70mm is a special film format that offers a unique cinematic experience. Different from the standard 35mm format, 70mm frames are larger and wider in aspect ratio, which in turn results in a much higher resolution. It expands the mise en scène and enables the audience to catch details they otherwise wouldn't have noticed. With the advent of IMAX, the unique 70mm experience now delivers the best possible projection of a motion picture.
However, shooting a film with such magnificent image resolution and quality material is no easy feat to accomplish, which explains why 70mm movies are so rare: they require much more expensive equipment and special projectors so that a screening can do justice to the material. In addition, higher resolution and brighter images don't ensure quality, but luckily enough, there's a good amount of 70mm masterpieces out there.
Here are the greatest movies shot on 70mm.
10 West Side Story (1961)
1961's West Side Story tells a moving story of forbidden love between two youngsters from rival New York gangs: the Jets, a gang of Americans of Polish descent; and the Sharks, made of Puerto Rican immigrants. In a contrasting narrative filled with tension, the movie starts off with a spark of love and ends in an outburst of violence.
What Makes It Great
West Side Story is one of the defining musicals when it comes to showing that cinema has no boundaries. The musical numbers are electrifying and beautifully choreographed, but, in addition, the mesmerizing cinematography that conducts them is hypnotic. No wonder the movie ended up winning 10 Oscars out of 11 nominations, including the prestigious Best Picture.
9 Tron (1982)
Tron
- Release Date
- July 9, 1982
- Director
- Steven Lisberger
- Cast
- Jeff Bridges, Bruce Boxleitner, David Warner, Cindy Morgan, Barnard Hughes, Dan Shor
- Rating
- PG
- Main Genre
- Action
In Tron, the 70mm format enables the movie to deliver a disruptive video-game atmosphere, in a mix of sci-fi and action that would predict gaming immersion and the digital takeover that would ensue in the years to come. In the film, Jeff Bridges plays a computer hacker transported into a virtual dimension known as "The Grid." With the help of a security program and his own technological knowledge, he must overpower the tyrannical force that wishes to destroy him.
What Makes It Great
Tron delivers a special digital odyssey that envisions the future while embracing the present. Modern audiences insist the movie has aged poorly, but fail to see how the film's distinctive visual effects are much more interested in embracing the visual identity of 20th-Century video games than trying to deliver a model of the future. Some of the riskiest visual choices ever made are here, setting the path for other disruptive masterpieces such as the Wachowskis' Speed Racer and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.
8 The Master (2012)
The Master
- Release Date
- September 7, 2012
- Director
- Paul Thomas Anderson
- Cast
- Joaquin Phoenix, Price Carson, Mike Howard, Sarah Shoshana David, Bruce Goodchild, Matt Hering
- Rating
- R
- Main Genre
- Drama
The Master feels like the right Paul Thomas Anderson movie to be shot in 70mm because it strengthens the many indoor locations and suburban landscapes that make up the movie. The format is usually linked to breathtaking epics and groundbreaking set designs, while Anderson shows that a conventional setting can look just as beautiful to look at, if not more. The film revolves around a lonely Naval veteran who finds purpose in an unreliable cult led by Lancaster, a charismatic, yet mysterious man.
What Makes It Great
In several instances, Anderson goes for disruptive angles that perfectly convey the contrasting nature between the film's locations and Joaquin Phoenix's character, always amplifying the aura of loneliness that envelops him whenever he's in a crowded room as opposed to the privilege of freedom witnessed whenever he's completely alone.
7 The Hateful Eight (2015)
The Hateful Eight
- Release Date
- December 25, 2015
- Director
- Quentin Tarantino
- Cast
- Demián Bichir, Michael Madsen, James Parks, Dana Michelle Gourrier, Lee Horsley, Gene Jones
- Rating
- R
- Main Genre
- Western
Quentin Tarantino is always committed to paying homage to his biggest influences, and with the highest-quality possible. Delivering a new take on western with Django: Unchained in 2012, he decided to experiment more with the genre with The Hateful Eight, gathering some of the most classical figures of the genre in a single-location story, with tension and suspense going through the roof. In the film, an unforgiving blizzard causes a band of unreliable strangers to seek shelter in the same place, leading to violent consequences.
What Makes It Great
While investing in 70mm for a movie that primarily takes place in one room might seem odd, the wider aspect ratio induces the viewer to pay extra attention to the details in search of clues. Additionally, since there are so few characters in the movie, it's often possible to catch a glimpse of what each one of them is doing in the background while the primary action unfolds onscreen.
6 The Sound of Music (1965)
The Sound of Music
- Release Date
- March 29, 1965
- Director
- Robert Wise
- Cast
- Julie Andrews, Christopher Plummer, Eleanor Parker, Richard Haydn, Peggy Wood, Charmian Carr
- Rating
- G
- Main Genre
- Biography
One of the most romantic movies of the '60s, The Sound of Music is the kind of movie that appeals to the heart's core in a gentle, cozy narrative filled with music and emotion. It revolves around a young novice assigned as the governess of a widowed naval officer and his seven children.
What Makes It Great
While the iconic musical numbers and the bright, vivid cinematography deliver an unforgettable experience, it's Julie Andrews's charisma that tuns The Sound of Music into the unbeatable masterpiece it is: she acts as the embodiment of kindness and hope in the movie, in a charming performance whose joyful nature is contagious.
5 Baraka (1992)
Baraka's statement couldn't be clearer: the movie consists of the first documentary ever filmed in 70mm; it was shot across 24 countries in just over a year, and it unfolds throughout 97 minutes without uttering a single word. Here's a movie that absolutely trusts its visual power, speaking the unspeakable with no shortcuts or pretentiousness.
What Makes It Great
Perhaps Baraka's biggest asset is how it doesn't try to convince the viewer of anything; it's just manifesting the world as it is, life as it unfolds. Highly evocative, Baraka balances images that are difficult to look at with others that comfort the heart, exposing a perpetual cycle of renewal and destruction where we are nothing but mere witnesses.
4 Cleopatra (1963)
Cleopatra is a movie that breathes abundance and glamour in every frame, so no wonder it stands as the most expensive movie of the 60s (per The Guardian). The 70mm format is just the icing on the cake in a movie that makes sure to look as expensive as it actually was, introducing the muse of its time, Liv Taylor, as the mesmerizing Cleopatra and her insatiable hunger for power.
What Makes It Great
It's a movie that lives up to its excesses, with a daunting 248-runtime that pays off with breathtaking set designs and a compelling pace in the face of such an ambitious story. Cleopatra is the kind of film that only pops up once in a century, securing its place in cinema history for the unparalleled effort to capture such an important time in history with such meticulous attention to detail.
3 The Wild Bunch (1969)
The Wild Bunch is the definitive masterpiece from Sam Peckinpah, known as one of the veterans of the classical western. Released in 1969, when the genre was beginning to die, the movie reinvented the traditional western narrative with a sharp meditation on morality and humanity's propensity for violence. It follows a group of outlaws aiming at one last big score across the borders of a disappearing American West.
What Makes It Great
Beautifully shot, The Wild Bunch is a movie committed to being faithful to both the nature of men and the nature that surrounds men, and the 70mm format is essential when capturing the beauty and the decay of the immense land stretching out before the main characters.
2 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
2001: A Space Odyssey
- Release Date
- April 2, 1968
- Director
- Stanley Kubrick
- Cast
- Keir Dullea, Gary Lockwood, William Sylvester, Daniel Richter, Leonard Rossiter, Margaret Tyzack
- Rating
- G
- Main Genre
- Adventure
The 70mm print of 2001: A Space Odyssey elevates the harrowing vastness of space and manages to convey a stunning look both into ancient times and the mysterious future that awaits humanity. Stanley Kubrick's magnum opus revolves around the discovery of a mysterious monolith that may indicate the existence of alien life. In search of the object's origins, a space crew sets out to Jupiter on a journey that will take them to depths of the unknown.
What Makes It Great
Over 50 years later, and way past the 2001 of the title, 2001: A Space Odyssey is as fresh as it was when it came out. The movie is an ode to the mysteries of the universe, exposing how the more humanity learns and creates, the less they seem to know about themselves. The trippy visuals of the ending amplified by the wider lens of a 70mm frame make it all the more impactful and hypnotic, ensuring for viewers won't look away from the immersive imagery that goes on for 5 full minutes.
1 Oppenheimer (2023)
Oppenheimer
- Release Date
- July 21, 2023
- Director
- Christopher Nolan
- Cast
- Cillian Murphy, Matt Damon, Robert Downey Jr., Emily Blunt, Florence Pugh, Gary Oldman, Josh Hartnett, Jack Quaid, Kenneth Branagh, Rami Malek, Alex Wolff, Matthew Modine
- Main Genre
- Biography
All of Oppenheimer's merits are justified by how good the movie itself is: a marvelous achievement in storytelling and tension build-up delivered by flawless performances and a harrowing score that could as well be used in a horror movie. Recounting the controversial trajectory of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the mastermind behind the advent of the atomic bomb, is no easy task, but Christopher Nolan exceeded all expectations with an intense historical portrait that depicts the good and the bad of an enigmatic historical figure.
What Makes It Great
Universal Picture's decision to release Oppenheimeras a summer blockbuster on the same day as Barbie might be one of the riskiest marketing strategies ever made by a big studio, but it resulted in a massive cultural phenomenon known as Barbenheimer, showing wide audiences from all over the world the true cinematic power of a movie shot in 70mm.
Those who watched Oppenheimer in IMAX 70mm were privileged enough to have witnessed the best experience one could possibly have in a movie theater in 2023, contributing to a record-breaking box office performance that no other R-rated biopic ever pulled off.
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