The Blair Witch Project

Made on a shoestring ($40,000), this no-frills, no-stars, no-effects horror yarn was released amid expectations that might have been hard to live up to had the film not been so different and so simple. Through arch use of the internet and word-of-mouth, it became a box-office sensation. A campfire ghost story in which three students go into the Maryland woods to film their own search for a mythical monster, the film's rough, video-diary edge and shaky point-of-view camerawork — while demanding on the eye — take the viewer right into the unfolding story. Scary without being explicit, it's a 1990s cinematic landmark, and best judged away from the hype.

A extraordinary box-office success, this looks and sounds like the amateur movie it's meant to be, yet somehow, with its horrors never quite seen, scared audiences the world over, so well-faked was its feeling of reality.