Advances during the last two decades provide scientists today with powerful tools capable of spatial resolution of less than 1 nanometer (1 nm = 10^-9 m) and time resolution of less than 1 femtosecond (1 fs = 10^-15 s). In that way, it is now possible to observe the dynamic development of chemical processes in real time, a breakthrough that fundamentally deepens our understanding of chemical reactivity. The examples discussed of this fascinating work include "molecular movies" produced by femtosecond electron diffraction; ultafast x-ray diffraction for the study of phase transitions and time- resolved x-ray absorption spectroscopy, which makes it possible to observe individual molecules and their transformation when excited by light absorption.