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2021 began with a lot of uncertainty about delayed releases and how we would be able to consume blockbuster movies. Regardless of whether you watched at the theaters or from the comfort of your home, there were many captivating movies that took filmmaking to another level. High-adrenaline flicks like "Shangi-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings," "F9" and "No Time to Die" created in-camera stunts that you may have thought were CG. Young audiences got to see 2-D characters come to life like never before in "Clifford the Big Red Dog," and "Space Jam: A New Legacy." And real-life landscapes were constructed in both "Old" and "The French Dispatch" to transport viewers to another world. Here's what 16 movies of 2021 looked like behind the scenes.

Slated to be released 2020 9 March.

Since the invention of film, filmmakers have tried to trick viewers into believing that an actor is either shorter or taller than they really are. The most classic techniques are sticking an actor on a platform or having them interact with props built to scale. But those need to be paired with clever camera angles and visual effects. In "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring" (2001), director Peter Jackson employed a forced perspective so Gandalf would really look like he was interacting with a hobbit. More complex computer-controlled camera moves and blue-screen compositing helped make the shots more complex and were used further in "The Two Towers" (2002), "The Return of the King" (2003), and the "Hobbit" trilogy (2012 to 2014). Performance capture created even more opportunities for actors to play giants on camera in "Avatar" (2009) and "The BFG" (2016), but creating the proper sense of scale gets trickier when these characters have to interact with normal-sized actors. When playing 8-foot-tall Thanos in "Avengers: Infinity War" (2018) and "Avengers: Endgame" (2019), Josh Brolin wore a cutout on his head to fill the gap. A more sophisticated method used in Marvel's "She-Hulk: Attorney at Law" (2022) involved using CG to combine Tatiana Maslany's performance with that of a much taller body double. Now, with "Avatar: The Way of Water" (2022), director James Cameron and the artists at Weta FX figured out some of the most precise and convincing ways yet to size up actors through a combination of floating monitors, virtual cameras, and props.

Hollywood has always been keen on disaster flicks. The genre is unique in the sheer size of the spectacles that must be created, with special effects teams building entire cities or worlds only to level them. Movies Insider breaks down the diverse techniques used to create extreme weather phenomena on the big screen, from miniature effects to shaky deck sets to a massive light and rain rig, and show you exactly what these effects looked like behind the scenes.

"Frozen II" is the long-awaited follow-up to the 2013 Disney animated smash hit featuring characters like Elsa, Anna, Olaf, Kristoff, and Sven. For the sequel, animators updated Anna and Elsa's outfits, re-built parts of Arendelle, and figured out how to turn water, wind, fire, and rocks into living, breathing creatures like Gale and the Nokk. This short documentary examines all of the interesting details and techniques the Disney animators used to make "Frozen II" and how they improved upon the first film.

Many movies have scenes shot to look like one long take. To do this, filmmakers will shoot a scene in long, unedited segments and then stitch them together. Action movies like "Atomic Blonde" will do this by having actors run in front of the camera to hide the cuts. For a one-take action sequence in Netflix's "Extraction," director Sam Hargrave had to strap himself to the roof of a vehicle and then quickly run off in order to get an uninterrupted shot of Chris Hemsworth. One-take scenes can help show the passage of time, like when Showtime needed to film a montage that took place over the course of five years in "Kidding." Meanwhile, the Oscar winners "Birdman" and "1917" kept the one-take illusion going for their entire running times. In order to cover a lot of ground, both these movies traveled light: they relied on small handheld cameras as well as natural light in place of large light kits.

Pixar broke new ground when it created "Toy Story" in 1995, but from there it still had a long way to go to perfect 3D animated characters. Over the years, Pixar's animators would figure out everything from proper human movement to skin to hair. They figured out how to smooth out skin in "Geri's Game." Then, when "The Incredibles" rolled around, they created new simulations to help control Mr. Incredible's muscle movements and Violet's long hair while also finding more accurate ways to light human skin. Violet's hair would later pave the way for long-haired characters like Colette in "Ratatouille" and the curly-haired heroine Merida of "Brave." Meanwhile, Pixar's shading tools would allow the animators to add even more striking details to their human characters' faces, while innovative new methods of animating crowd scenes came about in "Incredibles 2" and "Toy Story 4."

The animatronic Giganotosaurus from "Jurassic World: Dominion" (2022) was the largest practical head built for any "Jurassic Park" film. The practical and digital effects teams worked hand in hand to bring the Giga to life. Live-action-dinosaur supervisor John Nolan led a team to create a Giga puppet that looked and moved like a real dinosaur could. The head was placed on a rig that weighed around 9 tons and could move up and down and interact with Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Jeff Goldblum, and Laura Dern on set. While only the Giga's head and neck were created, visual effects supervisor David Vickery and his team at ILM built the CG body to perfectly match the puppeteered movements on set.