Anaconda (1997)

Things got a lot safer — and considerably less wild — when Hollywood made concessions to safety and PETA and started relying on computer-animated animals in place of real-life ones.

One of the first animals attack thrillers of the computer animation age, Anaconda follows a team of documentarians traveling the Amazonian jungle, trying to prove the existence of a long-lost tribe.

Along the way they also discover… anacondas. Critically panned, Anaconda went on to become a huge hit and spawn a franchise. It also features a fabulous cast that includes Jon Voight (doing a very ambitious accent), Eric Stoltz, Kari Wuhrer, and rising stars Jennifer Lopez and Owen Wilson, who would later reunite for the lovely 2021 romantic comedy Marry Me, which featured not a single anaconda.

It also has one of the best trailer taglines of any movie: “When you can’t breathe, you can’t scream.”