Jumping from planet to planet, expansive landscapes and panoramas, and round-the-world journeys to several exotic locales. These locations in some of our favourite films have become all too common. Audiences are taken on wild and outrageous stories through rich surroundings. On the other hand, it results in a far more personal, compact, and frequently cramped viewing experience. A filmmaker will use one, two, or an entire cast and make a single setting the centre of the narrative. The space becomes into a live, breathing character in addition to serving as the scene in a movie. It is uncommon to witness simply because telling a compelling story from just one location may be really difficult and is not exactly a cinematic experience. But when it’s done well, a director gets the blocking and shot design just right, and there’s an engaging story, it can result in some of the best filmmaking ever. So let’s rate the top ten films that are mostly set in a single room.
April 24, 2023 update: The movies on this list disprove the notion that a movie with essentially only one location might be captivating. Adam Ghelerter has updated this article with new information.
Table Of Content
12 Angry Men (1957)
The people and plot of a movie that is truly fantastic are everything. Tensions amongst the jury members are at an all-time high in one of the most well-known films of all time, 12 Angry Men, which is entirely set in a jury deliberation room. The Breakfast Club, one of the early titles on the list, and 12 Angry Men both centre on a group of individuals looking for common ground.
11 of the 12 jurors are almost certain that the 18-year-old is guilty of fatally stabbing his violent father as they deliberate the case. But when one juror casts doubt and merely wants to discuss the case, others gradually start to agree with his reasoning that this youngster might not be guilty. Each juror tries to reach a firm conclusion with this fresh shadow of a doubt, but it’s not so simple as each one’s peculiarities, painful memories, and prejudiced ideas gradually surface, skewing what ought to be an impartial jury.
Because of the one-room environment and duty given to these individuals, our story develops magnificently through significant dialogue that would make Quentin Tarantino envious. This isolated drama leaves you realising the actual meaning of “don’t judge a book by its cover,” making it as relevant today as it was in 1957. It provides important commentary on stereotypes, issues with our justice system, and racial profiling.
1408 (2007)
In the live-action adaptation of Stephen King’s 1999 short tale, 1408, John Cusack plays Mike Enslin, the main character. Mike is a writer that focuses on actual haunted locations. He stays in room 1408 at the Dolphin Hotel in New York to investigate any potential paranormal activity. Audiences are forced to wonder whether room 1408 is actually haunted or whether Mike’s sanity is waning as he starts to have terrifying images. He gradually begins to embrace the possibility that he may be imprisoned in a hotel room that is actually haunted as weird occurrences become more common and the paranormal activity intensifies beyond what could be explained as hallucinations. The one-room, one-location format is frequently employed in horror films because it plays on our own anxieties about claustrophobia, loneliness, and isolation. To push Mike Enslin to confront the loss of his daughter and the chaos in his life, 1408 skillfully uses its central location as a disturbing technique.
Buried (2010)
An underrated Ryan Reynolds movie from 2010 vividly depicts one of the most dreaded scenarios ever: being buried alive. In the film Buried, a truck driver in Iraq is attacked and finds himself trapped inside a coffin with nothing except a cell phone, a pen, and a lighter. He receives a call from the person who buried him demanding $5 million or else he will be left for dead. When Paul calls the State Department, they regrettably inform him that it is against government policy to engage in negotiations with terrorists. They promise Paul that they will try to rescue him even though they won’t pay the ransom.
Buried demonstrates that sometimes all you need for tension and excitement is an area of 84 by 28 inches, a man, a phone and a lighter. This is in a world when action films take us on international journeys with extravagant set pieces.
Misery (1990)
Misery, one of the best horror films of the 1990s, tells the story of an obsessed reader who kidnaps her favourite author under the pretext of caring for him after he suffers horrendous leg injuries in a vehicle accident in a snowstorm. Her house is out in the middle of nowhere, and all the roads are blocked by snow. The majority of the action occurs when James Caan’s character Paul Sheldon is kept in Annie Wilkes’ (Kathy Bates’) spare bedroom by his captors.
Sheldon’s sanity gradually deteriorates as he starts to wonder if he will ever leave this house alive as he rewrites his most recent book at Annie’s request after she complained that he killed off her favourite character, Misery. A dangerous mix of love and obsession drives Annie Wilkes’ actions throughout the movie. The viewer feels the dread and anxiety as Caan and Bates provide horrifyingly superb performances alongside masterful narrative by director Rob Reiner in Annie’s isolated house in the middle of nowhere.
Phone Booth (2002)
A fading breed, phone booths are now a thing of the past. The location of a phone booth, however, became the centre of the action and fear in the 2002 film Phone Booth. Stu Shepard, played by Colin Farrell, is a haughty, abrasive, well-known New York City publicist. There is no suspicion connected to his cell phone because he is cheating on his wife and calls his mistress from a phone booth. Strangely, the phone in the booth rings again after his call; when he answers, a strange man is on the other end of the queue. Quickly, Kiefer Sutherland’s character as “The Caller,” a sniper, kidnaps Stu and holds him captive in the phone booth.
The Caller wants to play a game and challenge Stu to confess his infidelity to his wife or face the consequences, much like an upcoming inclusion on this list, or face the consequences. As the film goes on, the tension increases as neighbours try to free him from the phone booth, the police are unaware of the situation because Stu isn’t allowed to inform them, and the caller’s wife shows up. As Stu gets uncertain of The Caller’s next move, so does the audience. The audience is given intense thrills when a little area, like a phone booth, is placed in the much wider surroundings of a vast city. Phone Booth is one of Collin Farrell’s best films, and it is incredibly entertaining.
Rear Window (1954)
A different Hitchcock movie? You are aware of it. After all, he is the supreme authority on terror and suspense. Everyone has experienced the sense of peering out their window at a neighbor’s home and speculating about what might be happening there. Rear Window expands on that idea because Jeff, the protagonist, is confined to a wheelchair in his Greenwich Village apartment in Manhattan and finds solace and enjoyment in observing the lives of his neighbours through his, you guessed it, rear window.
But Jeff’s new interest swiftly turns into a nightmare. He hears glass breaking and a woman screaming one night. Later that evening, he sees his neighbour, who lives across the hall from him, making many visits with a luggage. The next day, when Jeff realises that his neighbor’s wife isn’t there, he begins to feel paranoid. After that, he notices his neighbour sharpening a knife and a handsaw. Jeff is certain that his neighbor’s wife was murdered. The audience is left pondering if Jeff’s charge is accurate or if he merely has cabin fever as a result of being alone in the one-room environment.
Reservoir Dogs (1992)
One of the most well-known films to ever have its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival comes next on the list. Reservoir Dogs employs the nonlinear storytelling that has come to typify Quentin Tarantino’s technique over the years and jumps back and forth between the past and the present. The majority of the movie, however, takes place inside a warehouse with Mr. White and a hurt Mr. Orange, two thieves who are out to steal a diamond. White and Orange remain in hiding in the warehouse as flashbacks to the crime depict various scenarios involving fellow criminals Mr. Blonde and Mr. Pink.
The movie finishes with a barrage of gunfire as all protagonists are assumed dead before the credits roll, with Mr. Orange later confessing to being an undercover policeman and other officers closing in on the warehouse. As our two main characters spend the most of the film hiding away in the warehouse, Tarantino masterfully generates suspense and mystery. The audience is left wondering if Mr. White will learn Mr. Orange’s secret and what will happen to these guys when the authorities finally catches up to them.
Rope (1948)
Alfred Hitchcock, the maestro of horror, has a strong mind for creating high-caliber drama and tension that confines his central characters to one room. In the movie Rope, two college students aim to conduct what they believe to be “the perfect crime” as the ultimate social experiment. Brandon and Phillip strangle a former classmate, bury his body in an old wooden box, and then have a dinner party, allegedly motivated by chats with their previous housemaster Rupert Cadell, played by the outstanding Jimmy Stewart.
The victim’s father, aunt, and fiancée are among the guests, adding to the social experimentation of the murder’s craziness. With every move the partygoers make, the viewer is on the edge of their seats wondering if the crime will be discovered. Hitchcock makes excellent use of the one flat location.
Saw (2004)
Saw, which served as director James Wan’s mainstream directing debut, was the first and maybe best example of the “torture porn” subgenre. Dr. Lawrence Gordon and Adam Faulkner-Stanheight, our two tragic main characters, compete against one another in a series of games meant to assess their mental stability and capacity for suffering. Flashbacks depict their pasts of deceit and lying, which led to their abduction and subsequent imprisonment while chained up in a bathtub with a dead body in the centre of the room. Not to mention, it has one of the best surprises and best climaxes in horror film history.
The first film of its type to portray such brutality while taking place in such a cramped setting was Saw. It very well might have been the final film of its sort to win accolades for being more than just a 90-minute bloody spectacle.
The Breakfast Club (1985)
The Breakfast Club is still regarded as one of the best coming-of-age films in movie history, methodically addressing teen reality, and one of the best films from the 1980s to feature members of the brat pack. Getting groups of people who do not get along together into a room to talk it out and discover their shared interests is a typical method. That was never more the case than in The Breakfast Club.
A criminal, a princess, a basket case, an athlete, and a brain combine at a fatal Saturday school. These conflicting students learn that it is far too simple to judge a book by its cover as they come together by common experiences, tragedies, and dreams while spending most of their time together in the library. As the characters become more intimate with one another, this seclusion aids in bringing the audience closer to the characters.
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