Purely on visuals side of things: - Tron released in 1982: one of the first movies with extensive use of CGI - Terminator 2 released in 1992 with first partia

Purely on visuals side of things: - Tron released in 1982: one of the first movies with extensive use of CGI - Terminator 2 released in 1992 with first partially CGI character and realistic CGI human movement - LOTR in 2003 had it's own important firsts like AI driven CGI characters in massive battles There have been advances since, but not comparable to TRON to LOTR jump. Another important factor is that a lot of effects were practical and not CGI and those will always age well.