Items16The creator’s order
  1. 1Napoleon (1927)Napoleon (1927) 8.2/10 on IMDbReleased Jan 10, 1927Abel Gance felt that even a big picture was too small for him, so for the finale he gave himself three. As Bonaparte's army marches, the image expands to three times its original width, a panorama shot with three cameras stacked on top of each other, before breaking into a kaleidoscope of…0
  2. 2Brainstorm (1983)Brainstorm (1983) 6.4/10 on IMDbReleased Sep 30, 1983Douglas Trumbull built this science-fiction thriller around a single switch. Everyday scenes play in 35mm at a near-square 1.66:1 with mono sound; whenever someone plays back another person's recorded sensations, the picture jumps to wide 2.2:1 65mm and the sound opens out into full stereo. The…0
  3. 3Galaxy Quest (1999)Galaxy Quest (1999) 7.4/10 on IMDbReleased Dec 25, 1999The joke starts with the frame. The movie opens on the cancelled TV show its washed-up cast is still famous for, then the picture grows in two steps: to a standard 1.85:1 for roughly the first twenty minutes, and finally to full 2.35:1 widescreen once the adventure turns real. It's a sly way of…0
  4. 4Brother Bear (2003)Brother Bear (2003) 6.9/10 on IMDbReleased Oct 23, 2003About twenty-four minutes in, the narrower, slightly muted frame of Kenai's human life opens out to 2.35:1 widescreen, and the palette turns bolder and more vibrant. The wider world arrives at exactly the point where his way of seeing it changes, and nothing beforehand hints that it is…0
  5. 5Enchanted (2007)Enchanted (2007) 7.1/10 on IMDbReleased Nov 20, 2007Giselle's hand-drawn fairy-tale kingdom plays in 1.85:1. When she tumbles into modern Manhattan and the movie becomes live action, the frame stretches to anamorphic 2.35:1, so the real world literally looks bigger and less tidy than the one she left. It doubles as a neat in-joke on the difference…0
  6. 6Life of Pi (2012)Life of Pi (2012) 7.9/10 on IMDbReleased Nov 20, 2012Ang Lee mostly holds a steady frame, which makes his exceptions count. The picture widens to 2.35:1 for the flying-fish sequence and narrows to a boxy 1.33:1 for a single aerial shot, both moments where the scale of the ocean matters more than the boy adrift in it. The changes are brief, and they…0
  7. 7Oz the Great and Powerful (2013)Oz the Great and Powerful (2013) 6.3/10 on IMDbReleased Mar 7, 2013Sam Raimi's prequel tips its hat to The Wizard of Oz and then goes one better. The Kansas prologue is in black and white and a boxy 4:3 frame; when Oscar arrives in Oz, color floods in and the image extends to widescreen at the same moment. The rest of the movie is an uneven family fantasy, but…0
  8. 8Tom at the Farm (2014)Tom at the Farm (2014) 6.9/10 on IMDbReleased Mar 28, 2014Xavier Dolan's Hitchcock-flavored thriller sits in a standard 1.85:1 frame until the farm starts to close in. At key moments the frame itself tightens around the characters, constricting into a thin strip of widescreen, so you feel the situation physically narrowing. It works as a rehearsal for…0
  9. 9The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) 8.1/10 on IMDbReleased Feb 8, 2014Wes Anderson gives each time period its own shape. The hotel's 1930s heyday is in the near-square 1.37:1 of that era's movies, its faded 1960s self is in wide 2.40:1, and the 1980s framing story sits at 1.85:1. Once you notice, the frame tells you which layer of the story you're in, and the…0
  10. 10Mommy (2014)Mommy (2014) 8.0/10 on IMDbReleased Sep 19, 2014Most of Mommy plays in a perfect 1:1 square, which keeps a volatile widowed mother and her teenage son pressed together with nowhere to go. Then, at one point, a character literally pushes the edges of the frame outward with his hands. Dolan makes you feel the square's confinement so completely…0