03:59 The fierce urgency of China’s building obsession has rarely been clearer than in this time lapse video of a skyscraper going up right before our eyes. The video captures the tower, made of modular blocks, going up at a rate of three floors per day. For a little comparison: If One World Trade Center had risen at that speed, then it would have topped out in barely more than a month.

04:22 It’s set to a strong ambient/electronic soundtrack.

02:05 After being exposed to water, the dried out desert plant bursts to life. Watch as it turns into a green fern over the course of several hours.

02:38 This ‘layer-lapse’ captures iconic views of the city as night and day are mashed into one scene, creating an amazing effect. Using Einstein’s theory of relativity as inspiration, the photographer created a stunning time-lapse of Boston by combining  different times of the day in different parts of each frame.

07:00 This is a very cool video, showcasing all types of severe weather in Wyoming, Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Colorado and orchestrated to a powerful score.

12:32 A mesmerizing series of time lapses exploring the idea that creation and destruction might be the same thing. It includes sequences of riots, wildfires, and optical illusion paintings in abandoned houses, and ends with a monumental stop motion circle of inverted trees.

07:03 A lovely and evocative film which captures the artistic and natural beauty of the 2013 Burning Man festival through a series of stunning time lapse sequences. You’ll see how the empty, barren desert transforms into a bacchanalian festival filled with trippy art, face-painted fire-poi dancers, massive glowing pyramids, giant naked lady sculptures, fireworks, and unreal sunrises.

03:17 The spiral galaxy that is the Milky Way is beautifully portrayed in this time lapse video showing the awesome May night skies of the South Dakota plains.

04:02 An outstanding photographer captures the essence of Rio de Janeiro – its natural beauty, its crowded slums, its landmarks – as well as the wonders of Iguazú Falls.

02:33 When stargazers dream of the ultimate destination for looking up at the heavens, the high-altitude Atacama Desert in northern Chile likely stands at the top of the list. The region has some of the most transparent, darkest skies anywhere on Earth making the evening celestial activity all the more stunning.

05:42 A mesmerizing, peaceful portrait of Lake Hallstatt in Austria, which has been referred to as the melancholic lake, the still fjord, and the vision of a perfect mountain lake. It’s magnificent. Hyperlapse stop-motion allows for smooth, complex movements over the water and terrain, and the soundtrack amplifies the video, enhancing the mood. The video of the lake starts at 00:50.

02:39 The HD video captures the construction of the museum and the memorial’s two reflective pools from groundbreaking to completion. For 4,617 days, from October 2004 to May 2014, cameras took still shots of the site every five minutes. The video was assembled from more than a million images of the 16-acre site.

07:23 We live in a world of unseeable beauty, so subtle and delicate that it is imperceptible to the human eye. To bring this invisible world to light, filmmaker Louie Schwartzberg bends the boundaries of time and space with high-speed cameras, time lapses, and microscopes. In this video he he shares mind-blowing images from his new 3D film “Mysteries of the Unseen World,” which slow down, speed up, and magnify the astonishing wonders of nature. You’ll never look at the world the same way again.  

02:05 Courtesy of a DJI Phantom drone and a GoPro Hero 3 camera, watch stunning views of NYC usually reserved for the birds. Thanks to the small size of the Phantom drone, the photographer was able to maneuver his craft between buildings to capture some fantastic aerial shots. You might want to turn the sound down, the music is kind of annoying.

03:38 Corals and sponges are surprisingly mobile creatures, but their agonizingly slow movements are difficult to detect with the human eye. Using 150,000 photographs, biologist Daniel Stoupin has created a colorful and stunning macro time lapse that shows us these subtle movements.

05:20 This stunning second Project Yosemite installment gives us a glimpse of Yosemite’s beauty throughout the seasons and throughout the day, as sunrises, sunsets and clouds color wash the park’s most famous landscapes. Filmed over 10 months, hiking 200+ miles over the course of 45 total days.

04:51 A gorgeous time lapse showcasing the breath-taking beauty of the South Dakota, Wyoming, and Utah skylines filled with auroras, rolling night storms, brilliant stars, and spectacular shots of the Milky Way. Enjoy!

03:43 The film features gorgeous landscapes underneath an ever-changing night sky. You’ll see shooting comets, a giant tilting Milky Way, and glowing purple and pink auroras peeking over the horizon. Stunning sequences show day turning to night and night to day, as overhead stars shine their light above mountains, forests, and waterfalls.

02:22 The images of swirling clouds, craggy peaks, jagged ice, and colorful climbers’ tents are nothing short of breathtaking. It was shot from Everest’s base camp and is set to evocative music.

02:25 A beautiful, quite amazing video of seeds growing into plants and flower blooms unfurling. The footage was shot over a four-month period.

04:35 Watching the fog roll in over San Francisco is mesmerizing. Often it looks like water flowing in slow motion. In this beautiful video, you’ll see how similar the fog’s motion is to an airborne flood. “I chased it for over two years to capture the magical interaction between the soft mist, the ridges of the California coast and the iconic Golden Gate Bridge.”

03:58 NASA collected images of the sun over three years and stitched them together into a visually stunning time lapse of the sun’s sizzling, bubbling, exploding glory. The video brings to life two images snapped of the sun per day, during a period when the sun moved toward its “solar maximum,” the peak of solar activity in its regular 11-year cycle.

04:00 A very cool burst mode, tilt-shift time lapse shot over three days, showcasing Sydney harbor, coast, beaches, buildings, and environs.

05:47 Glorious. Enjoy the daytime scenery and nighttime spectacle that is Rio de Janiero’s Carnaval celebration through the lens of tilt-shift cameras. Make sure to watch the Carnaval section that starts around 2:20.

02:34 A stunning ode. 10,000 photos of locations around all of California shot over a year, woven together. Shot using tilt shift, the almost herky-jerky motion of the people and objects make it seem like they’re toys at play, moving hither and thither on the screen.

02:41 A photographer took a basic idea and created something magical. She selected six flowers – Amaryllis, Lilies, Zygocactus, Rose, Gladiolus, and Gardenia – and captured their blooming through a series of 7,100 photos shot over 730 hours, setting it to a lovely score.

04:10 This magical video is a reminder of what a wondrous place the universe is. The gorgeous time lapse images feature the Milky Way, Aurora, and other night sky phenomena in ways you wouldn’t normally see them. The soundtrack is an original score by renowned composer Bear McCreary (of “Battlestar Galactica” fame).

01:11 Proving that you can make anything interesting by time lapsing it and slapping some dramatic music on top, this video of a tortoise eating fruits and veggies is a real treat. At super-fast speed the pet tortoise is a terrifying eating machine with a vegetarian diet.

03:59 A glorious symphony set in a small garden pond, with water lilies and other plants opening up and moving in concert with the rising sun’s rays.

02:09 Absolutely stunning, dramatic, mysterious, and mesmerizing. It’s not just land and skyscapes. The shots of people are enthralling too. You’ll see the environment, the people, and the wildlife of the American Southwest in a whole new way.

02:18 A stunning city tour of Rio De Janeiro in Brazil, a gem formed out of the mountains and the sea. The time lapse is beautifully shot, showing the most popular spots, with some incredible views.

03:49 There’s something incredibly awe-inspiring about this time lapse video.It’s a must-watch. Sit back, relax and revel in the beauty that is our planet. You’ll see an amazing montage compiled by Knate Meyers from a huge store of images captured by the International Space Station of our planet Earth as it goes about its daily business of spinning serenely through the endless inky void of space.

03:12 Way cool. You’ll be captivated by the simplicity and beauty of this art created by Holton Rower by slowly pouring different brightly colored paints on top of each other down a wooden structure and having them settle/mix together through gravity. Check out the video and see the action set to music from Kronos Quartet.

01:47 Brilliant slow motion feast for the eyes, capturing the spiritual beauty of the annual Holi Festival celebrations. The melding of light, water, and color is truly gorgeous. The colorful powders thrown around are stunning when captured at 2,500 frames per second.

04:58 This splendid video is a sweeping HD tour of Manhattan. You’ll zip from landmark to landmark and see them from various views: streets, rooftops, underground, skyscraper windows. You’ll see clouds sweep the skyline, subway trains consume people and speed away, and mass yoga on the Bryant Park Lawn.

03:57 Louie Schwartzberg uses gorgeous high-speed HD images from his film “Wings of Life: A love story that feeds the earth” to show the intricate, mostly unseen to the human eye, world of pollen and pollinators. It’s a miraculous romance between flowers and pollinators—a synergy that keeps this planet alive.

01:08 This video gives an incredible overview of the entire eclipse from start to finish, showing the sun in ways you’ve never seen. Cory Poole, an amateur astrophotographer, watched the event from Redding, CA – which was directly in the path of the moon’s shadow – allowing him to capture the full extent of the “ring of fire” by stitching together 700 still images. During this annular eclipse, the moon was slightly too far from the Earth to completely block out the sun, leaving a bright red ring.

04:44 This stunning time lapse brings the splendor of all of Yosemite National Park and the Sierras to life as never before. Sit back and enjoy one of the most beautiful places on earth.

04:35 This stunning video of the Northern Lights and aurora-filled Arctic skies shows the glorious effects that the Sun’s increasing activity has had on our planet’s upper atmosphere. It was assembled from 150,000 digital photos taken over the course of eight months and was shot in Norway, Finland, and Sweden.

02:29 An extraordinary time lapse video set to dramatic music. You’ll love it.

06:07 You’ll watch in disbelief. Imagine a 30-story tall, 183,000-square-foot hotel built in 360 hours. Just 15 days! It was erected near the Dongting lake in the Hunan Province, China by a company specializing in sustainable architecture. Wow. For more details on the energy efficiency and building process see this Gizmodo post.

02:20 See scooters and cars magically avoid collision, boats weave across muddy waters, and a frenzy of auto lights swirl around a traffic circle. You’ll get a sense of  the energy of the city though brightly colored sped-up images, set to a pulsating soundtrack.

03:57 An epic HD time lapse that’s simply beautiful in every sense of the word. The visuals are paired with “Outro” from M83’s “Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming.”

09:56 Schwartzberg’s stunning time-lapse photography and human vignettes, accompanied by music and powerful words from Benedictine monk David Steindl-Rast, serve as a meditation on being grateful for every day and giving back to those who are less fortunate.

02:19 This is one of the most dramatic and best looking films you’ll ever see. Truly incredible images of the national parks and natural beauty of the American West and Southwest filmed and edited in 4K resolution and set to a dramatic soundtrack. It’s amazing and inspiring.

05:00 This stunning view of Earth from space is an incredible time lapse sequence of photographs taken on board the International Space Station as it orbited above places such as the US, the Sahara desert, and Australia. It’s accompanied by a beautiful minimal electronic soundtrack.

02:37 Terje Sørgjerd has become an Internet sensation, with his jaw-dropping, color-saturated time lapse videos of northern landscapes. This one features stunning images from western Norway: fjords, moving water, hidden streams, waterfalls, and forests. Musical accompaniment is Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata. Enjoy!

03:30 Majestic, absolutely stunning time lapse of Arizona and Utah landscapes. Motion control and HDR (High Dynamic Range) techniques reveal an unseen world, where space takes on a different meaning in the altered time. It’s set to the music of John Murphy’s “Sunshine (Adagio In D Minor).”

01:02 One of the most incredible time lapse videos ever made. It’s taken from the front of the International Space Station as it orbits our planet at night. This movie begins over the Pacific Ocean and continues over North and South America before entering daylight near Antarctica.

03:39 Watch South Dakota’s summer storms and starry skies duke it out in this gorgeous time lapse video. The drama is amplified by the soundtrack from Eclipse by Simon Wilkinson.