Gotta go with The Thing. Seriously next level and gross special effects. One of John Carpenters best movies.

Aliens.

Still holds up in 4K nearly 40 years on. The drop ship, the mother alien, the armoured carrier, all incredible looking.

What’s your favorite movie that uses lots of practical effects?

The Thing has to be up there if the criteria is just an overall great movie heavy on practical effects.

Do you have a favorite practical effect of all time?

The "digital" wireframe view of the city from Snake's glider in 'Escape From New York'.

It was accomplished with miniature buildings which is rad.

Mad Max Fury Road. Pretty impressive what they were able to accomplish.

Here's the behind the scenes shot of my favorite effect near the end of the film. Link is timestamped but the rest of the video is pretty cool too.

Not at all like Army of Darkness, but my fave hasta be 2001: A Space Odyssey

The Empire Strikes Back

The Fall

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fall_(2006_film)

Singh stressed the importance of on-location filming and lack of special effects, as he found that modern techniques would not age well in comparison.

When shooting scenes of the blue city in Jodhpur, Tarsem provided locals with blue paint to refresh the paint on their houses. This alternative to post-production effects resulted in the vibrant blue of the city in the film.

This entire film is practically a love letter to early film practical special effects. Is it the best story? No, the story is flat in many respects. Yet the film to this day is visually stunning, and stands as one of my favorite films due to it's visually captivating presence. The film surely does have small amounts of modern special effects, but by and large Singh worked very hard at producing mostly practical effects.

Battle of Britain, because it was filmed in the 60s they managed to get a load of old spitfires that were mothballed after the war and used them for filming.

Mad God and John Carpenter's The Thing.

The Princess Bride

Hey, you said favorite, not most dramatic or best use of those effects.

Dark City. When the city transforms overnight. I wish there was more behind the scenes footage of how they pulled some of them off.

For me, the peak of practical effects is Scanners.

https://www.slashfilm.com/1603402/scanners-head-explosion-why-shotgun-vfx/

Hellraiser

Check out F/X. It's litterally about practical special effects. It's been a long time but I remember liking it a lot. I wasn't subscribed to Fangoria but my buddy was.

Dead Alive and Bad Taste come to mind.

Be Kind, Rewind

Kind of a joke answer because if you don’t know it, the entire premise is some guys remaking classic movies based on their memory and just a bunch of whatever junk they can find. It’s adorable, clever, inventive, and bewilderingly creative. It’s by the director of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, several White Stripes videos, the Daft Punk video for Around the World, and so much other brilliant stuff.

The Adventures Of Baron Munchausen.

Idle Hands if you like Army of Darkness and gross out practical effects.

Since 2001: Space Odyessy is above...

Im tempted to go with some Jackie Chan (?!) or Jet Li (Hero) or Tony Jaa (Ong Bak) or Donnie Yen (Ip Man) film — the one that's closest to my heart is Wo Hu Cang Long (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon).

Do not watch the trailer. It's garbage. The film is beautiful.

There are a few outstanding moments in film as well that are practical effects that just force my memory:

As mentioned: 2001, and the Fall.

The last arrow in Throne of Blood. Several scenes in The Cell (dir: Tarsem, who also did the Fall) I'll also highlight Hero.

e: And all the crazy shit Tom Cruise does in Mission: Impossible. Those are some fun movies.

That Mad Max with Tom Hardy had great rrsl stunts.

I haven't seen it mentioned, but I think Tremors (1990) is very much in the same genre as Army of Darkness, and I'm pretty sure the whole movie is pure practical effects.

I don't know if I'd say favorite exactly, but I've always thought it was so cool how for the movie Independence Day they made the models of the Cities they blow up. That's just neat.

John Carpenter’s The Thing is the peak. It does not go higher.

The Terrifier films are unbeatable for practical gore.

David Cronenberg’s The Fly is also a must-watch if you like practical creatures.

I love this movie, though not because of the practical effects, but because it is hillarious.

Those Magnificent Men In Their Flying Machines

It is a brilliant comedy from 1965, plus the theme music is an unexpected banger that I have on my phone and gladly sing along to when driving.

Literally anything that Stan Winston had a hand in.

Velocipastor. Here a Screenshot from the intro:

Watch the original Gone in 60 Seconds, from 1974. The car stunts are absolutely insane, to the extent that they probably shouldn't have been allowed to make the movie the way they did, but it happened and I'm glad that cameras were rolling. The Nic Cage remake was trying to make a movie safer, slicker, and more coherently, but there's no replacement for a bunch of insane stunt drivers risking their lives and the lives of everyone around them.

Practical effects in Carpenter's remake of The Thing are hard to beat

Does Mike Jittlov count? He did a lot of in-camera animation using single frame shots. Set up scene, click shutter, move stuff in the frame slightly, click, etc. He shot mostly 16mm short films but did a feature length "Wizard of Speed and Time" in 35mm.

Here's the original 3 minute 16mm version to get you started. The feature version is also on youtube it looks like. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XReeuhBeiIA

The Tree of Life