Visual Effects Society

The Visual Effects Society is an entertainment industry organization representing visual effects practitioners including artists, animators, technologists, model makers, educators, studio leaders, supervisors, PR/marketing specialists and producers in film, television, commercials, music videos, and video games. It has about 5,000 members in 50 countries. Since 2002 it has produced the Visual Effects Society Awards which honor the best work of the previous year in various categories.

The VES List of the Most Influential Visual Effects films

In 2007, the Visual Effects Society unveiled their list of the 50 most influential films in visual effects. Due to ties, there were actually 51 films in the list. The films were:

1. Star Wars
2. Blade Runner
3. 2001: A Space Odyssey
The Matrix
5. Jurassic Park
6. Tron
7. King Kong
8. Close Encounters of the Third Kind
9. Alien
10. The Abyss
11. The Empire Strikes Back
12. Metropolis
13. A Trip to the Moon
14. Terminator 2: Judgment Day
15. The Wizard of Oz
16. Who Framed Roger Rabbit
17. Raiders of the Lost Ark
18. Titanic
19. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
20. Jason and the Argonauts
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
22. Toy Story
23. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
24. The Ten Commandments
25. The War of the Worlds
Forrest Gump
Citizen Kane
The 7th Voyage of Sinbad
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
30. The Terminator
31. Aliens
32. Mary Poppins
33. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
34. Forbidden Planet
35. Babe
36. The Day the Earth Stood Still
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
38. King Kong
39. Planet of the Apes
40. Fantastic Voyage
41. Jaws
42. Ghostbusters
43. Sin City
44. Superman
45. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
46. The Lost World
Return of the Jedi
48. What Dreams May Come
49. An American Werewolf in London
50. Darby O'Gill and the Little People
The Fifth Element

In 2017, an additional 21 films were added to the list:

300
Apollo 13
Avatar
Back to the Future
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
District 9
Ex Machina
Gertie the Dinosaur
Godzilla
Gravity
Inception
Independence Day
Life of Pi
Mad Max: Fury Road
The Mask
Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Starship Troopers
The Thing
Total Recall
Transformers
''Young Sherlock Holmes''