Ray Harryhausen did more than just special effects for movies. He changed the lives of people who looked at what he did — just like he did when he watched the work of Willis O’Brien — and they decided that they wanted to make films just like his.

Those people include Rick Baker, John Landis, Tony Dalton, Randy Cook, Peter Jackson, Nick Park, Phil Tippet, Peter Lord, Terry Gilliam, Dennis Muren, Ken Ralston, Guillermo Del Toro, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Robert Zemeckis, James Cameron and Steven Spielberg, all of whom appear in this movie to discuss just how important the special effects of Harryhausen and that fact that his influence remains so vital even today.

Director Gilles Penso has also made documentaries like Phil Tippett: Mad Dreams and Monsters, Creature Designers: The Frankenstein Complex and Derrière le Masque des Super-Héros (Behind the Super-Hero Mask). With so much footage and so many interviews, this seems like it would have been a daunting task. But for those who love the films of this special effects master — or those that have never heard of him before — this is a necessary watch.

A decade in the making, this documentary also features footage from the 1990 documentary Ray Harryhausen: Movement Into Life by film student John Walsh (who eventually became a trustee of the Ray and Diana Harryhausen Foundation).

You can watch this on Tubi.