One of cinema's first and most influential FX pictures, King Kong - the tale of a giant ape who is relocated to New York and causes chaos - easily stands the test of time, thanks in no small part to Willis O'Brien's ground breaking, yet highly individual stop-motion techniques.
It takes a while for the monkey to show up, but once he does, we're plunged into a brutally effective, dark lost world. Among many, Cooper and Shoedsack's finest stroke of genius was bringing Kong back to New York, which still impresses in its audacity. The humans don't fare so well; the characters are (even by the standards of the day) half-baked, and the performances - with the exception of Armstong as the P.T. Barnum-alike - wooden. Although Fay Wray proves she can scream with the best of 'em, which counts for a lot.