Think I mentioned this in another thread but there are some (mostly theatrical) Japanese anime that can rival Disney and DreamWorks at a fraction of the budget (Think usually around $20 million). Although occasionally TV shows and OAVs have also had pretty good animation as well, or at least hide some of the shortcomings really well.
So the same could extend to live action films as well I think.
Also some of the most groundbreaking FX in 70s-80s American films was done on relatively small budgets. Star Wars only cost around $10 million. Star Trek TWOK used some revolutionary CG effects but was also relatively cheap (Possibly because it used some stock footage from The Motion Picture in the film's first half to save money). Earlier James Cameron films like TERMINATOR and ALIENS were made for fairly low budgets but the animatronics by Stan Winston and some CG led to Terminator Jurassic Park's breakthroughs etc.