70s, 80s and 90s

Stop motion was used in the 70s and 80s for special effects for huge films such as the original Star Wars trilogy. The company Industrial Light & Magic used this technique for scenes such as the chess sequence in Star Wars, the Tauntauns and AT-AT walkers in The Empire Strikes Back, and the AT-ST walkers in Return of the Jedi.

AT-AT walkers

There are other famous films that used this technique for special effects: The scenes including ghosts in Raiders of the Lost Ark, the first two feature films in the RoboCop series, and some of the shots for the final sequence of the Terminator movie.

Ghosts in Raiders of the Lost Ark

Another notable filmmaker using stop motion in the 80s, is Czech Jan Svankmajer, who mixed stop motion and live action. These include Alice, an adaptation of Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, and Faust, a rendition of the legend of the German scholar.

Alice, 1988

Despite the advancement of other forms of animation, as well as the success of animated cartoon films such as Who Framed Roger Rabbit and The Little Mermaid at the end of the 80s and the beginning of the 90s, there has still been an increase in the number of traditional stop motion feature films. One of the most famous stop motion features is The Nightmare Before Christmas, directed by Henry Selick and produced by Tim Burton in 1993. Henry Selick also went on to direct James and the Giant Peach and Coraline, and Tim Burton went on to direct Corpse Bride and Frankenweenie, all to high critical acclaim.

Nightmare Before Christmas

James and the Giant Peach