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* The vast majority of [[Harryhausen Movie|Harryhausen Movies]]. Ray Harryhausen treated each monster as a character in and of itself, giving them operatic deaths when he could. Special mention goes to:
** ''[[Mighty Joe Young]]'' - Joe is the star of the film, after all.
** ''[[The Beast Fromfrom Twenty Thousand20,000 Fathoms]]''
** ''[[Twenty Million Miles To Earth]]'' - A movie where to many audiences, the monster is the most like-able characters.
** ''[[First Men in The Moon]]''
** ''[[The Valley of Gwangi]]''
** ''[[Clash of the Titans]]''
* ''[[Short Circuit (Film)|Short Circuit]]'' features Johnny 5, an animatronic robot, as the lead character.
* The infamous film version of ''[[Howard the Duck (Filmfilm)|Howard the Duck]]''.
* ''[[Dragonheart]]'', where [[Sean Connery]] voices a CGI dragon.
* ''[[Who Framed Roger Rabbit?]]''.
* The live-action ''[[Transformers (Filmfilm)|Transformers]]'' movies are mainly a [[A Worldwide Punomenon|vehicle]] to show off a whole set of special effects characters.
** Some critics actually claim they didn't do this ''[[Tropes Are Not Bad|enough]]'': Who came here to see a bunch of humans we don't actually care about? Give us the robots!
* The live-action ''[[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Filmfilm)|Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles]]'' movies.
* The live-action ''[[Garfield (Filmfilm)|Garfield]]'' movies.
* ''[[Looney Tunes: Back in Action]]'', which merges live action and animation in much the same way as ''[[Who Framed Roger Rabbit?]]''.
** And there's its predecessor, ''[[Space Jam (Film)|Space Jam]]''. The credits for both films ''actually used'' "Bugs Bunny" as part of the starring role.
* The live-action ''[[Alvin and the Chipmunks (Film)|Alvinandthe Chipmunks]]'' movies.
* The live-action ''[[Scooby Doo]]'' movies
* The live-action ''[[Rocky and Bullwinkle]]'' movie
* The live-action ''[[Casper (Filmfilm)|Casper]]'' movie, and its sequels
** [[Roger Ebert]] even described the first one in his review as "a movie that essentially stars computer programming".
* ''[[E.T. the Extraterrestrial (Film)Extra-Terrestrial|ET the Extraterrestrial]]''
* Debatable whether this applies when you have an actual actor playing a character whose appearance is created by special effects. Andy Serkis has played three of the most famous examples:
** Gollum in [[Peter Jackson]]'s film version of ''[[The Lord of the Rings (Filmfilm)|The Lord of the Rings]]'', particularly in ''The Two Towers''.
** [[King Kong]] in the most recent remake
** Caesar in ''[[Rise of the Planet of Thethe Apes]]''. The trailer even said "From Weta Digital: the Visual Effects Company for ''[[Avatar (Filmfilm)|Avatar]]''"
* Pretty much any [[Kaiju]] movie qualifies as this.
** ''[[Godzilla]]''. Both the original Japanese version (who was played by a guy in a rubber suit... as well as an animatronic head used for close-ups in later films) and the CGI version of the remake.
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*** Gamera himself, natch.
** ''[[King Kong]]'' . Possibly the originator of the trope, to the point where Fay Wray was initially told that she would be appearing with the "tallest, darkest leading man in Hollywood".
* Gwoemul from ''[[The Host (Filmfilm)|The Host]]'' is a CGI fish-monster.
* All the movies starring [[The Muppets]].
** The policy of working with Muppets is that one has to treat them as legitimate people, to the point that many Muppeteers don't break character during the outtakes of the production.
*** Special mention to the 2011 Muppet movie where the Muppets get their own promotion interviews with the media.
** [[Jim Henson]]'s non-Muppet films ''[[The Dark Crystal]]'' and ''[[Labyrinth (Film)|Labyrinth]]'' also qualify -- the bulk of the characters in the latter are realized with puppets, and the former has an all-puppet cast.
*** ''[[The Dark Crystal]]'' is especially notable, as it was the first live action movie done with no human cast. Every character however big or small was a puppet. This lent to the viewer's immersion in Henson and Froud's [[World Building]].
* Jar-Jar Binks from ''[[Star Wars]]: [[The Phantom Menace]]'' is what happens when this goes [[The Scrappy|horribly, horribly wrong]].
** Jabba The Hutt starred "[[Character Asas Himself|As Himself]]" in the same movie, and Yoda would join the ranks in the next two films.
* Christopher Johnson in ''[[District 9]]''.
* ''[[Avatar (Filmfilm)|Avatar]]''
* ''[[S1m0ne (Film)|S1m0ne]]'' is an in-universe example.
* The makers of ''[[Ghost Rider (Filmfilm)|Ghost Rider]] Spirit of Vengeance'' seem to [http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/16/idUS220754507020120216 describe ] the movie as such while trying to downplay the role of the movie's actual star Nicholas Cage.
* Variation: The film ''Battle of the River Plate'' included acting credits for the ''warships'' involved in filming it.
 
== Live Action TV ==
* ''[[ALF (TV)|ALF]]''
* ''[[Max Headroom]]''. The title character was played by Matt Frewer with lots of prosthetic makeup, bluescreen and editing.
* The majority of ''[[Lazy TownLazyTown]]'s'' main cast are puppets.
** Does this count Robbie Rotten's [[Bruce Campbell]] like [[Uncanny Valley|creepy makeup]]?
* [[Sesame Street]] would be nothing without its Muppet cast.
** And, of course, ''[[The Muppet Show]]''.
* [[BluesBlue's Clues]] is completely rendered in animation. The only real thing is a single guy standing in front of a greenscreen talking to himself.
** The exceptions, of course, are the Thinking Chair (he has to sit on ''something''), the letter and the notebook.
 
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