'' (both directed by Creator/JamesWan) went on to codify what a "modern" supernatural horror film was supposed to look like, ironically by [[GenreThrowback drawing on distinctly old-fashioned horror tropes]] from TheSeventies.
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* The 1965 film adaptation of ''Theatre/TheSoundOfMusic'' was [[http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/book-world-matthew-kennedys-roadshow-the-fall-of-film-musicals-in-the-1960s/2014/02/13/82c56f8e-8e69-11e3-b227-12a45d109e03_story.html described]] by Matthew Kennedy, in his book ''Roadshow! The Fall of Film Musicals in the '60s'', as "The Musical That Ate Hollywood". The staggering box-office success of this big-budget family musical (dethroning ''Film/GoneWithTheWind'' for the title of the highest-grossing film of all time) led to a slew of [[FollowTheLeader copycats]] determined to make lightning strike twice, many of which went down in history as notorious {{Box Office Bomb}}s that helped to [[GenreKiller discredit movie musicals for decades]]. Likewise, its use of [[RoadshowTheatricalRelease roadshow booking]], screening films at a select number of upscale theaters that charged premium ticket prices in exchange for a far more lavish moviegoing experience, led many more studios to use it for their musicals, cheapening a format that had once been reserved for [[EpicMovie the biggest spectacles]]. The trends that ''The Sound of Music'' started did severe damage to Hollywood in both the near and long terms, acting as TheLastStraw in the UsefulNotes/FallOfTheStudioSystem as audiences rejected paying inflated ticket prices for increasingly subpar movies.
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* The 1965 film adaptation of ''Theatre/TheSoundOfMusic'' was [[http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/book-world-matthew-kennedys-roadshow-the-fall-of-film-musicals-in-the-1960s/2014/02/13/82c56f8e-8e69-11e3-b227-12a45d109e03_story.html described]] by Matthew Kennedy, in his book ''Roadshow! The Fall of Film Musicals in the '60s'', as "The Musical That Ate Hollywood". The staggering box-office success of this big-budget family musical (dethroning ''Film/GoneWithTheWind'' for the title of the highest-grossing film of all time) led to a slew of [[FollowTheLeader copycats]] determined to make lightning strike twice, many of which went down in history as notorious {{Box Office Bomb}}s that helped to [[GenreKiller discredit movie musicals for decades]]. Likewise, its use of [[RoadshowTheatricalRelease roadshow booking]], screening films at a select number of upscale theaters that charged premium ticket prices in exchange for a far more lavish moviegoing experience, led many more studios to use it for their musicals, cheapening a format that had once been reserved for [[EpicMovie the biggest spectacles]]. The trends that ''The Sound of Music'' started did severe damage to Hollywood in both the near and long terms, acting as TheLastStraw in the UsefulNotes/FallOfTheStudioSystem as audiences rejected paying inflated ticket prices for increasingly subpar movies. Creator/LindsayEllis goes into more detail in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8o7LzGqc3E this video.]]
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%%
%%Examples organized into rough chronological order.
%%
* In 1902, ''Film/ATripToTheMoon'' invented the film industry as we know it, being one of the first explicitly fictional fantastic narratives brought to life on the "silver screen" in an era where most people were using movie cameras simply to capture small [[SliceOfLife slices of everyday life]]. It also showcases early examples of special effects such as screen wipes and {{stop trick}}s that would eventually become stock-in-trade for the medium.
* Creator/DWGriffith's ''Film/TheBirthOfANation1915'' established the popularity of movies as public entertainment, and codified the feature-length film with its extended running time, long-form narrative, new editing techniques, and film grammar (long-shot, medium-shot, close-up). Despite being [[ValuesDissonance reviled for its shocking racism]] (and in a subversion of FairForItsDay, it was considered shockingly racist even back in 1915), few historians deny that ''The Birth of a Nations''[='=]s giant box office success invented the blockbuster film and the EpicMovie and got many moviegoers and producers around the world invested in the movie business, thereby inventing Hollywood itself.
* Creator/CharlieChaplin's short films in the 1910s and '20s not only made him the world's first movie star and media celebrity, they also codified the basic repertoire of motion picture slapstick comedy in both live-action and animation. Chaplin's use of comedy and the underdog nature of the Tramp to communicate social issues of poverty and homelessness also made him a favorite among avant-garde artists, who cited him as their inspiration for cinema that was both fun and relevant.
* The 1920 film ''Film/TheCabinetOfDrCaligari'' was this for GermanExpressionism, showing the power of set design, art direction, lighting, and cinematography to communicate visual atmosphere and mood, rather than simply relying on intertitles. It also showed, in a very primitive fashion, that movies could have stories that were psychologically insightful and thought-provoking just by being visual, rather than merely aping the novel or theatre.
* Creator/FritzLang codified many features of genre film-making in the 1920s and '30s. His ''Die Nibelungen'' was the first large-scale fantasy epic, ''Dr. Mabuse'' and ''Spies'' marked the start of the spy movies with NGOSuperpower and supervillains running society via surveillance networks, ''Film/{{Metropolis}}'' and ''The Woman in the Moon'' were the birth of the science-fiction epic, and the latter film invented the countdown. Lang's movies inspired superhero comics, with Superman's city named after his film, and his supervillains like Dr. Mabuse, Rotwang, and Haghi inspiring via PopculturalOsmosis everyone from Lex Luthor to Blofeld. ''Film/{{M}}'' likewise was the first major movie about a SerialKiller, and its greater realism and more accurate look at policework inspired the true crime genre and the police procedural, which in turned inspired the FilmNoir -- a genre that Lang also contributed to after he arrived in Hollywood.
* Creator/SergeiEisenstein's 1925 film ''Film/TheBattleshipPotemkin'' also showed that, rather than just copying what was done in theater and literature, cinema can communicate deeper and more intricate meaning via montages and editing techniques, greatly expanding the vocabulary beyond the realist limitations of those mediums. Its radical political message also, for better and worse, introduced the concept of using cinema as [[PropagandaPiece political propaganda]].
* 1927's ''Film/TheJazzSinger'' wasn't a particularly good film beyond [[DancingBear its gimmick]], but that gimmick, the use of sound, changed the film industry across the world. The arrival of sound introduced more realistic acting, putting the end of many stars who came to prominence in the silent era. Silent comedy of the likes of Creator/BusterKeaton and Creator/HaroldLloyd was left out of the lurch, while Creator/CharlieChaplin became far less prolific and more cautious. It also marked the start of Hollywood's global rise to prominence. Formerly, simply replacing the intertitles from one film in local translation made it possible for Italian, French, Russian, and Swedish movies to have global audiences. The language barrier led to the greater hegemony of English-language cinema around the world, as Hollywood, with its vast American and British markets far outstripping the smaller, linguistically-restrained national cinemas of other countries, was able to field the biggest budgets for the biggest movies. By the time the technology for dubbing and subtitles caught up, Hollywood was well into [[UsefulNotes/TheGoldenAgeOfHollywood its Golden Age]], and there was no looking back.
* ''Film/Scarface1932'' by Creator/HowardHawks was not the first gangster film or even the first sound gangster film (that goes to ''The Public Enemy''), but it was the first crime movie that became a huge hit and created controversy, what with its main character being an {{Expy}} of [[UsefulNotes/AlCapone an actual criminal]]. Its non-judgmental use of a VillainProtagonist raised concerns about glorifying violence and raised enough fears among MoralGuardians that they demanded a ReCut, not unlike the [[Film/Scarface1983 1983 remake]]. Among moviegoers, ''Scarface'' and other Depression gangster films were seen as edgy and innovative for use of contemporary slang that the working-class audiences recognized and used themselves, further showing the potential for sound cinema to be dramatically and socially realistic.
* Though 1939's ''Film/TheWizardOfOz'' was a family-friendly musical comedy, it was also the first big-budget Hollywood feature film ever to put its budget towards bringing a fleshed-out [[TheVerse fantastical universe]] to life on the big screen -- something that had previously only been seen in disposable low-budget shorts like the ''Film/{{Flash Gordon|Serial}}'' serials released in the same decade. It definitely wasn't an epic HighFantasy, but it paved the way for more ambitious fantasy films (both originals and adaptations) like ''Film/StarWars'', ''Film/{{Labyrinth}}'', and the ''Film/LordOfTheRings'' films. Tellingly, the studio insisted that the movie end with Dorothy waking up in her bed and assuming that [[AllJustADream her adventures in Oz were just a dream]], since they didn't think that adult moviegoers in the 1930s would take a ''real'' fantasyland seriously. [[note]]In Creator/LFrankBaum's [[Literature/TheWonderfulWizardOfOz original book]], there's no such ending: Dorothy lands in her front yard after being swept away from Oz, she openly tells Auntie Em where she went, and Baum wrote several sequels that fleshed Oz out and left no room for doubting that it was a real place.[[/note]]
* TheWestern had been popular from the beginning of the movies with ''Film/TheGreatTrainRobbery'', but it faded when sound arrived. Then came Creator/JohnFord's 1939 film ''Film/{{Stagecoach}}'', which marked the true start of the modern Western. It introduced the star-making role of the greatest Western star, Creator/JohnWayne, location shooting at Monument Valley (the first time Ford shot there), realistic action sequences, and the use of the Western genre as a vehicle for social commentary, with civilization positioned as a corrupting influence on the natural and rugged frontier with greedy bankers standing in for AcceptableTargets during the Depression.
* 1941's ''Film/CitizenKane'' was the TropeCodifier if not the TropeMaker for a new kind of filmmaking. Where filmmakers had used montages, art direction, set design, performances, and sound to tell stories before, Creator/OrsonWelles was the first to combine them in such a way as to create a new, heightened kind of storytelling. Its GenreBusting approach, using a {{Mockumentary}} style, multiple flashbacks, and multiple narrators to tell a psychologically consistent story of three-dimensional characters, was considered as a sign that movies could be movies ''and still be'' as complex and modern as the best theatre and novels. By borrowing ideas and concepts from genre and epic movies (special effects, miniatures, multiple camera tricks) to a serious film, Welles committed major GenreAdultery. Likewise, Welles' unique contract became the TropeMaker for AuteurLicense, and the fact that he made it at the age of 25 proved that cinema wasn't merely the work of established professionals but also open to upstarts and tyros as well.
* Early [[AttackOfThe50FootWhatever giant monster movies]] like the 1927 version of ''Film/TheLostWorld'' or ''Film/KingKong1933'' had their monsters as prehistoric forces unleashed on the modern world. 1953's ''Film/TheBeastFromTwentyThousandFathoms'', on the other hand, was the first to have its monster as a blend of primordial chaos and the contemporary, future-fear of [[ILoveNuclearPower the atom bomb]]. For most of the remainder of the 20th Century, giant monsters were nuclear-powered (''Film/{{Gojira}}'' and ''Film/{{Them}}'' being the best of those that followed), and in a post-Cold War world, giant monsters still tend to represent some real-world, human-derived panic -- ''Film/JurassicPark'' and [[GeneticEngineeringIsTheNewNuke genetic engineering]], ''Film/{{Cloverfield}}'' and [[PostNineElevenTerrorismMovie terrorism]], etc.
* 1956's ''Film/ForbiddenPlanet'' revolutionized film and television science fiction. Along with ''Film/TheDayTheEarthStoodStill1951'', it was one of the first science-fiction films ever to be treated as a big-budget studio endeavor (an "A-Movie") rather than a disposable lead-in to a main feature (a "B-Movie"), and the first such film to put its budget towards lavishly bringing an alien world and a distant future to life on the big screen. On top of that, it showed audiences the potential for using science fiction to explore complex concepts and morals, incorporating an unlikely blend of [[Theatre/TheTempest Shakespearean drama]], [[UsefulNotes/SigmundFreud Freudian psychology]], and 20th century ideas about the destructive potential of science into its plot. ''Series/StarTrek'' would famously follow its example, building a franchise on using science fiction tropes to deliver morality plays.
* Creator/AlfredHitchcock's 1960 film ''Film/{{Psycho}}'' was, along with the ditching of UsefulNotes/TheHaysCode and its replacement by the MPAA later in the decade, widely credited for helping to turn the {{horror}} genre from "stories that are a bit spooky and feature the odd death" to "stories where AnyoneCanDie, deaths are bloody and brutal, and sometimes even TheBadGuyWins." In particular, not only did it push boundaries with its violence and serve as the UrExample to the SlasherMovie genre, it helped show the world the true shock potential of the HalfwayPlotSwitch and the DecoyProtagonist, by famously [[GenreShift changing genres]] and introducing a new main character after the infamous shower scene. Though definitely not the first film with a major PlotTwist in its story, it paved the way for a whole slew of thrillers and horror films built on {{Shocking Swerve}}s and the anticipation of a TwistEnding. How influential was it? It's credited with leading to the advent of ''[[SeinfeldIsUnfunny movie showtimes]]'', as Hitchcock specifically requested that theaters refrain from admitting viewers to the movie after it started, wanting ''everyone'' to be able to experience the big twist when it happened. Before that, it was actually considered normal for theaters to simply play movies in a loop, with moviegoers regularly walking in halfway through and leaving when it looped back around to where they originally came in.
* Creator/SergioLeone's ''Film/DollarsTrilogy'' in the mid-'60s. These films weren't the first {{deconstruction}}ist [[TheWestern Westerns]] -- the classics ''Film/HighNoon'' and ''Film/TheSearchers'' came out a decade before them -- but they left a far more lasting impact on the genre than those two films did. All of a sudden, the BlackAndWhiteMorality that was nearly omnipresent in the genre vanished, replaced with the grittier, more morally gray attitudes seen in such films as ''Film/TheWildBunch'', ''Film/HighPlainsDrifter'', and much later, ''Film/{{Unforgiven}}''. Every single Western made since the mid-'60s owes something to Leone's masterpiece.
** And so, one could argue that they actually owe something to the genius of Creator/AkiraKurosawa, given that ''Fistful'' is almost a ShotForShotRemake of ''Film/{{Yojimbo}}''.
* The 1965 film adaptation of ''Theatre/TheSoundOfMusic'' was [[http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/book-world-matthew-kennedys-roadshow-the-fall-of-film-musicals-in-the-1960s/2014/02/13/82c56f8e-8e69-11e3-b227-12a45d109e03_story.html described]] by Matthew Kennedy, in his book ''Roadshow! The Fall of Film Musicals in the '60s'', as "The Musical That Ate Hollywood". The staggering box-office success of this big-budget family musical (dethroning ''Film/GoneWithTheWind'' for the title of the highest-grossing film of all time) led to a slew of [[FollowTheLeader copycats]] determined to make lightning strike twice, many of which went down in history as notorious {{Box Office Bomb}}s that helped to [[GenreKiller discredit movie musicals for decades]]. Likewise, its use of [[RoadshowTheatricalRelease roadshow booking]], screening films at a select number of upscale theaters that charged premium ticket prices in exchange for a far more lavish moviegoing experience, led many more studios to use it for their musicals, cheapening a format that had once been reserved for [[EpicMovie the biggest spectacles]]. The trends that ''The Sound of Music'' started did severe damage to Hollywood in both the near and long terms, acting as TheLastStraw in the UsefulNotes/FallOfTheStudioSystem as audiences rejected paying inflated ticket prices for increasingly subpar movies.
* Creator/GeorgeARomero's ''Film/NightOfTheLivingDead1968'' not only single-handedly invented [[ZombieApocalypse modern zombie fiction]], it finished the job that ''Psycho'' started in revolutionizing the expectations people had for horror films, such that, when it was first screened in what was then still a popular place to screen horror movies (i.e. ''[[WhatDoYouMeanItsNotForKids kiddie theaters]]''), it caused moral panic. Romero's ''Film/LivingDeadSeries'' as a whole has also been [[https://film.avclub.com/the-rust-belt-horror-of-george-romero-1798288362 credited]], along with the books of Creator/StephenKing in the literary world (see below), with giving the horror genre a more blue-collar focus, bringing it into weathered farmhouses and [[TheMall soulless shopping malls]] in [[FlyoverCountry Pennsylvania]] rather than [[OldDarkHouse gothic mansions]] and {{haunted castle}}s in [[{{Uberwald}} Transylvania]]. He was also famous for using the genre as a vehicle for social commentary, his stories satirizing topics like race relations, consumerism, income inequality, and life in small-town and suburban America.
* The 1968 Creator/BorisKarloff film ''Film/{{Targets}}'' was another turning point for horror, unofficially marking the end of the MadScientist movies of the past with a turn towards more realistic villains like [[SerialKiller serial killers]]. The fact that it was one of Karloff's last films makes the change-over even more stark.
* ''Franchise/StarWars'' in 1977. While ''Film/{{Jaws}}'' is usually regarded as the first modern "blockbuster" movie, this was the one that proved that kids -- a demographic ignored by most 1970s movies -- were audience members too, that [[MerchandiseDriven merchandising spinoffs]] were a potential gold mine, that escapist sci-fi wasn't as [[BMovie disposable as once thought]], and that fantasy in general was an untapped resource. The whole GenreThrowback idea was popularized here, and while FollowTheLeader meant there were many crappy imitators within the years that followed, it did lead directly to Franchise/{{Superman}} getting [[Film/{{Superman}} a big movie of his own]], thus launching the rise of cinematic comic book adaptations. It also helped launch the revival of rival series ''Franchise/StarTrek''. Indeed, some blame this movie for hastening the end of the UsefulNotes/NewHollywood era and leading to the dumbed-down SummerBlockbuster mentality of the industry today, especially once the ''sequels'' arrived. Furthermore, ''Franchise/StarWars'' fundamentally changed how movies were made because of the huge success the franchise had with marketing. Sure, the movies were profitable, but the real money was made in action figures and toys and posters and other kinds of merchandising. Any kind of family-friendly blockbuster is going to have [[KidAppealCharacter a cute character of some sort designed to appeal to children and sell toys to them.]]
* 1978's ''Film/AnimalHouse'' was probably the first "teen" movie to combine youthful angst with zany comedy -- which, in the ensuing decades, resulted in teen comedies becoming not only a lot more common, but a lot more serious as well. Also, while there were similarly shocking comedies before it (''Film/PinkFlamingos'', ''Film/BlazingSaddles''), it was arguably the first mainstream hit comedy to fully take advantage of the loosened restrictions of the post-[[UsefulNotes/TheHaysCode Hays Code]] era, allowing it to hit audiences with explicit sex jokes that would never have flown even a decade prior as opposed to just [[DoubleEntendre innuendos]]. This set off a boom in the American SexComedy genre in TheEighties as other such films pushed that much further with their comedy.
* Creator/JohnCarpenter's ''Film/{{Halloween 1978}}'' didn't invent the modern SlasherMovie, but it did [[TropeCodifier codify]] most of the tropes of the genre, launch the careers of Carpenter and Creator/JamieLeeCurtis, and spawn a wave of imitators. Two years later, one of those imitators, ''Film/FridayThe13th1980'', turned the slasher flick into a {{horror}} staple by focusing on the {{exploitation|Film}} part of it.
* The 1978 ''Film/{{Superman}}'' movie.
** It proved once and for all that comic book adaptations didn't need to be cheesy or silly, with terrible budgets and special effects. Even the casting of Creator/ChristopherReeve was considered a bold move at the time, since Creator/RichardDonner insisted on casting a relatively unknown character actor so that it would be easier for the audience to believe that they were actually seeing Superman onscreen.
** It also showed that filmmakers could stay true to the spirit of a long-running comic book while incorporating just enough original ideas to make it work on film. Many ideas conceived for the movie (the crystal cities of Krypton, Zod's two Kryptonian henchmen, Jor-El surviving Krypton's destruction as a VirtualGhost, Superman's portrayal as a [[MessianicArchetype messianic figure]], the "S" emblem being the House of El's coat of arms, et cetera) were original ideas with no basis in the comics, but they helped successfully sell the ''Superman'' mythos to a new audience who only knew the character through PopculturalOsmosis, and many of them were received well enough that they were incorporated into the comics as official canon.
* The ''Franchise/{{Alien}}'' film franchise, especially ''Film/{{Aliens}}'', forever changed the narrative expectations of female characters in western futuristic stories. While one NeutralFemale or DamselInDistress character was the norm, now every primary female character in the future is expected to make like Ellen Ripley, grab a weapon, and join the fighting as much as any man.
* Creator/MichaelCimino's 1980 film ''Film/HeavensGate'', although not for the same reasons as most of the other examples: it was such a notorious TroubledProduction and BoxOfficeBomb that it [[GenreKiller killed]] the [[TheWestern Hollywood Western]] (at least for a time), [[CreatorKiller United Artists as an independent studio, and director Michael Cimino's career]]. It and other high-profile flops (''One From the Heart'', ''Sorcerer'') also killed the [[UsefulNotes/NewHollywood auteur period]] in Hollywood.
* 1982's ''Film/BladeRunner''.
** It was a disappointment in a crowded summer box office when it came out. Repeated showings on cable and its release on video not only made it one of the first films to develop a strong cult following that way, but its wet streets reflecting neon signs at night got copied widely in other films, commercials and music videos during the 1980s. It arguably influenced the look of urban space in the ''actual real-world future'' ([[http://www.flickr.com/photos/59303791@N00/2518314792/ see Times Square, ca. 2008]]).
** Furthermore, this was the film that popularized the [[ReCut Director's Cut]], giving audience a better chance to see a film like the artists truly intended while the film companies are motivated to cooperate with the profit of selling another version of a film to the same audience.
* ''Zu: Warriors from the Magic Mountain'' (1983, Tsui Hark) was the first film to combine Hong Kong action cinema with western special effects technology, resulting in visually-stunning displays of SupernaturalMartialArts.
* What ''Animal House'' didn't do, Creator/JohnHughes' teen movies probably did. ''Film/SixteenCandles'', ''Film/TheBreakfastClub'', ''Film/PrettyInPink'', and ''Film/FerrisBuellersDayOff'', all released in the span of just three years in the mid-'80s, took the problems of their teenage protagonists seriously in a way that few other teen movies had before, leaving a mark on a generation of filmmakers such that, if a teen comedy is not a SexComedy influenced by ''Animal House'', it's likely taking after Hughes' films. (Some draw influence from both, as seen with ''Film/AmericanPie''.) To this day, Hughes' takes on, and {{deconstruct|edCharacterArchetype}}ions of, various high school archetypes (the AlphaBitch, the JerkJock, the {{nerd}}, the {{delinquent|s}}, the [[LonersAreFreaks outcast loner]][[note]]As if to demonstrate the power that his films still have over the genre, you're probably thinking of the exact characters, all from the same film, that we're talking about here[[/note]]) still form the defining images of such seen in countless teen movies and TV shows.
* 1986's ''Film/TopGun''.
** In terms of the film itself, while both the PG-13 rating and the SummerBlockbuster had been around for a few years by that point, ''Top Gun'' [[TropeCodifier codified]] the tropes of the modern, young-male-oriented, PG-13 action blockbuster that came to serve as the default template for Hollywood's tentpole films from TheNineties onward. It also marked the mainstream breakthrough of Creator/TonyScott, one of the most influential action filmmakers of UsefulNotes/TheBlockbusterAgeOfHollywood. As [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfvE8rWn52s this video]] from Rossatron explains, Scott's hyperkinetic SignatureStyle of quick cuts, OrangeBlueContrast, and a [[{{Fanservice}} loving focus on the attractive lead actors]], much of it imported from the world of {{music video|Tropes}}s, wound up paving the way for everybody from Creator/MichaelBay to Creator/KathrynBigelow to Simon West.
** It also had an impact on how movies are watched and consumed. While [[UsefulNotes/{{VCR}} VHS]] had been a popular format since the start of TheEighties, the home video release of ''Top Gun'' in 1987 pushed it into the stratosphere. As [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YLlt1JWpRA this video]] by Tom Reimann of ''Website/{{Cracked}}'' explains, Hollywood once saw home video as [[NewMediaAreEvil a grave threat to their business model]], and so they charged [[CrackIsCheaper over $80 a pop]] for VHS copies of their films and sued video rental stores for copyright violations (many stores during that time had to operate on a "private club" model to cover themselves legally). Creator/{{Paramount}}, however, sold the ''Top Gun'' VHS for only $26.95, a low price that was paid for by [[ProductPlacement putting a Pepsi commercial before the movie]] at the beginning of each tape. With this highly lucrative strategy, Hollywood's bitter resistance to home video evaporated as they saw how much money they could make from these sorts of marketing deals. Theatrical rereleases of popular movies died out almost entirely, only experiencing a short-lived revival in the early 2010s with the rise of [[UsefulNotes/ThreeDMovie 3D conversions]], while video rental opened up and took its place as the primary second-run distribution network.
* While not many would think of ''Film/RoboCop1987'' as a {{superhero}} movie, it could easily be argued that it saved the genre. When it came out, the superhero movie genre seemed to have sunk with the embarrassing failure of ''Film/SupermanIVTheQuestForPeace'' earlier that year. However, ''[=RoboCop=]'' turned the genre around as a critically hailed hit film that presented a cuttingly [[BlackComedy satiric]] {{cyberpunk}} thriller with a moving humanity, one that showed what the genre could be.
* 1988's ''Film/DieHard'' did this for the action movie. Sure, there were smart thrillers with smart villains beforehand -- ''Film/DieHard'' itself could be seen as something of a remake of ''Film/NorthSeaHijack'' -- but after it came out, there were far fewer action films that featured invincible, unstoppable heroes (Schwarzenegger, Stallone) whose plots depended on {{Ass Pull}}ing solutions out of thin air than there were before. Plus, not many films rewrite the rules for the genre so heavily that a [[DieHardOnAnX subgenre]] forms around them.
* In 1989, Creator/NoraEphron and Creator/RobReiner revolutionized the RomanticComedy with ''Film/WhenHarryMetSally''. As [[https://www.avclub.com/after-when-harry-met-sally-almost-every-rom-com-tried-1823690771 explained]] by Caroline Siede of ''The Website/AVClub'', ''When Harry Met Sally...'' served as a bridge between Creator/WoodyAllen's more niche '70s films like ''Film/AnnieHall'' and the mainstream rom-coms of the '90s and 2000s, keeping the unorthodox male lead and questions about the nature of romance from Allen's films but adding a degree of earnestness and making the female lead just as neurotic and complex as her male counterpart. Not only did ''When Harry Met Sally...'' propel Creator/MegRyan [[StarMakingRole to the A-list]] in TheNineties, its formula (codified further by Ephron's later films ''Film/SleeplessInSeattle'' and ''Film/YouveGotMail'') became the template for an entire generation of romantic comedies in the '90s and '00s.
* ''Film/RogerAndMe'' (1989) forever changed documentaries. Beforehand, documentaries (of a non-musical nature at least) had been mostly confined to film festivals. ''Roger and Me'' demonstrated you could make a documentary that the masses would want to see, allowing other documentaries, including Creator/MichaelMoore's later ones, to achieve widespread box office and critical success.
* 1991's ''Film/Terminator2JudgmentDay'' wasn't the first film to make heavy use of CGI effects (hell, its own director, Creator/JamesCameron, had previously made the CGI-heavy ''Film/TheAbyss''), but it ''was'' the film that demonstrated, to both filmmakers and moviegoers, the sorts of breathtaking visuals that could be accomplished with them that simply could not be done with practical effects. Two years later, ''Film/JurassicPark'' proved that Cameron's revolutionary use of CGI wasn't a fluke, and since then, CGI has become a go-to special effects technique even for many smaller films.
* 1996's ''Film/IndependenceDay'' was a game-changer for the SummerBlockbuster. Not only did it [[GenreRelaunch reinvigorate]] the once-moribund DisasterMovie genre and raise the expectations for large-scale scenes of [[StuffBlowingUp action and destruction]] in movies, it also had a major impact behind the scenes, as its [[https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/7/1/15885388/independence-day-movie-advertising-blockbuster massive, multimedia advertising campaign]] became the new template for how to market a big-budget 'tentpole' movie. Furthermore, as argued by Creator/BobChipman in his ''Really That Good'' [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcma0bKjJlY episode]] on the film, ''Independence Day'', for all the surface-level PatrioticFervor layered onto it (right down to its title), helped pioneer the sorts of 'global' blockbusters with an eye for international appeal that became a growing focus for Hollywood in the 21st century. More than half of its box-office earnings came from outside the US, which would increasingly become the norm for Hollywood blockbusters.
* Creator/WesCraven made ''Film/{{Scream 1996}}'' in an effort to kill the SlasherMovie once and for all. [[SpringtimeForHitler It did the exact opposite]], at least into the short term, [[PopularityPolynomial breathing new life]] into a once-dying genre and starting the late '90s/early '00s PostModernism craze in horror. In the long term, though, while it did reinvent the slasher for a new generation, it also killed off a lot of the tropes used in '80s slashers, such as DeathBySex and TheScourgeOfGod. Nowadays, most horror films in which young, horny, pot-smoking teens get killed off by a masked maniac, with the pure, virginal FinalGirl surviving to the end and defeating him, are either [[GenreThrowback tributes to the genre]] (like the ''Film/{{Hatchet}}'' and ''Film/WrongTurn'' series) or [[AffectionateParody parodies of it]] (like ''Film/TheCabinInTheWoods'' and ''Film/TheFinalGirls''), with straight examples often seen as cliched and trite due to ''Scream''[='=]s mockery of them. Indeed, one could argue that this was part of the reason why the slasher boom that followed ''Scream'' was so short-lived (besides the UsefulNotes/{{Columbine}} massacre sparking a TooSoon reaction) -- many of the lesser teen slashers that came out in its wake played those same tropes unironically, even though they were now much harder to take seriously.
* 1998's ''Film/{{Blade}}''.
** While comic book superhero movies experienced various levels of popularity in the past, it was on the basis of characters belonging to studios ''other'' than Marvel, most notably DC. ''Blade'' finally proved a Marvel character could be the basis of a popular movie.
** Also, ''Blade'' arguably reinvented not only the comic-book film genre, but science fiction as well. Prior to 1998, most such films had 1) been gimmicky and (somewhat) [[{{Narm}} unintentionally campy]]; 2) set in surrealistic worlds, frequently with [[RetroUniverse "retro"]] or {{Zeerust}} touches; or 3) dealt only fleetingly, if at all, with serious real-world issues, sublimating them to the mindless action. The Wesley Snipes film, on the other hand, is set in contemporary (late 1990s) America, includes very little humor (and what there is of it is quite dark), features two "heroes" who aren't very inspiring and not exactly on the hunt for adventure (and one of them is dying of cancer!), and scales back the fanciful, gee-whiz element of earlier such films as much as it can; even the vampires are discussed in quasi-scientific terms and are given a plausible historical backstory. It solidified MovieSuperheroesWearBlack, which not even ''Franchise/{{Batman}}'' had managed to establish. ''Blade'' was what opened the door for "realistic" sci-fi (''Franchise/TheMatrix'') and comic-book tales that took place in [[ThisIsReality what could almost pass for the real world]] (the ''Film/XMenFilmSeries'', et cetera).
* 1999's ''Film/TheBlairWitchProject'' is famous for its {{found footage|Films}} conceit, but nowadays, its greatest legacy is arguably in how it [[http://www.cracked.com/blog/why-nobodys-replicated-blair-witch-projects-success/ pioneered]] ViralMarketing. The filmmakers created a website purporting that the film was authentic "lost footage" and the last trace of three missing hikers/documentarians, creating a mountain of hype as people argued over whether or not it was actually real. As the internet grew more popular in the '00s, the success of ''The Blair Witch Project'' became a blueprint for viral marketing that was frequently replicated.
* 1999's ''Film/TheMatrix'' introduced mainstream Western audiences to [[HeroicBloodshed gunplay]] and fight choreography inspired by the outlandish style of Hong Kong action films, and [[TropeCodifier codified]] the use of BulletTime. It also profoundly broke from the Western stereotype that action movies had to be LowestCommonDenominator fare, tackling complex subjects of personal identity and the nature of reality that got the film analyzed from every direction by a generation of film geeks and college philosophy students. Creator/BobChipman (in his ''Really That Good'' [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGopT-KNvlM episode]] on the film) and [[https://film.avclub.com/the-matrix-hacked-hollywood-upgrading-american-action-1798261062 Tom Breihan]] of ''The Website/AVClub'' have both referred to ''The Matrix'' as quite possibly the most influential action film of TheNineties.
* ''Film/CrouchingTigerHiddenDragon'' in 2000 sparked a wave of more arthouse-oriented {{Wuxia}} films.
* While ''Film/PlanetOfTheApes2001'' was trashed by critics upon its release, a few later writers have argued that it marked a major step in showing Hollywood the true potential of [[ContinuityReboot movie reboots]]. Though it definitely wasn't the first {{remake}} in cinematic history, it was one of the first such remakes that openly billed itself as a complete reimagining of a well-known classic, keeping the general premise but taking nearly everything else in a completely new direction. Its negative critical reception [[StillbornFranchise killed any hope of it getting a sequel]], but many of its ideas (e.g. a full-blown war between between Apes and Humans, explaining the Ape civilization's origins as a StableTimeLoop caused by the protagonist, and ending the movie with [[spoiler: the protagonist traveling to an alternate version of present-day Earth populated by Apes]]) intrigued audiences enough to make the movie a modest commercial success. That success arguably paved the way for later, better-received reimaginings of classic film franchises like ''Film/BatmanBegins'', ''Film/CasinoRoyale2006'', ''Film/StarTrek2009'' ''Film/TheKarateKid2010'', and -- eventually -- '''another''' ''Franchise/PlanetOfTheApes'' reimagining, ''Film/RiseOfThePlanetOfTheApes'' (which had significantly better luck the third time around).
* The ''Film/HarryPotter'' film series in the 2000s arguably did this for the SummerBlockbuster, just as [[Literature/HarryPotter the books]] did for young-adult and fantasy literature. To [[http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/escape-to-the-movies/3688-Harry-Potter-and-the-Deathly-Hallows-Part-II quote]] Creator/BobChipman:
-->[''Film/HarryPotter'' is] a film series that, for better or worse, seems to have kicked off and excelled at every major trend in modern movie-making for the last decade. Things like the boom in the {{fantasy}} genre, to the reliance on [[DerivativeWorks recognized franchise names]], to the idea of [[Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse long-running cinematic continuity]], can all be traced back to this one game-changing production. Like it or not, the entire scope of movies are now living in the world that ''Film/HarryPotter'' created.
** David Christopher Bell at ''Website/{{Cracked}}'' drew [[http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-ways-harry-potter-series-secretly-ruined-movies/ much the same conclusion]], though he had a somewhat darker take on it, viewing it as an [[FranchiseOriginalSin Industry Original Sin]] for Hollywood in general. He blames the ''Harry Potter'' films for the {{sequelitis}} and obsession with [[TheVerse long-running cinematic universes]] that increasingly overtook Hollywood from the '00s onward, at the expense of original ideas.
** [[http://www.polygon.com/2016/8/18/12532392/harry-potter-prisoner-of-azkaban-marvel Ben Kuchera]] of ''Polygon'' and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAGh-_xVFq0 Movies with Mikey]], meanwhile, specifically point to the third ''Harry Potter'' film in particular, 2004's ''[[Film/HarryPotterAndThePrisonerOfAzkaban Prisoner of Azkaban]]'', as the film that "usher[ed] in the modern genre blockbuster". After Creator/ChrisColumbus departed from the franchise, bringing in Creator/AlfonsoCuaron was seen as a major risk given how "out there" his films tended to be, but his selection paid off handsomely with a film that gave new energy to the franchise and corrected most of the faults of Columbus' two films, something that was mainly accomplished by letting an auteur like Cuarón leave his own distinctive stamp on the material. Later on, Marvel Studios would take a similar approach when they were first constructing [[Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse their own cinematic universe]], tapping filmmakers like Creator/JossWhedon, Creator/JamesGunn, and Creator/ShaneBlack to make films that all existed in the same universe yet each bore their respective creators' fingerprints, a strategy that the ''Harry Potter'' films post-''Azkaban'' pioneered.
* Together with the ''Franchise/HarryPotter'' films, Creator/PeterJackson's ''Film/TheLordOfTheRings'' films greatly raised the prestige of fantasy movies, much as the books had done for fantasy literature. Before then, fantasy films were generally limited to the FantasyGhetto, with only the rare ''Film/ConanTheBarbarian1982'' or ''Film/TheNeverendingStory'' emerging unscathed. Modern CGI also greatly helped filmmakers create convincing fantasy worlds that don't look like prop castles inhabited by stuntmen in rubber suits.
* ''Film/SpiderMan'' in 2002 had a massive role in popularizing and redefining the superhero genre in the 21st century.
** It was the first wide commercial and critical success since the disaster of ''Film/BatmanAndRobin''. While ''Film/XMen1'', and ''Film/{{Blade}}'' had preceded it in Marvel properties, neither was the international success that ''Spider-Man'' was. The film's marketing also had a huge influence on poster design, especially the amber-coloured background of the first two posters, which was copied for ''Film/BatmanBegins''.
** Likewise, compared to Richard Donner's original ''Film/SupermanTheMovie'' and Tim Burton's ''Film/{{Batman}}'', both of which were essentially set in a ConstructedWorld and quasi-AlternateUniverse, and the science-fiction/fantasy focus of the ''X-Men'' movies, Creator/SamRaimi's ''Film/SpiderManTrilogy'' had a greater sense of realism. It visibly looked like 21st century New York, addressed the 9/11 attacks, and had characters who looked like contemporary adults grappling problems related to rent, work, and careers. This set the trend for greater realism and contemporary focus in the superhero films that came after, even in the [[Film/TheDarkKnightTrilogy revived Batman trilogy]] by Creator/ChristopherNolan. The rival films that avoided the contemporary focus (''Film/SupermanReturns'', ''Film/GreenLantern'') were failures, so the trend set by Spider-Man remains a major influence on the house style for both DC and Marvel properties.
** The film's giant box-office success revived Marvel after heavy financial troubles in TheNineties and brought renewed attention to its properties and licenses, leading many of the other studios Marvel had sold movie rights to in TheNineties to greenlight productions to FollowTheLeader. While there isn't a direct line from this film to the Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse, it's unlikely that could ever have taken off without Sam Raimi's films.
* Just a few years after ''The Matrix'', 2002's ''[[Film/TheBourneSeries The Bourne Identity]]'' took action movies in the other direction, filling them with grit and stripping them down to basics in a seeming backlash against that film's over-the-top style. It also took cinematic SpyFiction away from the flashy "[[TuxedoAndMartini Martini]]" style seen in the Creator/PierceBrosnan [[Film/JamesBond Bond]] films and more in a "[[DarkerAndEdgier Stale Beer]]" direction, to the point where even [[Film/CasinoRoyale2006 later]] [[Film/QuantumOfSolace Bond films]] followed its lead.
* 2007's ''Film/{{Grindhouse}}'' was an AcclaimedFlop at the time of its release, but [[VindicatedByHistory in the years since]], its {{retraux}} ExploitationFilm aesthetic has been highly influential on low-budget BMovie filmmaking. Not only have two of the [[RealTrailerFakeMovie fake movie trailers]] featured in the film, ''Film/{{Machete}}'' and (on the Canadian print) ''Film/HoboWithAShotgun'', been {{defictionaliz|ation}}ed and made into real movies, but numerous other action and horror films have adopted a similar tone of sleaze, {{camp}}, and self-parody. Its influence has even crept beyond film, as seen with TV shows like ''Series/BloodDrive'' and video games like ''VideoGame/TheHouseOfTheDeadOverkill'' that employ similar conceits. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgyEuwG37X4 This video]] from Rossatron goes into more detail.
* The Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse marks a major turning point in not only the superhero genre, but in blockbuster filmmaking in general in the 21st century.
** First of all, the MCU was a SharedUniverse much like its source material. Before ''Film/IronMan'' and ''Film/{{The Avengers|2012}}'', the idea of a superhero team-up movie was considered a pipe dream among comics fans. Earlier superhero films, despite the odd MythologyGag and in-joke, had their heroes existing in the world as the only beings of their kind, be it ''Batman'', ''Superman'', or even Creator/SamRaimi's ''Film/SpiderManTrilogy'' and the ''Film/XMenFilmSeries''. The MCU changed the game when ''The Avengers'' proved that a big-budget live-action superhero ensemble film could and would work and be phenomenally successful, and it wouldn't be overcrowded with too many heroes or characters. It led to a renewal and modification of the blockbuster franchise mode and it directly spurred the creation of the ''Franchise/DCExtendedUniverse'' as well as myriad other attempts at a shared continuity.
** ''Film/{{Thor}}'', ''Film/CaptainAmericaTheFirstAvenger'', and ''Film/GuardiansOfTheGalaxy'' in particular changed the dominant aesthetic of superhero films away from MovieSuperheroesWearBlack, RealIsBrown and DoingInTheWizard, opening the doors for bringing in most of the fantastic and science-fiction pulp elements which were there in the comics but were always reimagined and updated in earlier movies (such as Christopher Nolan's ''Film/BatmanBegins'' making Ra's Al Ghul into a title passed down in a MasterApprenticeChain rather than an immortal being who dips into Lazarus Pits). These films not only allowed for CrystalSpiresAndTogas, StupidJetpackHitler Nazis, and talking animals and plants, but made them dramatically and emotionally compelling, while also blending superhero genres with HistoricalFiction, AlternateHistory, HighFantasy and SpaceOpera, and opening the floodgates for almost any kind of comic book character and story (and so ''any'' kind of movie) to be conceivable in live-action, no matter how outlandish in concept.
* ''Film/TheDarkKnight'' in 2008 is the reason that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences now nominates as many as ''ten'' movies for the coveted Best Picture Oscar rather than the previously standard five. For that reason, it's often cited as an important contributor to the decline (though not outright ''death'') of OscarBait in TheNewTens. There had long been a bit of a backlash against studios who banked films' success on the possibility of being nominated for Oscars during the Winter months (reserving mere "[[SummerBlockbuster crowd-pleasers]]" for the Summer months), but the backlash became all but impossible to ignore when ''The Dark Knight'' failed to even get a nomination for Best Picture at the 81st Academy Awards, despite being one of the most critically acclaimed films of 2008. [[note]] Creator/HeathLedger's posthumous Best Supporting Actor award was the movie's only accolade in a non-technical category, and it might not even have gotten ''that'' if not for [[DeadArtistsAreBetter Ledger's untimely death bringing more attention to his critically acclaimed performance]].[[/note]] The resultant public outcry convinced the Academy to start nominating twice as many films for Best Picture, giving critically acclaimed genre films more space to be recognized by the Academy. Tellingly, ''Film/{{Avatar}}'', ''Film/{{District 9}}'', and ''WesternAnimation/{{Up}}'' were among the films nominated for Best Picture in 2009, while Creator/ChristopherNolan's own ''Film/{{Inception}}'' got nominated in 2010, as did ''WesternAnimation/ToyStory3''.
* ''Film/Deadpool2016'' and ''Film/{{Logan}}'', while almost [[SpiritualAntithesis diametrically-opposed works]], demonstrated in 2016, after several high-profile failures, that R-rated superhero films were capable of being box-office and critical successes. Notably, both achieved this in different ways by taking an entire tonal and stylistic approach that justified the rating, rather than simply being generic superhero films with added swearing and graphic gore.
* ''Film/{{Wonder Woman|2017}}'' (2017) is the first female-led superhero movie since the failures of ''Film/{{Catwoman}}'' and ''Film/{{Elektra}}'' over a decade prior to its release, and the first ''ever'' to be very well received at that, and ended up a massive box office hit. Perhaps more importantly, the film represents the first time a major movie franchise with a budget of over $100 million has been directed solely by a woman, opening the door for other female directors to handle larger projects (something people had been calling on Hollywood to do for a while prior to this film's release).
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* In 1902, ''Film/ATripToTheMoon'' invented the film industry as we know it, being one of the first explicitly fictional fantastic narratives brought to life on the "silver screen" in an era where most people were using movie cameras simply to capture small [[SliceOfLife slices of everyday life]]. It also showcases early examples of special effects such as screen wipes and {{stop trick}}s that would eventually become stock-in-trade for the medium.
* Creator/DWGriffith's ''Film/TheBirthOfANation1915'' established the popularity of movies as public entertainment, and codified the feature-length film with its extended running time, long-form narrative, new editing techniques, and film grammar (long-shot, medium-shot, close-up). Despite being [[ValuesDissonance reviled for its shocking racism]] (and in a subversion of FairForItsDay, it was considered shockingly racist even back in 1915), few historians deny that ''The Birth of a Nations''[='=]s giant box office success invented the blockbuster film and the EpicMovie and got many moviegoers and producers around the world invested in the movie business, thereby inventing Hollywood itself.
* Creator/CharlieChaplin's short films in the 1910s and '20s not only made him the world's first movie star and media celebrity, they also codified the basic repertoire of motion picture slapstick comedy in both live-action and animation. Chaplin's use of comedy and the underdog nature of the Tramp to communicate social issues of poverty and homelessness also made him a favorite among avant-garde artists, who cited him as their inspiration for cinema that was both fun and relevant.
* The 1920 film ''Film/TheCabinetOfDrCaligari'' was this for GermanExpressionism, showing the power of set design, art direction, lighting, and cinematography to communicate visual atmosphere and mood, rather than simply relying on intertitles. It also showed, in a very primitive fashion, that movies could have stories that were psychologically insightful and thought-provoking just by being visual, rather than merely aping the novel or theatre.
* Creator/FritzLang codified many features of genre film-making in the 1920s and '30s. His ''Die Nibelungen'' was the first large-scale fantasy epic, ''Dr. Mabuse'' and ''Spies'' marked the start of the spy movies with NGOSuperpower and supervillains running society via surveillance networks, ''Film/{{Metropolis}}'' and ''The Woman in the Moon'' were the birth of the science-fiction epic, and the latter film invented the countdown. Lang's movies inspired superhero comics, with Superman's city named after his film, and his supervillains like Dr. Mabuse, Rotwang, and Haghi inspiring via PopculturalOsmosis everyone from Lex Luthor to Blofeld. ''Film/{{M}}'' likewise was the first major movie about a SerialKiller, and its greater realism and more accurate look at policework inspired the true crime genre and the police procedural, which in turned inspired the FilmNoir -- a genre that Lang also contributed to after he arrived in Hollywood.
* Creator/SergeiEisenstein's 1925 film ''Film/TheBattleshipPotemkin'' also showed that, rather than just copying what was done in theater and literature, cinema can communicate deeper and more intricate meaning via montages and editing techniques, greatly expanding the vocabulary beyond the realist limitations of those mediums. Its radical political message also, for better and worse, introduced the concept of using cinema as [[PropagandaPiece political propaganda]].
* 1927's ''Film/TheJazzSinger'' wasn't a particularly good film beyond [[DancingBear its gimmick]], but that gimmick, the use of sound, changed the film industry across the world. The arrival of sound introduced more realistic acting, putting the end of many stars who came to prominence in the silent era. Silent comedy of the likes of Creator/BusterKeaton and Creator/HaroldLloyd was left out of the lurch, while Creator/CharlieChaplin became far less prolific and more cautious. It also marked the start of Hollywood's global rise to prominence. Formerly, simply replacing the intertitles from one film in local translation made it possible for Italian, French, Russian, and Swedish movies to have global audiences. The language barrier led to the greater hegemony of English-language cinema around the world, as Hollywood, with its vast American and British markets far outstripping the smaller, linguistically-restrained national cinemas of other countries, was able to field the biggest budgets for the biggest movies. By the time the technology for dubbing and subtitles caught up, Hollywood was well into [[UsefulNotes/TheGoldenAgeOfHollywood its Golden Age]], and there was no looking back.
* ''Film/Scarface1932'' by Creator/HowardHawks was not the first gangster film or even the first sound gangster film (that goes to ''The Public Enemy''), but it was the first crime movie that became a huge hit and created controversy, what with its main character being an {{Expy}} of [[UsefulNotes/AlCapone an actual criminal]]. Its non-judgmental use of a VillainProtagonist raised concerns about glorifying violence and raised enough fears among MoralGuardians that they demanded a ReCut, not unlike the [[Film/Scarface1983 1983 remake]]. Among moviegoers, ''Scarface'' and other Depression gangster films were seen as edgy and innovative for use of contemporary slang that the working-class audiences recognized and used themselves, further showing the potential for sound cinema to be dramatically and socially realistic.
* Though 1939's ''Film/TheWizardOfOz'' was a family-friendly musical comedy, it was also the first big-budget Hollywood feature film ever to put its budget towards bringing a fleshed-out [[TheVerse fantastical universe]] to life on the big screen -- something that had previously only been seen in disposable low-budget shorts like the ''Film/{{Flash Gordon|Serial}}'' serials released in the same decade. It definitely wasn't an epic HighFantasy, but it paved the way for more ambitious fantasy films (both originals and adaptations) like ''Film/StarWars'', ''Film/{{Labyrinth}}'', and the ''Film/LordOfTheRings'' films. Tellingly, the studio insisted that the movie end with Dorothy waking up in her bed and assuming that [[AllJustADream her adventures in Oz were just a dream]], since they didn't think that adult moviegoers in the 1930s would take a ''real'' fantasyland seriously. [[note]]In Creator/LFrankBaum's [[Literature/TheWonderfulWizardOfOz original book]], there's no such ending: Dorothy lands in her front yard after being swept away from Oz, she openly tells Auntie Em where she went, and Baum wrote several sequels that fleshed Oz out and left no room for doubting that it was a real place.[[/note]]
* TheWestern had been popular from the beginning of the movies with ''Film/TheGreatTrainRobbery'', but it faded when sound arrived. Then came Creator/JohnFord's 1939 film ''Film/{{Stagecoach}}'', which marked the true start of the modern Western. It introduced the star-making role of the greatest Western star, Creator/JohnWayne, location shooting at Monument Valley (the first time Ford shot there), realistic action sequences, and the use of the Western genre as a vehicle for social commentary, with civilization positioned as a corrupting influence on the natural and rugged frontier with greedy bankers standing in for AcceptableTargets during the Depression.
* 1941's ''Film/CitizenKane'' was the TropeCodifier if not the TropeMaker for a new kind of filmmaking. Where filmmakers had used montages, art direction, set design, performances, and sound to tell stories before, Creator/OrsonWelles was the first to combine them in such a way as to create a new, heightened kind of storytelling. Its GenreBusting approach, using a {{Mockumentary}} style, multiple flashbacks, and multiple narrators to tell a psychologically consistent story of three-dimensional characters, was considered as a sign that movies could be movies ''and still be'' as complex and modern as the best theatre and novels. By borrowing ideas and concepts from genre and epic movies (special effects, miniatures, multiple camera tricks) to a serious film, Welles committed major GenreAdultery. Likewise, Welles' unique contract became the TropeMaker for AuteurLicense, and the fact that he made it at the age of 25 proved that cinema wasn't merely the work of established professionals but also open to upstarts and tyros as well.
* Early [[AttackOfThe50FootWhatever giant monster movies]] like the 1927 version of ''Film/TheLostWorld'' or ''Film/KingKong1933'' had their monsters as prehistoric forces unleashed on the modern world. 1953's ''Film/TheBeastFromTwentyThousandFathoms'', on the other hand, was the first to have its monster as a blend of primordial chaos and the contemporary, future-fear of [[ILoveNuclearPower the atom bomb]]. For most of the remainder of the 20th Century, giant monsters were nuclear-powered (''Film/{{Gojira}}'' and ''Film/{{Them}}'' being the best of those that followed), and in a post-Cold War world, giant monsters still tend to represent some real-world, human-derived panic -- ''Film/JurassicPark'' and [[GeneticEngineeringIsTheNewNuke genetic engineering]], ''Film/{{Cloverfield}}'' and [[PostNineElevenTerrorismMovie terrorism]], etc.
* 1956's ''Film/ForbiddenPlanet'' revolutionized film and television science fiction. Along with ''Film/TheDayTheEarthStoodStill1951'', it was one of the first science-fiction films ever to be treated as a big-budget studio endeavor (an "A-Movie") rather than a disposable lead-in to a main feature (a "B-Movie"), and the first such film to put its budget towards lavishly bringing an alien world and a distant future to life on the big screen. On top of that, it showed audiences the potential for using science fiction to explore complex concepts and morals, incorporating an unlikely blend of [[Theatre/TheTempest Shakespearean drama]], [[UsefulNotes/SigmundFreud Freudian psychology]], and 20th century ideas about the destructive potential of science into its plot. ''Series/StarTrek'' would famously follow its example, building a franchise on using science fiction tropes to deliver morality plays.
* Creator/AlfredHitchcock's 1960 film ''Film/{{Psycho}}'' was, along with the ditching of UsefulNotes/TheHaysCode and its replacement by the MPAA later in the decade, widely credited for helping to turn the {{horror}} genre from "stories that are a bit spooky and feature the odd death" to "stories where AnyoneCanDie, deaths are bloody and brutal, and sometimes even TheBadGuyWins." In particular, not only did it push boundaries with its violence and serve as the UrExample to the SlasherMovie genre, it helped show the world the true shock potential of the HalfwayPlotSwitch and the DecoyProtagonist, by famously [[GenreShift changing genres]] and introducing a new main character after the infamous shower scene. Though definitely not the first film with a major PlotTwist in its story, it paved the way for a whole slew of thrillers and horror films built on {{Shocking Swerve}}s and the anticipation of a TwistEnding. How influential was it? It's credited with leading to the advent of ''[[SeinfeldIsUnfunny movie showtimes]]'', as Hitchcock specifically requested that theaters refrain from admitting viewers to the movie after it started, wanting ''everyone'' to be able to experience the big twist when it happened. Before that, it was actually considered normal for theaters to simply play movies in a loop, with moviegoers regularly walking in halfway through and leaving when it looped back around to where they originally came in.
* Creator/SergioLeone's ''Film/DollarsTrilogy'' in the mid-'60s. These films weren't the first {{deconstruction}}ist [[TheWestern Westerns]] -- the classics ''Film/HighNoon'' and ''Film/TheSearchers'' came out a decade before them -- but they left a far more lasting impact on the genre than those two films did. All of a sudden, the BlackAndWhiteMorality that was nearly omnipresent in the genre vanished, replaced with the grittier, more morally gray attitudes seen in such films as ''Film/TheWildBunch'', ''Film/HighPlainsDrifter'', and much later, ''Film/{{Unforgiven}}''. Every single Western made since the mid-'60s owes something to Leone's masterpiece.
** And so, one could argue that they actually owe something to the genius of Creator/AkiraKurosawa, given that ''Fistful'' is almost a ShotForShotRemake of ''Film/{{Yojimbo}}''.
* The 1965 film adaptation of ''Theatre/TheSoundOfMusic'' was [[http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/book-world-matthew-kennedys-roadshow-the-fall-of-film-musicals-in-the-1960s/2014/02/13/82c56f8e-8e69-11e3-b227-12a45d109e03_story.html described]] by Matthew Kennedy, in his book ''Roadshow! The Fall of Film Musicals in the '60s'', as "The Musical That Ate Hollywood". The staggering box-office success of this big-budget family musical (dethroning ''Film/GoneWithTheWind'' for the title of the highest-grossing film of all time) led to a slew of [[FollowTheLeader copycats]] determined to make lightning strike twice, many of which went down in history as notorious {{Box Office Bomb}}s that helped to [[GenreKiller discredit movie musicals for decades]]. Likewise, its use of [[RoadshowTheatricalRelease roadshow booking]], screening films at a select number of upscale theaters that charged premium ticket prices in exchange for a far more lavish moviegoing experience, led many more studios to use it for their musicals, cheapening a format that had once been reserved for [[EpicMovie the biggest spectacles]]. The trends that ''The Sound of Music'' started did severe damage to Hollywood in both the near and long terms, acting as TheLastStraw in the UsefulNotes/FallOfTheStudioSystem as audiences rejected paying inflated ticket prices for increasingly subpar movies.
* Creator/GeorgeARomero's ''Film/NightOfTheLivingDead1968'' not only single-handedly invented [[ZombieApocalypse modern zombie fiction]], it finished the job that ''Psycho'' started in revolutionizing the expectations people had for horror films, such that, when it was first screened in what was then still a popular place to screen horror movies (i.e. ''[[WhatDoYouMeanItsNotForKids kiddie theaters]]''), it caused moral panic. Romero's ''Film/LivingDeadSeries'' as a whole has also been [[https://film.avclub.com/the-rust-belt-horror-of-george-romero-1798288362 credited]], along with the books of Creator/StephenKing in the literary world (see below), with giving the horror genre a more blue-collar focus, bringing it into weathered farmhouses and [[TheMall soulless shopping malls]] in [[FlyoverCountry Pennsylvania]] rather than [[OldDarkHouse gothic mansions]] and {{haunted castle}}s in [[{{Uberwald}} Transylvania]]. He was also famous for using the genre as a vehicle for social commentary, his stories satirizing topics like race relations, consumerism, income inequality, and life in small-town and suburban America.
* The 1968 Creator/BorisKarloff film ''Film/{{Targets}}'' was another turning point for horror, unofficially marking the end of the MadScientist movies of the past with a turn towards more realistic villains like [[SerialKiller serial killers]]. The fact that it was one of Karloff's last films makes the change-over even more stark.
* ''Franchise/StarWars'' in 1977. While ''Film/{{Jaws}}'' is usually regarded as the first modern "blockbuster" movie, this was the one that proved that kids -- a demographic ignored by most 1970s movies -- were audience members too, that [[MerchandiseDriven merchandising spinoffs]] were a potential gold mine, that escapist sci-fi wasn't as [[BMovie disposable as once thought]], and that fantasy in general was an untapped resource. The whole GenreThrowback idea was popularized here, and while FollowTheLeader meant there were many crappy imitators within the years that followed, it did lead directly to Franchise/{{Superman}} getting [[Film/{{Superman}} a big movie of his own]], thus launching the rise of cinematic comic book adaptations. It also helped launch the revival of rival series ''Franchise/StarTrek''. Indeed, some blame this movie for hastening the end of the UsefulNotes/NewHollywood era and leading to the dumbed-down SummerBlockbuster mentality of the industry today, especially once the ''sequels'' arrived. Furthermore, ''Franchise/StarWars'' fundamentally changed how movies were made because of the huge success the franchise had with marketing. Sure, the movies were profitable, but the real money was made in action figures and toys and posters and other kinds of merchandising. Any kind of family-friendly blockbuster is going to have [[KidAppealCharacter a cute character of some sort designed to appeal to children and sell toys to them.]]
* 1978's ''Film/AnimalHouse'' was probably the first "teen" movie to combine youthful angst with zany comedy -- which, in the ensuing decades, resulted in teen comedies becoming not only a lot more common, but a lot more serious as well. Also, while there were similarly shocking comedies before it (''Film/PinkFlamingos'', ''Film/BlazingSaddles''), it was arguably the first mainstream hit comedy to fully take advantage of the loosened restrictions of the post-[[UsefulNotes/TheHaysCode Hays Code]] era, allowing it to hit audiences with explicit sex jokes that would never have flown even a decade prior as opposed to just [[DoubleEntendre innuendos]]. This set off a boom in the American SexComedy genre in TheEighties as other such films pushed that much further with their comedy.
* Creator/JohnCarpenter's ''Film/{{Halloween 1978}}'' didn't invent the modern SlasherMovie, but it did [[TropeCodifier codify]] most of the tropes of the genre, launch the careers of Carpenter and Creator/JamieLeeCurtis, and spawn a wave of imitators. Two years later, one of those imitators, ''Film/FridayThe13th1980'', turned the slasher flick into a {{horror}} staple by focusing on the {{exploitation|Film}} part of it.
* The 1978 ''Film/{{Superman}}'' movie.
** It proved once and for all that comic book adaptations didn't need to be cheesy or silly, with terrible budgets and special effects. Even the casting of Creator/ChristopherReeve was considered a bold move at the time, since Creator/RichardDonner insisted on casting a relatively unknown character actor so that it would be easier for the audience to believe that they were actually seeing Superman onscreen.
** It also showed that filmmakers could stay true to the spirit of a long-running comic book while incorporating just enough original ideas to make it work on film. Many ideas conceived for the movie (the crystal cities of Krypton, Zod's two Kryptonian henchmen, Jor-El surviving Krypton's destruction as a VirtualGhost, Superman's portrayal as a [[MessianicArchetype messianic figure]], the "S" emblem being the House of El's coat of arms, et cetera) were original ideas with no basis in the comics, but they helped successfully sell the ''Superman'' mythos to a new audience who only knew the character through PopculturalOsmosis, and many of them were received well enough that they were incorporated into the comics as official canon.
* The ''Franchise/{{Alien}}'' film franchise, especially ''Film/{{Aliens}}'', forever changed the narrative expectations of female characters in western futuristic stories. While one NeutralFemale or DamselInDistress character was the norm, now every primary female character in the future is expected to make like Ellen Ripley, grab a weapon, and join the fighting as much as any man.
* Creator/MichaelCimino's 1980 film ''Film/HeavensGate'', although not for the same reasons as most of the other examples: it was such a notorious TroubledProduction and BoxOfficeBomb that it [[GenreKiller killed]] the [[TheWestern Hollywood Western]] (at least for a time), [[CreatorKiller United Artists as an independent studio, and director Michael Cimino's career]]. It and other high-profile flops (''One From the Heart'', ''Sorcerer'') also killed the [[UsefulNotes/NewHollywood auteur period]] in Hollywood.
* 1982's ''Film/BladeRunner''.
** It was a disappointment in a crowded summer box office when it came out. Repeated showings on cable and its release on video not only made it one of the first films to develop a strong cult following that way, but its wet streets reflecting neon signs at night got copied widely in other films, commercials and music videos during the 1980s. It arguably influenced the look of urban space in the ''actual real-world future'' ([[http://www.flickr.com/photos/59303791@N00/2518314792/ see Times Square, ca. 2008]]).
** Furthermore, this was the film that popularized the [[ReCut Director's Cut]], giving audience a better chance to see a film like the artists truly intended while the film companies are motivated to cooperate with the profit of selling another version of a film to the same audience.
* ''Zu: Warriors from the Magic Mountain'' (1983, Tsui Hark) was the first film to combine Hong Kong action cinema with western special effects technology, resulting in visually-stunning displays of SupernaturalMartialArts.
* What ''Animal House'' didn't do, Creator/JohnHughes' teen movies probably did. ''Film/SixteenCandles'', ''Film/TheBreakfastClub'', ''Film/PrettyInPink'', and ''Film/FerrisBuellersDayOff'', all released in the span of just three years in the mid-'80s, took the problems of their teenage protagonists seriously in a way that few other teen movies had before, leaving a mark on a generation of filmmakers such that, if a teen comedy is not a SexComedy influenced by ''Animal House'', it's likely taking after Hughes' films. (Some draw influence from both, as seen with ''Film/AmericanPie''.) To this day, Hughes' takes on, and {{deconstruct|edCharacterArchetype}}ions of, various high school archetypes (the AlphaBitch, the JerkJock, the {{nerd}}, the {{delinquent|s}}, the [[LonersAreFreaks outcast loner]][[note]]As if to demonstrate the power that his films still have over the genre, you're probably thinking of the exact characters, all from the same film, that we're talking about here[[/note]]) still form the defining images of such seen in countless teen movies and TV shows.
* 1986's ''Film/TopGun''.
** In terms of the film itself, while both the PG-13 rating and the SummerBlockbuster had been around for a few years by that point, ''Top Gun'' [[TropeCodifier codified]] the tropes of the modern, young-male-oriented, PG-13 action blockbuster that came to serve as the default template for Hollywood's tentpole films from TheNineties onward. It also marked the mainstream breakthrough of Creator/TonyScott, one of the most influential action filmmakers of UsefulNotes/TheBlockbusterAgeOfHollywood. As [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfvE8rWn52s this video]] from Rossatron explains, Scott's hyperkinetic SignatureStyle of quick cuts, OrangeBlueContrast, and a [[{{Fanservice}} loving focus on the attractive lead actors]], much of it imported from the world of {{music video|Tropes}}s, wound up paving the way for everybody from Creator/MichaelBay to Creator/KathrynBigelow to Simon West.
** It also had an impact on how movies are watched and consumed. While [[UsefulNotes/{{VCR}} VHS]] had been a popular format since the start of TheEighties, the home video release of ''Top Gun'' in 1987 pushed it into the stratosphere. As [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YLlt1JWpRA this video]] by Tom Reimann of ''Website/{{Cracked}}'' explains, Hollywood once saw home video as [[NewMediaAreEvil a grave threat to their business model]], and so they charged [[CrackIsCheaper over $80 a pop]] for VHS copies of their films and sued video rental stores for copyright violations (many stores during that time had to operate on a "private club" model to cover themselves legally). Creator/{{Paramount}}, however, sold the ''Top Gun'' VHS for only $26.95, a low price that was paid for by [[ProductPlacement putting a Pepsi commercial before the movie]] at the beginning of each tape. With this highly lucrative strategy, Hollywood's bitter resistance to home video evaporated as they saw how much money they could make from these sorts of marketing deals. Theatrical rereleases of popular movies died out almost entirely, only experiencing a short-lived revival in the early 2010s with the rise of [[UsefulNotes/ThreeDMovie 3D conversions]], while video rental opened up and took its place as the primary second-run distribution network.
* While not many would think of ''Film/RoboCop1987'' as a {{superhero}} movie, it could easily be argued that it saved the genre. When it came out, the superhero movie genre seemed to have sunk with the embarrassing failure of ''Film/SupermanIVTheQuestForPeace'' earlier that year. However, ''[=RoboCop=]'' turned the genre around as a critically hailed hit film that presented a cuttingly [[BlackComedy satiric]] {{cyberpunk}} thriller with a moving humanity, one that showed what the genre could be.
* 1988's ''Film/DieHard'' did this for the action movie. Sure, there were smart thrillers with smart villains beforehand -- ''Film/DieHard'' itself could be seen as something of a remake of ''Film/NorthSeaHijack'' -- but after it came out, there were far fewer action films that featured invincible, unstoppable heroes (Schwarzenegger, Stallone) whose plots depended on {{Ass Pull}}ing solutions out of thin air than there were before. Plus, not many films rewrite the rules for the genre so heavily that a [[DieHardOnAnX subgenre]] forms around them.
* In 1989, Creator/NoraEphron and Creator/RobReiner revolutionized the RomanticComedy with ''Film/WhenHarryMetSally''. As [[https://www.avclub.com/after-when-harry-met-sally-almost-every-rom-com-tried-1823690771 explained]] by Caroline Siede of ''The Website/AVClub'', ''When Harry Met Sally...'' served as a bridge between Creator/WoodyAllen's more niche '70s films like ''Film/AnnieHall'' and the mainstream rom-coms of the '90s and 2000s, keeping the unorthodox male lead and questions about the nature of romance from Allen's films but adding a degree of earnestness and making the female lead just as neurotic and complex as her male counterpart. Not only did ''When Harry Met Sally...'' propel Creator/MegRyan [[StarMakingRole to the A-list]] in TheNineties, its formula (codified further by Ephron's later films ''Film/SleeplessInSeattle'' and ''Film/YouveGotMail'') became the template for an entire generation of romantic comedies in the '90s and '00s.
* ''Film/RogerAndMe'' (1989) forever changed documentaries. Beforehand, documentaries (of a non-musical nature at least) had been mostly confined to film festivals. ''Roger and Me'' demonstrated you could make a documentary that the masses would want to see, allowing other documentaries, including Creator/MichaelMoore's later ones, to achieve widespread box office and critical success.
* 1991's ''Film/Terminator2JudgmentDay'' wasn't the first film to make heavy use of CGI effects (hell, its own director, Creator/JamesCameron, had previously made the CGI-heavy ''Film/TheAbyss''), but it ''was'' the film that demonstrated, to both filmmakers and moviegoers, the sorts of breathtaking visuals that could be accomplished with them that simply could not be done with practical effects. Two years later, ''Film/JurassicPark'' proved that Cameron's revolutionary use of CGI wasn't a fluke, and since then, CGI has become a go-to special effects technique even for many smaller films.
* 1996's ''Film/IndependenceDay'' was a game-changer for the SummerBlockbuster. Not only did it [[GenreRelaunch reinvigorate]] the once-moribund DisasterMovie genre and raise the expectations for large-scale scenes of [[StuffBlowingUp action and destruction]] in movies, it also had a major impact behind the scenes, as its [[https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/7/1/15885388/independence-day-movie-advertising-blockbuster massive, multimedia advertising campaign]] became the new template for how to market a big-budget 'tentpole' movie. Furthermore, as argued by Creator/BobChipman in his ''Really That Good'' [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcma0bKjJlY episode]] on the film, ''Independence Day'', for all the surface-level PatrioticFervor layered onto it (right down to its title), helped pioneer the sorts of 'global' blockbusters with an eye for international appeal that became a growing focus for Hollywood in the 21st century. More than half of its box-office earnings came from outside the US, which would increasingly become the norm for Hollywood blockbusters.
* Creator/WesCraven made ''Film/{{Scream 1996}}'' in an effort to kill the SlasherMovie once and for all. [[SpringtimeForHitler It did the exact opposite]], at least into the short term, [[PopularityPolynomial breathing new life]] into a once-dying genre and starting the late '90s/early '00s PostModernism craze in horror. In the long term, though, while it did reinvent the slasher for a new generation, it also killed off a lot of the tropes used in '80s slashers, such as DeathBySex and TheScourgeOfGod. Nowadays, most horror films in which young, horny, pot-smoking teens get killed off by a masked maniac, with the pure, virginal FinalGirl surviving to the end and defeating him, are either [[GenreThrowback tributes to the genre]] (like the ''Film/{{Hatchet}}'' and ''Film/WrongTurn'' series) or [[AffectionateParody parodies of it]] (like ''Film/TheCabinInTheWoods'' and ''Film/TheFinalGirls''), with straight examples often seen as cliched and trite due to ''Scream''[='=]s mockery of them. Indeed, one could argue that this was part of the reason why the slasher boom that followed ''Scream'' was so short-lived (besides the UsefulNotes/{{Columbine}} massacre sparking a TooSoon reaction) -- many of the lesser teen slashers that came out in its wake played those same tropes unironically, even though they were now much harder to take seriously.
* 1998's ''Film/{{Blade}}''.
** While comic book superhero movies experienced various levels of popularity in the past, it was on the basis of characters belonging to studios ''other'' than Marvel, most notably DC. ''Blade'' finally proved a Marvel character could be the basis of a popular movie.
** Also, ''Blade'' arguably reinvented not only the comic-book film genre, but science fiction as well. Prior to 1998, most such films had 1) been gimmicky and (somewhat) [[{{Narm}} unintentionally campy]]; 2) set in surrealistic worlds, frequently with [[RetroUniverse "retro"]] or {{Zeerust}} touches; or 3) dealt only fleetingly, if at all, with serious real-world issues, sublimating them to the mindless action. The Wesley Snipes film, on the other hand, is set in contemporary (late 1990s) America, includes very little humor (and what there is of it is quite dark), features two "heroes" who aren't very inspiring and not exactly on the hunt for adventure (and one of them is dying of cancer!), and scales back the fanciful, gee-whiz element of earlier such films as much as it can; even the vampires are discussed in quasi-scientific terms and are given a plausible historical backstory. It solidified MovieSuperheroesWearBlack, which not even ''Franchise/{{Batman}}'' had managed to establish. ''Blade'' was what opened the door for "realistic" sci-fi (''Franchise/TheMatrix'') and comic-book tales that took place in [[ThisIsReality what could almost pass for the real world]] (the ''Film/XMenFilmSeries'', et cetera).
* 1999's ''Film/TheBlairWitchProject'' is famous for its {{found footage|Films}} conceit, but nowadays, its greatest legacy is arguably in how it [[http://www.cracked.com/blog/why-nobodys-replicated-blair-witch-projects-success/ pioneered]] ViralMarketing. The filmmakers created a website purporting that the film was authentic "lost footage" and the last trace of three missing hikers/documentarians, creating a mountain of hype as people argued over whether or not it was actually real. As the internet grew more popular in the '00s, the success of ''The Blair Witch Project'' became a blueprint for viral marketing that was frequently replicated.
* 1999's ''Film/TheMatrix'' introduced mainstream Western audiences to [[HeroicBloodshed gunplay]] and fight choreography inspired by the outlandish style of Hong Kong action films, and [[TropeCodifier codified]] the use of BulletTime. It also profoundly broke from the Western stereotype that action movies had to be LowestCommonDenominator fare, tackling complex subjects of personal identity and the nature of reality that got the film analyzed from every direction by a generation of film geeks and college philosophy students. Creator/BobChipman (in his ''Really That Good'' [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGopT-KNvlM episode]] on the film) and [[https://film.avclub.com/the-matrix-hacked-hollywood-upgrading-american-action-1798261062 Tom Breihan]] of ''The Website/AVClub'' have both referred to ''The Matrix'' as quite possibly the most influential action film of TheNineties.
* ''Film/CrouchingTigerHiddenDragon'' in 2000 sparked a wave of more arthouse-oriented {{Wuxia}} films.
* While ''Film/PlanetOfTheApes2001'' was trashed by critics upon its release, a few later writers have argued that it marked a major step in showing Hollywood the true potential of [[ContinuityReboot movie reboots]]. Though it definitely wasn't the first {{remake}} in cinematic history, it was one of the first such remakes that openly billed itself as a complete reimagining of a well-known classic, keeping the general premise but taking nearly everything else in a completely new direction. Its negative critical reception [[StillbornFranchise killed any hope of it getting a sequel]], but many of its ideas (e.g. a full-blown war between between Apes and Humans, explaining the Ape civilization's origins as a StableTimeLoop caused by the protagonist, and ending the movie with [[spoiler: the protagonist traveling to an alternate version of present-day Earth populated by Apes]]) intrigued audiences enough to make the movie a modest commercial success. That success arguably paved the way for later, better-received reimaginings of classic film franchises like ''Film/BatmanBegins'', ''Film/CasinoRoyale2006'', ''Film/StarTrek2009'' ''Film/TheKarateKid2010'', and -- eventually -- '''another''' ''Franchise/PlanetOfTheApes'' reimagining, ''Film/RiseOfThePlanetOfTheApes'' (which had significantly better luck the third time around).
* The ''Film/HarryPotter'' film series in the 2000s arguably did this for the SummerBlockbuster, just as [[Literature/HarryPotter the books]] did for young-adult and fantasy literature. To [[http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/escape-to-the-movies/3688-Harry-Potter-and-the-Deathly-Hallows-Part-II quote]] Creator/BobChipman:
-->[''Film/HarryPotter'' is] a film series that, for better or worse, seems to have kicked off and excelled at every major trend in modern movie-making for the last decade. Things like the boom in the {{fantasy}} genre, to the reliance on [[DerivativeWorks recognized franchise names]], to the idea of [[Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse long-running cinematic continuity]], can all be traced back to this one game-changing production. Like it or not, the entire scope of movies are now living in the world that ''Film/HarryPotter'' created.
** David Christopher Bell at ''Website/{{Cracked}}'' drew [[http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-ways-harry-potter-series-secretly-ruined-movies/ much the same conclusion]], though he had a somewhat darker take on it, viewing it as an [[FranchiseOriginalSin Industry Original Sin]] for Hollywood in general. He blames the ''Harry Potter'' films for the {{sequelitis}} and obsession with [[TheVerse long-running cinematic universes]] that increasingly overtook Hollywood from the '00s onward, at the expense of original ideas.
** [[http://www.polygon.com/2016/8/18/12532392/harry-potter-prisoner-of-azkaban-marvel Ben Kuchera]] of ''Polygon'' and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAGh-_xVFq0 Movies with Mikey]], meanwhile, specifically point to the third ''Harry Potter'' film in particular, 2004's ''[[Film/HarryPotterAndThePrisonerOfAzkaban Prisoner of Azkaban]]'', as the film that "usher[ed] in the modern genre blockbuster". After Creator/ChrisColumbus departed from the franchise, bringing in Creator/AlfonsoCuaron was seen as a major risk given how "out there" his films tended to be, but his selection paid off handsomely with a film that gave new energy to the franchise and corrected most of the faults of Columbus' two films, something that was mainly accomplished by letting an auteur like Cuarón leave his own distinctive stamp on the material. Later on, Marvel Studios would take a similar approach when they were first constructing [[Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse their own cinematic universe]], tapping filmmakers like Creator/JossWhedon, Creator/JamesGunn, and Creator/ShaneBlack to make films that all existed in the same universe yet each bore their respective creators' fingerprints, a strategy that the ''Harry Potter'' films post-''Azkaban'' pioneered.
* Together with the ''Franchise/HarryPotter'' films, Creator/PeterJackson's ''Film/TheLordOfTheRings'' films greatly raised the prestige of fantasy movies, much as the books had done for fantasy literature. Before then, fantasy films were generally limited to the FantasyGhetto, with only the rare ''Film/ConanTheBarbarian1982'' or ''Film/TheNeverendingStory'' emerging unscathed. Modern CGI also greatly helped filmmakers create convincing fantasy worlds that don't look like prop castles inhabited by stuntmen in rubber suits.
* ''Film/SpiderMan'' in 2002 had a massive role in popularizing and redefining the superhero genre in the 21st century.
** It was the first wide commercial and critical success since the disaster of ''Film/BatmanAndRobin''. While ''Film/XMen1'', and ''Film/{{Blade}}'' had preceded it in Marvel properties, neither was the international success that ''Spider-Man'' was. The film's marketing also had a huge influence on poster design, especially the amber-coloured background of the first two posters, which was copied for ''Film/BatmanBegins''.
** Likewise, compared to Richard Donner's original ''Film/SupermanTheMovie'' and Tim Burton's ''Film/{{Batman}}'', both of which were essentially set in a ConstructedWorld and quasi-AlternateUniverse, and the science-fiction/fantasy focus of the ''X-Men'' movies, Creator/SamRaimi's ''Film/SpiderManTrilogy'' had a greater sense of realism. It visibly looked like 21st century New York, addressed the 9/11 attacks, and had characters who looked like contemporary adults grappling problems related to rent, work, and careers. This set the trend for greater realism and contemporary focus in the superhero films that came after, even in the [[Film/TheDarkKnightTrilogy revived Batman trilogy]] by Creator/ChristopherNolan. The rival films that avoided the contemporary focus (''Film/SupermanReturns'', ''Film/GreenLantern'') were failures, so the trend set by Spider-Man remains a major influence on the house style for both DC and Marvel properties.
** The film's giant box-office success revived Marvel after heavy financial troubles in TheNineties and brought renewed attention to its properties and licenses, leading many of the other studios Marvel had sold movie rights to in TheNineties to greenlight productions to FollowTheLeader. While there isn't a direct line from this film to the Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse, it's unlikely that could ever have taken off without Sam Raimi's films.
* Just a few years after ''The Matrix'', 2002's ''[[Film/TheBourneSeries The Bourne Identity]]'' took action movies in the other direction, filling them with grit and stripping them down to basics in a seeming backlash against that film's over-the-top style. It also took cinematic SpyFiction away from the flashy "[[TuxedoAndMartini Martini]]" style seen in the Creator/PierceBrosnan [[Film/JamesBond Bond]] films and more in a "[[DarkerAndEdgier Stale Beer]]" direction, to the point where even [[Film/CasinoRoyale2006 later]] [[Film/QuantumOfSolace Bond films]] followed its lead.
* 2007's ''Film/{{Grindhouse}}'' was an AcclaimedFlop at the time of its release, but [[VindicatedByHistory in the years since]], its {{retraux}} ExploitationFilm aesthetic has been highly influential on low-budget BMovie filmmaking. Not only have two of the [[RealTrailerFakeMovie fake movie trailers]] featured in the film, ''Film/{{Machete}}'' and (on the Canadian print) ''Film/HoboWithAShotgun'', been {{defictionaliz|ation}}ed and made into real movies, but numerous other action and horror films have adopted a similar tone of sleaze, {{camp}}, and self-parody. Its influence has even crept beyond film, as seen with TV shows like ''Series/BloodDrive'' and video games like ''VideoGame/TheHouseOfTheDeadOverkill'' that employ similar conceits. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgyEuwG37X4 This video]] from Rossatron goes into more detail.
* The Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse marks a major turning point in not only the superhero genre, but in blockbuster filmmaking in general in the 21st century.
** First of all, the MCU was a SharedUniverse much like its source material. Before ''Film/IronMan'' and ''Film/{{The Avengers|2012}}'', the idea of a superhero team-up movie was considered a pipe dream among comics fans. Earlier superhero films, despite the odd MythologyGag and in-joke, had their heroes existing in the world as the only beings of their kind, be it ''Batman'', ''Superman'', or even Creator/SamRaimi's ''Film/SpiderManTrilogy'' and the ''Film/XMenFilmSeries''. The MCU changed the game when ''The Avengers'' proved that a big-budget live-action superhero ensemble film could and would work and be phenomenally successful, and it wouldn't be overcrowded with too many heroes or characters. It led to a renewal and modification of the blockbuster franchise mode and it directly spurred the creation of the ''Franchise/DCExtendedUniverse'' as well as myriad other attempts at a shared continuity.
** ''Film/{{Thor}}'', ''Film/CaptainAmericaTheFirstAvenger'', and ''Film/GuardiansOfTheGalaxy'' in particular changed the dominant aesthetic of superhero films away from MovieSuperheroesWearBlack, RealIsBrown and DoingInTheWizard, opening the doors for bringing in most of the fantastic and science-fiction pulp elements which were there in the comics but were always reimagined and updated in earlier movies (such as Christopher Nolan's ''Film/BatmanBegins'' making Ra's Al Ghul into a title passed down in a MasterApprenticeChain rather than an immortal being who dips into Lazarus Pits). These films not only allowed for CrystalSpiresAndTogas, StupidJetpackHitler Nazis, and talking animals and plants, but made them dramatically and emotionally compelling, while also blending superhero genres with HistoricalFiction, AlternateHistory, HighFantasy and SpaceOpera, and opening the floodgates for almost any kind of comic book character and story (and so ''any'' kind of movie) to be conceivable in live-action, no matter how outlandish in concept.
* ''Film/TheDarkKnight'' in 2008 is the reason that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences now nominates as many as ''ten'' movies for the coveted Best Picture Oscar rather than the previously standard five. For that reason, it's often cited as an important contributor to the decline (though not outright ''death'') of OscarBait in TheNewTens. There had long been a bit of a backlash against studios who banked films' success on the possibility of being nominated for Oscars during the Winter months (reserving mere "[[SummerBlockbuster crowd-pleasers]]" for the Summer months), but the backlash became all but impossible to ignore when ''The Dark Knight'' failed to even get a nomination for Best Picture at the 81st Academy Awards, despite being one of the most critically acclaimed films of 2008. [[note]] Creator/HeathLedger's posthumous Best Supporting Actor award was the movie's only accolade in a non-technical category, and it might not even have gotten ''that'' if not for [[DeadArtistsAreBetter Ledger's untimely death bringing more attention to his critically acclaimed performance]].[[/note]] The resultant public outcry convinced the Academy to start nominating twice as many films for Best Picture, giving critically acclaimed genre films more space to be recognized by the Academy. Tellingly, ''Film/{{Avatar}}'', ''Film/{{District 9}}'', and ''WesternAnimation/{{Up}}'' were among the films nominated for Best Picture in 2009, while Creator/ChristopherNolan's own ''Film/{{Inception}}'' got nominated in 2010, as did ''WesternAnimation/ToyStory3''.
* ''Film/Deadpool2016'' and ''Film/{{Logan}}'', while almost [[SpiritualAntithesis diametrically-opposed works]], demonstrated in 2016, after several high-profile failures, that R-rated superhero films were capable of being box-office and critical successes. Notably, both achieved this in different ways by taking an entire tonal and stylistic approach that justified the rating, rather than simply being generic superhero films with added swearing and graphic gore.
* ''Film/{{Wonder Woman|2017}}'' (2017) is the first female-led superhero movie since the failures of ''Film/{{Catwoman}}'' and ''Film/{{Elektra}}'' over a decade prior to its release, and the first ''ever'' to be very well received at that, and ended up a massive box office hit. Perhaps more importantly, the film represents the first time a major movie franchise with a budget of over $100 million has been directed solely by a woman, opening the door for other female directors to handle larger projects (something people had been calling on Hollywood to do for a while prior to this film's release).
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