Best "minimal cgi" movie ?

There is a lot of entertainment that is just animation. Some of it is very good (Shrek), some of it is just dreck. And there is a lot of “SF” CGI like Transformers, where the machines/spaceships are CGI just to represent an alternative reallity.

But there are also films like, as I recall “The Golden Child”, and “The Young Sherlock Holmes”, where a little bit of imagery is used, not as the driving element, but just because the director thought it added something to the story.

Your favorites?

(Inspired by the memorable scene in “Paddington Bear”, when a man’s life turns to ashes and all the leaves fall --as represented on his stairway wall mural)

Ladyhawke is pre-CGI, but despite it being a fantasy movie with magical elements in it, there really aren’t any special effects in it. There’s a bit of make-up, and some cross-dissolves. It’s otherwise just character banter and horse riding.

For a more recent one, Just Like Heaven. Reece Witherspoon plays a ghost, but there’s very little of that actually shown, it’s mostly implied with clever edits and dialogue.

I don’t have a great example off the top of my head but I believe that what you’re asking for is a movie played straight that has a brief scene or moment of obvious CGI as a visual enhancement, dreamlike moment, suggestion of the divine, etc?

There was just a little CGI used in the fantasy Willow, during the transformation scenes – probably because at that time it was the most convincing CGI they could do.
They used that CGI short demonstrating “The Genesis Effect” in Star Trek II, which was good (otherwise the movie was non-CGI).
They evidently liked it, too, because they re-used it in the next two Star Trek movies.

There is brilliant use of CGI in O Brother, Where Art Thou? Computer manipulation was used to make many of the landscapes look parched to match the depression era.

That’s what I had in mind.

But I’m absurdly pleased by the suggestion of “Oh Brother […]”. I had no idea that was CGI enhanced, and it worked really well.

Forrest Gump was pretty subtle and effective in it’s uses of CGI.

Mad Max: Fury Road. Pretty much only the massive haboob is CGI.

What does Something Wicked This Way Comes count as? (It had some impressive, if still time-limited CGI, but almost all of it was trimmed in the editing room.)

Like so? It’s obvious, but fits the bill otherwise.

That’s not really CGI, that’s just a colour grade. All movies have those. It was the first to do it entirely digitally, but now it’s done that way for everything.

I’m not sure what counts as “CGI”, but a huge amount of Fury Road has digital effects. It is an amazing achievement and the stunts and stunt driving are all incredible(and real in a way we hardly see today), but it had a ton of digital effects. A lot of combining shots and tons of computer work.

“I’ve been joking recently about how the film has been promoted as being a live action stunt driven film - which it is. But also how there’s so little CGI in the film. The reality is that there’s 2000 VFX shots in the film. A very large number of those shots are very simple clean-ups and fixes and wire removals and painting out tire tracks from previous shots, but there are a big number of big VFX shots as well.” - Andrew Jackson, visual effects supervisor

That “big number of big VFX shots” are mainly the ones involving the haboob.

I’m always amazed with the original Star Wars. It’s puppets and models and blue screens. And before that, 2001. Wow!

I remember when I saw Terminator 3 it struck me as very old school FX-wise. Real vehicles crashing into real buildings, or so it looked. Compared to the cgi driven Matrix movies and other similar action movies of the 2000’s it was a refreshing change.

Amélie: CGI for some clouds and a few other bit and pieces.

What about the displays, like the X-Wing and TIE Fighter targeting displays?

The Great Gatsby (2013).

Lots of CGI shots, but all of them used for backgrounds, not to drive the story.

“Miss Potter” The animals in her paintings Briefly come to life. Very well done.

Not CGI but in Catch 22 the picture on Major Major’s wall changes every time he walks past it.

Again, thank you., that’s a lovely film.
And I’m going to search out “Mrs Potter”.