- Star Wars was a gateway to science fiction for many people when it first came out. It was always a gateway to movie making. How many young kids saw what George did and grabbed an old 8mm Bell&Howell camera in response?
- Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was many people's gateway to Wuxia, or Asian cinema in general.
- Rashomon was the first Japanese film to gain critical acclaim and widespread release in the United States, and was many people's (including many future filmmakers) first introduction to Japanese film-making and story techniques and the works of Akira Kurosawa. Incidentally, Kurosawa was slagged in Japan as this. Within Japan, he was considered a new upstart, and didn't even rank among their best young film-makers. But in the West, he got Wolverine Publicity and the Japanese slagged Kurosawa for being "too Western".
- Batman Begins set a standard of believability in Comic Book movies that eclipsed all previous attempts. This was successfully recreated in the Iron Man film; the standard was set once again with The Dark Knight.
- The first classic films that modern audiences usually see are: Casablanca, Singin' in the Rain, It's a Wonderful Life, The Wizard of Oz, Gone with the Wind, or alternatively Citizen Kane.
- Mystery Science Theater 3000 has gotten many people into B Movies and the So Bad, It's Good aesthetic in general.
- The 2007 Transformers movie got a lot of people into the franchise. It is currently enjoying success it hasn't had in nearly 25 years. The toys had original shipping numbers based on the previous line (Transformers: Cybertron), only to find empty shelves for weeks while they scrambled to meet demands.
- Beast Wars was a less-drastic but still notable example of the same thing. It goes to show that a good production will sell more toys than a movie designed to sell toys.
- The many Philip K. Dick adaptations (A Scanner Darkly, Total Recall, Paycheck, Blade Runner, Minority Report) and also the William Gibson adaptation/basis of movies like Johnny Mnemonic or Strange Days as an introduction into sci-fi beyond laser beams and space ships.
- While it was much less popular than Star Wars, and had much less of an effect overall, Children of Men apparently served as a gateway to science fiction. For some reason, it wasn't subjected to the Sci Fi Ghetto itself, and its lack of self-conscious "coolness" allowed it to stand as an example of science fiction in general rather than an example of cool action-style sci-fi like The Matrix or Terminator.
- The Scream series did a lot to introduce young people in The '90s to all the older horror movies that it referenced/parodied, to the point where it's credited with singlehandedly reviving the genre after having been on the low end of the Popularity Polynomial for the better part of the decade.
- And decades before that, late night showings of old Universal Horror movies by TV stations did the same for the baby boomers. To an extent, they still serve as great gateways for younger or more squeamish viewers, since most were made under The Hays Code and thus the violence and sex were minimal.
- The Criterion Collection for art house and foreign films and in the long-running film review series, Siskel & Ebert, critics Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert managed to convince at least a few of their viewers to give the documentaries, small independent and foreign language films they praised a try.
- To say the Marvel Cinematic Universe has gotten a lot of people into reading Marvel Comics is an understatement. Superhero films in general have played a large part in bringing comic books to the mainstream.
- For younger viewers they can also be a gateway to high-profile actors like Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Samuel L. Jackson, Christian Bale, Robert Downey Jr., J. K. Simmons, Michael Caine, Scarlett Johansson, Alfred Molina, etc. The hosts of the podcast '80s All Over once discussed how distinctive character actors like Willem Dafoe and Jeff Goldblum have seen an influx of new fans in the wake of comic book movie supporting turns in The New '10s (Aquaman and Thor: Ragnarok respectively), and suggested that younger listeners could contact them for recommendations of Goldblum's best '80s performances. And in Dafoe's case he had already been introduced to a whole new generation of fans through his iconic role as the Green Goblin in Spider-Man.
- Within the MCU, Black Panther (2018) introduced mainstream audiences to the genre and aesthetics of Afrofuturism.
- Live-action and animated kids films can serve as a gateway series to acclaimed actors/comedians known more for adult-oriented material, with the target audience getting more familiar with these works as they get older (not that they always wait that long).
- In turn, the film adaptations of Carrie, The Shining, and Misery got a lot of people interested in Stephen King.
- For the Godzilla movies, Godzilla (2014) greatly swelled the number of G-Fans out there since the days of syndicated late-night movies, as it successfully revived Godzilla from his 10-year hiatus and was the first Godzilla movie to appear in US theatres since Godzilla 2000.
- The Fly (1986) introduced the multiplex masses to Body Horror. While previous films in that vein such as The Thing (1982) and Re-Animator found cult followings at best back in the day, this one had unexpectedly wide audience appeal thanks to its moving, tragic storyline and memorable characters. It also remains an excellent gateway to David Cronenberg's body of work, both horror and non-horror, as his Signature Style is so strong.
- The film version of American Psycho, for better or worse, got lots of people into '80s music and pop culture.
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