The Wild Bunch in 35mm

Director William Wyler’s Biblical epic swept the 1959 Academy Awards, receiving 12 nominations and winning 11 Oscars including Best Picture. Charlton Heston was awarded Best Actor for his portrayal of Judah Ben-Hur, a Jewish prince who finds himself at odds with the Roman Empire and his childhood friend, the ruthless Messala (Stephen Boyd). Miklós Rózsa won the Oscar for his symphonic score, and the Oscar-winning cinematography by Robert Surtees, as well as the special effects created by A. Arnold Gillespie, Robert MacDonald, and Milo Lory bring ancient Rome to life in luscious Technicolor.

Elizabeth Taylor portrays the Queen of Egypt in this lavish historical epic that was at the time the most expensive Hollywood film ever made. Rex Harrison received a Best Actor nomination for his portrayal of Julius Caesar, and the casting of Richard Burton as Mark Antony led to an offscreen romance with Taylor that became the stuff of Hollywood legend. The film received nine Oscar nominations including Best Picture, and won for its color art direction, cinematography, and costume design, as well as Emil Kosa Jr.’s special effects, which included ancient vistas and spectacular sea battles.

The fourth film starring Sean Connery as Ian Fleming’s James Bond was the most spectacular production yet and the first to be shot in widescreen Panavision, with 007’s pursuit of a pair of stolen nuclear warheads leading to epic underwater battles in the Caribbean and a confrontation with the dreaded SPECTRE. Dr. No (1962) director Terence Young returned to the franchise to lead a team of Bond veterans including cinematographer Ted Moore, composer John Barry, editor Peter Hunt, and production designer Ken Adam, who also designed the underwater vehicles. The Oscar-winning special visual effects of John Stears (Star Wars) include impressive miniatures and colorful pyrotechnics.

Rex Harrison plays the doctor who can talk to animals in this lavish musical fantasy inspired by the stories of Hugh Lofting. Under the direction of Richard Fleischer (20,000 Leagues Under the Sea), the film received nine Oscar nominations including Best Picture. Oscars were earned by Leslie Bricusse’s original song “Talk To The Animals” and the visual effects of L. B. Abbott (The Poseidon Adventure), which brought the film’s vivid creations to life.

In the year 2274, humans seem to live an idyllic life, with one catch—once they turn thirty, they must participate in Carrousel, a ceremonial trip into eternity that offers the chance of being “renewed.” Michael York plays Logan 5, a “Sandman” whose job is to catch and kill those who try to escape their fate. The film’s colorful widescreen visuals earned nominations for its cinematography (Ernest Laszlo) and art direction (Dale Hennesy, Robert De Vestel), and the team of L. B. Abbott, Glen Robinson, and Matthew Yuricich earned a Special Achievement Award for their visual effects, incorporating matte paintings and enormous miniatures to create the film’s inventive futuristic worlds.

The world’s most daring archaeology professor treks through the jungles of India to retrieve powerful sacred stones, accompanied by a beautiful singer (Kate Capshaw) and young sidekick Short Round (Oscar-winner Ke Huy Quan) in this adventure classic that takes place before Dr. Jones’s fateful encounter with the Ark of the Covenant. The film was nominated for John Williams’s rousing score and won the Visual Effects Oscar for Dennis Muren, Michael McAlister, Lorne Peterson, and George Gibbs, whose memorable contributions include the thrilling, rollercoaster-like mine car chase.

Mankind faces extinction as massive alien spaceships surround Earth and wreak havoc on major cities in this sci-fi action spectacle from disaster maestro Roland Emmerich. Will Smith is the fearless fighter pilot, Jeff Goldblum the brilliant scientist, and Bill Pullman the brave US president who must work together to foil the alien menace. The summer blockbuster was nominated for its sound and won for the visual effects of Volker Engel, Douglas Smith, Clay Pinney, and Joseph Viskocil, who largely relied on detailed miniatures to depict the film’s colossal spaceships and epic scenes of destruction, including the iconic attack on the White House.

Peter Jackson followed his epic adaptation of the Lord of the Rings trilogy with this loving remake of the 1933 classic. Naomi Watts plays Ann Darrow, a starving starlet in Depression-era Manhattan, who finds herself joining showman Carl Denham (Jack Black) and screenwriter Jack Driscoll (Adrien Brody) to the mysterious Skull Island, where the eighth wonder of the world awaits. The Oscar-winning visual effects created by Joe Letteri, Brian Van’t Hul, Christian Rivers, and Richard Taylor brought both islands to vivid screen life, with Andy Serkis lending his motion capture performance artistry to the computer-generated Kong. The film was also nominated for its art direction and won Oscars for its sound editing and sound mixing.

A 1922 short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald was the inspiration for this offbeat romantic fantasy about a man born with a mysterious condition that causes him to age in reverse. Brad Pitt was nominated for his sensitive lead performance, with Benjamin’s transformation aided by the Oscar-winning makeup of Greg Cannom and visual effects created by Eric Barba, Steve Preeg, Burt Dalton, and Craig Barron. The film also won for Art Direction (Donald Graham Burt, Victor J. Zolfo) and was nominated in 13 categories including Best Picture, Directing (David Fincher), Best Supporting Actress (Taraji P. Henson), and Original Score (Alexandre Desplat).

The long-awaited sequel to Ridley Scott’s sci-fi noir is set three decades later, as a replicant cop named K (Ryan Gosling) investigates a mystery involving a missing blade runner (Harrison Ford, reprising his 1982 role) and a brilliant tycoon (Jared Leto) that threatens to “break the world.” Director Denis Villeneuve and his team of remarkable craftsmen managed a seamless continuation of the world created for the original 1982 film. Roger Deakins received his first Oscar for his evocative cinematography, and the Oscar-winning visual effects team of John Nelson, Gerd Nefzer, Paul Lambert, and Richard R. Hoover created a future Los Angeles equally dazzling and menacing.

Filmmaker Christopher Nolan’s thrilling combination of international espionage and mind-bending science-fiction pits its nameless “Protagonist” (John David Washington, in an effortlessly charismatic performance) against a ruthless international arms dealer (Kenneth Branagh) who has the power to change the direction of time. The film was nominated for its production design (Nathan Crowley, Kathy Lucas) and won for the remarkably realistic visual effects created by Andrew Jackson, David Lee, Andrew Lockley, and Scott Fisher, who manage to make the impossible utterly believable.