1. In You People (2023), Jonah Hill and Lauren London's characters kiss during the final scene when they get married, but the kiss itself was actually CGI, according to their costar.
2. In Knives Out (2019), because there were several close-ups with characters who wore glasses, Matt Mania, the movie's Key Grip, created appliques to put over the lights so that the film crew wouldn't be seen in the glasses' reflections.
#KnivesOut subtly features art by Matt Mania, Key Grip. We had many closeups of characters with eyeglasses, so he cleverly sculpted mattes to reshape our lighting equipment into scenery you'd realistically expect to see reflected in the glasses. #NerdyFilmTechStuff
3. In Mission: Impossible - Fallout (2018), to get the shot of Tom Cruise's character jumping off the plane, the cinematographer also had to sky dive with him.
4. In Sh! The Octopus (1937), since VFX weren't as far along in the 1930s, the filmmakers used an optical illusion to create the effect of a woman turning into a creature before our very eyes.
5. In Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015), BB-8 was controlled by a group of puppeteers wearing greenscreen suits who would literally push him around the set.
6. In The Menu (2022), the first shot of the movie (where Anya Taylor-Joy's character is lighting a cigarette) is actually stock footage.
7. In Avengers: Infinity War (2018), Josh Brolin wore a giant floating Thanos head so the other actors would know where to look when they were talking to him. Then, the actual Thanos-ification was done in post with CGI.
8. In Titanic (1997), all of the water scenes were shot in a giant pool that was actually only waist-deep.
9. In the Guardians of the Galaxy (2014–) movies, Sean Gunn plays Rocket's body double on set, so while filming, he crouches and crawls around to match the character's height. Then, Bradley Cooper voices the CGI character in the final version of the film.
10. In Baby Driver (2017), because the car chases were so complex, a stunt driver would sit in a contraption on top of the prop car and drive from up there.
11. In Iron Man 3 (2013), during the final scene, Robert Downey Jr.'s head was actually CGIed onto a body double because, at the time, RDJ suffered an injury that halted production for six weeks.
12. In The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014), the hotel used in the movie isn't even an actual place. It's a miniature model designed and built specifically for the film.
13. In Dunkirk (2017), an extra who was spotted smiling during the movie's teaser trailer was CGIed to appear like he was frowning for the film's actual release.
14. In Jurassic Park (1993), the sound designers used the noises of mating tortoises to make the sound for the film's velociraptors.
15. In Inception (2010), a rolling hallway set was built and actually spun around while filming so it looked like the actors were on the walls and ceiling.
16. And finally, in The Matrix (1999), in order to capture Keanu Reeves' iconic bullet-defying moment, 120 still-cameras were placed around him all capturing photos within milliseconds of each other. Then, those photos were stitched together to achieve that slow-motion effect.
