‘Cloverfield’
Found footage horror wasn’t invented with Cloverfield (heck, even Blair Witch Project was far from the first), but it did level up with the Matt Reeves directed, Drew Goddard written monster mash. Kicking off with a secretive, surprise trailer, Cloverfield worked with all the tools in producer Bad Robot’s mystery box: online games, comics, strange footage, and much more. Then, happily, the movie delivered, giving a tense, ground level view of a monster disaster film through the eyes of a few regular humans just trying to get out of the city alive. Reeves’ direction builds steadily, slowly revealing the monster in (most of) its glory, and ending with a sad gut punch that is far more grounded than, say, Aaron Taylor-Johnson becoming friends with Godzilla after making intense eye contact. Stay through the credits for one of the greatest monster movie themes of all time by Michael Giacchino, even though the music never plays in the movie proper.