Of course all film is a visual effect because none of the people are actually in the movie theatre or in your living room ... (pauses to push glasses up nose) ... however one of the first (not the only or the actual first) visual effects was the execution of The Execution of Mary Queen of Scots (1895) (I'll let you guess what the visual effect was) followed by ... bajillions of films featuring visual effects often to make things look normal when they were fighting against the film technology of the day (e.g. having a scene in a moving train when the set was outside in a lot in California because of the light needed to film). Literally if you stacked up the number of films without visual effects vs those that do the ones that do your pile will be heavily in the "ones that do" favor. Here's a good website if you're interested http://www.filmsite.org/visualeffects1.html
I admire visual effects artists so much. I think them and the crew in general deserve a lot more credit for their work in the film than the famous actors who play in them.
Actually, respect actors. Imagine how hard it is to get into character and actually act if all you're doing is staring at some green wall the whole time.
My dad actually didn't know that the tiger from Life of Pi was animated... I said that it was incredibly well done, and he just looked at me like he couldn't believe it wasn't a real tiger.
HOW COULD YOU