Each issue featured lengthy, detailed articles that described the creative and technical processes behind current films, the information drawn from interviews with the effects artists and technicians involved.

The magazine was founded by Don Shay, who alone wrote and produced the first issue, released in March 1980, which covered the effects work in the films Alien and Star Trek: The Motion Picture.

[8] A 2014 event presented by the Visual Effects Society and held at UCLA celebrated "35 Years of Cinefex" and featured a panel discussion with Don Shay and Jody Duncan, moderated by Matte World Digital founder Craig Barron.

[9][10][11][12] The event highlighted the magazine's definitive coverage of the most explosive and innovative era in visual effects history, a period that saw the early use of motion control technology in The Empire Strikes Back, the development of computer animation (showcased in the groundbreaking 1993 film Jurassic Park), the pinnacle of performance capture techniques, as executed in 2009's Avatar, as well as advancements in hydraulics and robotics employed in practical, in-camera effects.

In late 2015, as the quarterly magazine transitioned into bimonthly publication, Cinefex blog editor Graham Edwards joined the team as a full-time writer.

[13] As larger, better-funded magazines folded, Cinefex – once described in Hollywood Reporter as 'a niche survivor'[citation needed] – expanded from quarterly to bimonthly publication beginning in 2016.