This article was originally published in September 2009.

If you don’t know who Ray Harryhausen is, you’re on the wrong website.

Starting in the 1940s, this special effects master pioneered the use of stop-motion animation in film, mostly frequently in fantasy film.

The effects he created (often for films he produced) didn’t just result in important technological advances; Harryhausen literally inspired an entire generation of movie-makers, from George Lucas to Steven Spielberg, who say that the special effects genius taught them the all-important lesson that film is limited only by the imagination.

But how have Harryhausen’s films held up over the years not as historical artifacts or nostalgic reminders of childhood, but as actual movies?

Here’s what we think:

The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms (1954) and It Came From Beneath the Sea (1955)

Two Torches (Out of Five)

Harryhausen had worked previously as part of a special effects team on the Oscar-winning Mighty Joe Young in 1949, but 20,000 Fathoms and Beneath the Sea were his first movies where he was in charge of the effects.

While fascinating from a historical perspective — these films pretty much created the genre of the “monster movie,” and they were the first to feature monsters created as a result of “atomic testing” — the plots are hackneyed and the effects are primitive.

Of interest only to Harryhausen buffs (and fans of cheesy 1950s sci-fi).

One Million Years B.C. (1966)

Two Torches (Out of Five)

This one isn’t even interesting from an historical perspective. The science is laughable, the plot is stupid, and the effects look far more dated than in other Harryhausen movies. But on the plus side, the film does contain Raquel Welch in that famous leather bikini.

(As bad as this movie is, it’s still better than Roland Emmerich’s 10,000 BC!)

Clash of the Titans (1981)

Three and a Half Torches (Out of Five)

By the time Harryhausen made Clash of the Titans, stop-motion animation was falling out of favor, replaced by puppets, animatronic models, and the first stirrings of  CGI (not to mention a new, more realistic form of animation seen in movies like Dragonslayer known as “go-motion”).

Titans has plenty of fans, and it’s probably Harryhausen’s most complicated animated work ever (the “Medusa” scene alone is worth the price of admission). But this loose retelling of the story of Perseus is too simplistic and earnest for the 80s. It hasn’t aged well.

The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958)

Three and a Half Torches (Out of Five)

In the legendary adventurer Sinbad, Harryhausen found the perfect focus for his talents. 7th Voyage, his first of three Sinbad movies (and his first color film), was a major leap forward in terms of the complexity and sophistication of the effects. The plot may be a little lacking, but the dragon/cyclops battle still stuns.

Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger (1977)

Three and a Half Torches (Out of Five)

The last of the Sinbad movies had a young Jane Seymour and a mega-budget (at the time), but a weak plot: Sinbad seeks a cure for a prince who’s been turned into a baboon. And Harryhausen may finally have been running out of creatures to animate, what with a giant, um, walrus and a not-quite-convincing-looking troglodyte.

The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1974)

Four and a Half Torches (Out of Five)

The middle, but best of Harryhausen’s three Sinbad movies has a simple, but classic plot: Sinbad races a villain to assemble the pieces of an amulet that forms a map that leads to the “Fountain of Destiny.” When the amulet is put in the fountain, it grants one youth, a cloak of darkness, and a crown of great riches — all well-illustrated in the film.

But the movie also includes one of the most interesting/creepy sequences in all of fantasy film: the villain creates a flying “homunculus” that does his bidding — though the creation of each creature drains the wizard of life-energy, aging him. And the (admittedly politically incorrect) battle with Kali is pretty cool too.

Mysterious Island (1961)

Four and a Half Torches (Out of Five)

Mysterious Island, loosely based on the Jules Verne novel, may be Harryhausen’s most coherent, most fully realized movie. For one thing, there’s a plausible reason for the over-sized creatures that the hero confronts: they’re all part of an experiment by Captain Nemo (living on the island years after the events of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea).

The giant bees are great, but the crab scene is classic.

Jason and the Argonauts (1963)

Five Torches (Out of Five)

Argonauts is widely acknowledged as Harryhausen’s masterpiece (and it’s the filmmaker’s own favorite film). We agree. It’s true that the film has an abrupt sort of non-ending, but that flaw is forgotten in light of indelible imagery such as the statue of Talos that comes to life and — of course, Harryhausen’s most famous sequence of all — the skeleton battle.

When Tom Hanks awarded Harryhausen a special Oscar in 1992, the actor said, “Some people say Casablanca or Citizen Kane. I say Jason and the Argonauts is the greatest film ever made.”

It’s a really hard statement to disagree with.