This article explores the issues pertaining to perception of reality through cinematography, including modern film editing. Analysis is conducted on modern surrealistic portraying of the world in movies, highlighting the importance of created reality in movies and its perception by the viewers. The article presents brief analysis of the works of such renowned philosophers as André Bazin, Henri Bergson, Jean Baudrillard, Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Walter Benjamin. Modern cinematography in form of “movie universes” and “movie franchises” is used as an example. This research covers modern films, which reflect popular demand for maximal realism as an opportunity to identify and reach maximal immersion into story on the screen. Cinematography began be showing real events as chronicles, later undergoing changes, and with development of technology becomes more distant from portrayal of specific reality and people. In the 1980s the conceptual idea changes, and cinematography becomes more realistic. However, in the early XXI century, while chasing realism modern movies became hyper-realistic, causing gradual degradation of sense of reality of the picture.