A general question. What films stood out to you as having some of the best, most unique visuals you'd ever seen?

To name a few from me...

Mad Max: Fury Road. I felt the movie really pushed the boundary with action filmmaking with its high-energy stunts, choreography, chases, but overall, design. The sets, costumes, makeup, weapons, and scenery are incredibly detailed in a way that perfectly fleshes out the film's environment and really gives the screen a lot of character. When they drove into the sandstorm, I was in utter awe.

Brazil. It's interesting how well the film stylizes a world that's crumbling to pieces as it's being crushed to death under its own paper work. Like Mad Max, I love how the film utilizes the world's technology to extenuate what a cluttered mess it is, along with the sets in how overwhelmed everything is by beauracracy. That, and the dream scenes are stellar.

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Caligari is one of the icons of the german-expressionist era and really helped pave the way for visual expression. Even as old and set-looking as the sets are, the deep shadows, striking outfits, and twisted architecture make it feel as though you're peering into the dreams of a madman.

Wait Until Dark. Pretty much 95% of the film takes place in a single apartment, but at the same time the film really does employ a strong sense of space. It's detailed with all the fixings of a modern home and we move about through the setting enough that we can easily map out and navigate the home, which considering Susie's blindness brings us much closer to the action, as though we're in there with her. Plus, I love how we spend the first portion of the movie in day and the climax at night, making the scenery much darker and scarier as it goes on(do NOT watch this with the lights on.)

The Lego Movie. On top of its colorful creativity, every frame of the film can be recreated with legos, down to the wear and tear of the plastic.

Vertigo. The cityscapes look absolutely gorgeous, and the deep shots give a sense of dissonance throughout the film between Scotty and the world around him.

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. The visuals are just as much a character (if not more so) as the human ones. It's colorful, energetic, has hilarious visual humor, but even the more slow moments have some creative cinematography.

The Pixar Movies. I know it's pretty general to say, but the sheer amount of effort and detail that Pixar uses to flesh out the characters, the scenery, and every single, solitary movement that takes place in their films is mind-boggling. We can feel the life coming off just as much from the characters as does the scenery, and are totally convinced of every sound and light we're immersed by.

Again, to name a few. Any others?

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Toys.

Just look at the sets for Zevo Toys. Who wouldn't want to work there?

4425624 Days of Heaven: A film shot entirely in magic hour (or the two hour-long periods after sunrise and before sunset), which really allowed the cinematographer to make perfect use of the outdoor lighting and colors of the sky that take place during that timeset.

4425624 On a purely visual atheistic, some of the most beautiful films are the films that Roger Deakins has been the cinematographer for.

Hell, for me, the cinematographer is one of the most important aspects of a film, right up there with the screenwriters and the directors and the actors.

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Yes to 'Mad Max: Fury Road,' (BTW best movie of the year so far), atop the design I like how they oversaturated the color to make it pop more as opposed to dulling it, and I like how they overcranked or undercranked the camera a lot. It gave the action a bit of a frantic energy atop all the craziness that was already going on.

Yes to Brazil, I love how so much information about... everything is portrayed not through a ton of exposition but through the sets. a picture is worth a thousand words.

yes to The Lego Movie, I like how it takes advantage of the fact that yes it is animated, and can afford to be as ridiculous with the camera as it wants.

And I feel like this is a cop-out, but Citizen Kane has some damn good visuals, especially with how he films it so that everything is in focus, and generally some striking visuals throughout.

4425624 Tim Burton's Batman 89, Batman Returns, and Edward Scissorhands