Cloverfield

A leaving party in Manhattan is interrupted when something enormous comes out of the harbour and takes the head off the Statue of Liberty. The film is one handheld camera, held by a party guest, for the whole night.

Matt Reeves and producer J.J. Abrams built it around a single idea: the Godzilla film as experienced by an ordinary person who can see almost nothing and understand less, and the constraint is the whole achievement. You never get a clean look, the military briefings happen off screen, and the scale is conveyed by dust and noise.

The marketing, a teaser with no title attached to a Transformers screening, launched the modern viral-mystery campaign.

The Statue of Liberty head in the street and the parasites in the subway are the two set pieces.

It made the format viable for a studio budget, which was its lasting effect.