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The best movies have the awesome power to take audiences to any place, at any time. But some films are a trap, unfolding their story in just one location, if not a single room. And believe it or not, there's more than just a handful of "single location" movies – we can name 32 of them, in fact.
In 1929, the first known single-location movie was Walter Forde's The Silent House, a silent mystery that takes place in an old, dark mansion full of traps. As the medium of cinema matured, it was Alfred Hitchcock who experimented with the art form, helming a number of iconic movies that take audiences for an emotional ride without actually bringing them anywhere. There are plenty of modern examples as well when it comes to this style, some of which may shock you to learn about.
Article continues below32. 10 Cloverfield Lane
Year: 2016
Director: Dan Trachtenberg
In this lean stand-alone "sequel" to Cloverfield from 2008 (aka one of the best horror movies ever made), Mary Elisabeth Winstead stars as a young woman who survives a car accident and awakes in a nuclear bunker with two strangers (played by John Gallagher Jr. and John Goodman). Though she is warned the surface is now inhospitable, tensions inside the bunker heat up to the point that risking death outside outweighs living trapped inside. Like all good claustrophobic thrillers, 10 Cloverfield Lane masterfully obscures who the real monsters are, even when they're standing right in front of you. Fun fact: 10 Cloverfield Lane started life from a spec script titled The Cellar, but during filming, producer J.J. Abrams gave it a new title based on its thematic similarities to Matt Reeves' original Cloverfield. Thus, Cloverfield was reborn as a new anthology series of sci-fi horror.
31. Locke
Year: 2013
Director: Steven Knight
Tom Hardy's evening commute takes a dark turn in Steven Knight's British thriller Locke. Hardy stars as a construction worker and loyal family man whose nighttime drive home is interrupted when he learns the woman with whom he had an affair has gone into premature labor with his child. Over the course of one 85-minute drive, Hardy's Ivan Locke's life changes with every passing phone call. Hardy holds the plot and action down as the only actor seen on screen, performing with stars you only hear and never see throughout the course of the movie.
30. Free Fire
Year: 2016
Director: Ben Wheatley
Bullets, guns, and shifty personalities shine in Ben Wheatley's super fun 2016 flick Free Fire. Set in a dingy Boston warehouse in the 1970s, Free Fire sees Brie Larson and Armie Hammer play black market dealers who've arranged a sale of illegal weapons between members of the IRA and a South African arms dealer. But when the small talk ends, the madness begins as the night descends into a locked and loaded battle for survival where it's every man – and woman – for themselves. Free Fire takes aim, and for the most part, it hits the mark.
29. Fall
Year: 2022
Director: Scott Mann
Deep down, we all have a common enemy: gravity. In Scott Mann's minimalist B-movie thriller, two daredevil climbers (Grace Caroline Currey and Virginia Gardner) take on the challenge of climbing to the top of a 2,000-foot fall broadcast tower in the California desert. However, once they reach the peak, they find there is no easy way back down. While the movie asks a lot from audiences to suspend their disbelief, Fall rewards them with a sustained adrenaline rush and a heartfelt character-driven story about grief and overcoming the odds.
28. Exam
Year: 2009
Director: Stuart Hazeldine
For anyone who's survived the psychological torture that is standardized testing, Stuart Hazeldine's 2009 thriller Exam might reawaken old traumas. Exam follows eight nameless candidates who've applied for a coveted corporate job. The strangers are locked together in an exam room where they're given one final test with just one deceptively simple question. Soon enough, confusion settles in, leaving the candidates to become competitors in a dressed-up battle in a sterile gladiatorial arena. Produced on a shoestring budget, Exam packs some familiar faces, including actors Gemma Chan and Chukwudi Iwuji prior to their Marvel fame.
27. Phone Booth
Year: 2002
Director: Joel Schumacher
A ringing phone has to be answered. Do you dare to pick up? In this extravagant hostage thriller by Joel Schumacher, Colin Farrell plays a self-absorbed celebrity publicist in New York City who winds up trapped in a public Manhattan phone booth and in the crosshairs of an expert sniper (Kiefer Sutherland). Thanks to smarmy Farrell and a spine-chilling voice-over performance by Sutherland, Phone Booth surpasses expectations to be one of the most suspenseful action-thrillers of the early 2000s.
26. The Wall
Year: 2017
Director: Doug Liman
There's nowhere to run and nowhere to hide in Doug Liman's suspenseful war thriller The Wall. Set in the final days of the Iraq War, Aaron Taylor-Johnson and John Cena play two US Army snipers who are pinned down by an enemy Iraqi marksman (Laith Nakli), with nothing but a crumbling wall keeping them alive. Both Taylor-Johnson and Cena shine in this sand-blasted nail-biter that meditates on the futility of American imperialism and the losing battles even major superpowers choose to engage in.
25. 127 Hours
Year: 2010
Director: Danny Boyle
You may look away from some of James Franco's desperate actions in the face of survival, but you'll never forget the movie 127 Hours. Based on a true story, as told in a 2004 memoir by canyoneer Aron Ralston, Franco plays Ralston whose 2003 solo hike at Utah's Bluejohn Canyon ends in terror after a boulder pins him against a canyon wall. The film chronicles Ralston's efforts to survive on a small supply of food and water and suffer growing delirium as he approaches a point of no return, where his survival rests on him paying a serious cost. Harrowing and surprisingly spiritual, Boyle's 127 Hours is a most stirring portrait of survival.
24. Snowpiercer
Year: 2013
Director: Bong Joon Ho
Thanks to the scenic diversity inside the train cars it takes place inside, Bong Joon Ho's celebrated 2013 sci-fi movie Snowpiercer avoids inducing claustrophobia on its audience. But that still doesn't take away from the fact the movie takes place entirely on a single train. Chris Evans, Tilda Swinton, John Hurt, Ed Harris, and more star in this international hit, based on a French graphic novel, that depicts a working-class revolution against the privileged wealthy in an oversized bullet train that circles a frozen post-apocalyptic Earth.
23. The Guilty
Year: 2018
Director: Gustav Möller
Disgraced Scandinavian police officer Asger Holm (Jakob Cedergren) puts up with the embarrassment of desk work when he receives a panicked phone call from a woman in distress. Thus begins a long night of suspense in Gustav Möller's mighty minimalist thriller The Guilty, about a cop who must use every disposal he has within literal reach to not only save a life but save his own livelihood. A few short years after its 2018 release, an American remake hit Netflix in 2021 from director Antoine Fuqua and Jake Gyllenhaal in the lead role.
22. Devil
Year: 2010
Director: John Erick Dowdle
Conceived by producer M. Night Shyamalan (the man of plot twists himself), Devil will make you question who it is you're standing next to on your way to the top. In a Philadelphia skyscraper, five different individuals find themselves trapped in an elevator, eventually learning that one of them might be the devil incarnate. Though Devil is in a lot of ways a Shyamalan production – from its Philadelphia setting to its expected twist ending – it doesn't stop it from being a fiendishly good time.
21. Saw
Year: 2004
Director: James Wan
Friends and collaborators Leigh Whannell and James Wan were broke film school graduates when they first cooked up Saw; the single location and two actors were their solutions to making a movie with slim bank accounts. In the end, Saw – about two strangers (Leigh Whannell and Cary Elwes) who wake up in a grimey bathroom and are ordered to kill one another – wound up a goldmine, a now-seismic hit that launched a franchise of numerous sequels and mountains of merchandise. Though Saw's gruesome kills led to the popularization of the "torture" horror subgenre, the first 2004 entry is a comparatively restrained package that nevertheless cuts down to the bone.
20. Cube
Year: 1997
Director: Vincenzo Natali
You'll never look at a Rubik's Cube the same way again. Produced out of Canada and now enjoyed as a cult classic worldwide, Cube follows a group of strangers (all of them coincidentally named after famous prisons) who find themselves trapped in a seemingly endless maze of cubical rooms – some of them deadly traps waiting to claim victims. As the group puts up with one another and works to escape, mistrust and suspicion seed doubt in their chances of ever breathing outside air again.
19. Rear Window
Year: 1954
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Sometimes, all you need is an actor like James Stewart, a pair of binoculars, and a question of murder to make an iconic movie like Rear Window. Widely regarded as one of Alfred Hitchcock's all-time greatest movies, Rear Window tells of a wheelchair-bound photojournalist (Stewart) kept in the confines of his New York City apartment. His only entertainment is watching his neighbors live their varied lives from the comfort of his home. But soon, Stewart's protagonist Jeff suspects one of his neighbors (Raymond Burr) might have killed his own wife…
18. Shiva Baby
Year: 2021
Director: Emma Seligman
Emma Seligman masterfully captures the crises of modern young adulthood in her delightful comedy-drama Shiva Baby. Rachel Sennott stars as Danielle, a college senior and young Jewish woman who is unsure about the direction of her life. She attends a shiva – a sacred Jewish funeral that honors the recently deceased with seven days of mourning – with her parents, only to wind up stuck with not only her family but her ex-girlfriend (Molly Gordon), her sugar daddy (Danny Deferarri), and her sugar daddy's family. Playing out in real-time, Shiva Baby is a comedy for most but a paralyzing horror movie for introverts who dread the thought of having the depths of their lives interrogated by distant family in close proximity.
17. The Invitation
Year: 2015
Director: Karyn Kusama
Karyn Kusama's The Invitation, released in 2015, literalizes the fear we all have in going to a party we just don't want to attend. In The Invitation, Logan Marshall-Green plays a man mourning the death of his son when he's invited to a dinner party thrown by his ex-wife (Tammy Blanchard) and her new husband (Michiel Huisman). As if the dinner isn't awkward for Marshall-Green's Will already, in comes a total stranger (John Carroll Lynch) who has some weird ideas about what a good time looks like. Kusama's searing psychological horror plays out against the lush affluence spread across the Hollywood Hills.
16. Aragami
Year: 2003
Director: Ryuhei Kitamura
In 2001, at the CineAsia Film Festival in Germany, film producer Shinya Kawai issued a challenge to Ryuhei Kitamura and Yukihiko Tsutsumi, both of them rising stars in the Japanese filmmaking scene. The challenge: Which director can make the best movie based on a single location and just two actors? Tsutsumi delivered 2LDK, a semi-grounded action-thriller about roommates and actresses whose night before an audition ends in violence. Kitamura delivered Aragami, a samurai thriller in which two swordsmen seek refuge from a storm in an isolated temple. While most critics say that 2LDK was the better of the two, Aragami is no slouch, being a moody samurai B-horror of a rare kind.
15. Buried
Year: 2010
Director: Rodrigo Cortés
Ryan Reynolds can't talk his way out of this one. In Buried, Reynolds stars as an American civilian truck driver working in Iraq who wakes up buried underground in a coffin in the aftermath of an attack. With only a few stray items, including a lighter and a cellphone with a dwindling battery, Reynolds' protagonist tries to orchestrate his escape. Reynolds is the only physical actor onscreen in this claustrophobic thriller that proves the magazine heartthrob is more than a Merc with a Mouth.
14. Panic Room
Year: 2002
Director: David Fincher
It may not rank as one of David Fincher's finest movies, but even a middle-of-the-road Fincher qualifies as an above-average cinematic experience. Panic Room stars Jodie Foster and a pre-Twilight Kristen Stewart as a mother and daughter whose new brownstone apartment in New York City comes with a secret "panic room" – a small space reinforced by concrete and steel. On their first night, the panic room becomes their haven after three burglars break inside with intentions to steal something valuable left by the previous owners. Panic Room is an acclaimed exploration of gender, feminism, and class divisions, all told in a tightly guarded space.
13. The Breakfast Club
Year: 1985
Director: John Hughes
Don't you forget about Saturday, March 24, 1984. John Hughes' seminal teen classic The Breakfast Club famously takes place over one pivotal weekend afternoon at suburban Shermer High School, where five wildly different teens are forced to spend detention under the watchful eye of their uptight vice principal (Paul Gleason). While The Breakfast Club sees its heroes roam the school, most of the action takes place in the hushed confines of the school library. That's where things get really, really real. Arguably the best teen movie to end all teen movies, John Hughes invited all young adults to relate to his authentic characters, and break down the walls that separate themselves from their peers.
12. Circle
Year: 2015
Director(s): Aaron Hann and Mario Miscione
Imagine this: You wake up in a dark room. You're surrounded by strangers. Every two minutes, someone dies. Soon enough, you all figure it out: You all choose who dies. Welcome to Circle, Aaron Hann and Mario Miscione's paranoia-ridden containment thriller that reveals the breakdown of the collective when the threat of death looms large. In this large ensemble piece, some 50 strangers wake up in a dark room where they quickly learn they all have the vote on who lives and dies. Circle might be a little more than a puzzle box mystery, but for however long it lasts, it keeps the heart racing.
11. Biosphere
Year: 2022
Director: Mel Eslyn
Mark Duplass and Sterling K. Brown command the screen as the only actors in Mel Eslyn's laid-back sci-fi comedy Biosphere. Childhood friends Billy (Duplass) and Ray (Brown), who also happen to be the former President of the United States and a scientist, respectively, live together in a sealed dome following a global apocalypse. Though the dome is safe and sustainable, not everything can last, and the men begin to face total uncertainty. Though Biosphere wobbles under its ambitions, it's bolted together by the undeniable chemistry between its charismatic leading (and sole) duo.
10. Assault on Precinct 13
Year: 1976
Director: John Carpenter
The grime of '70s Los Angeles becomes an Old West-inspired standoff in John Carpenter's tense sophomore feature, Assault on Precinct 13. Amid violent tensions between the LAPD and a notorious street gang, the soon-to-be-closed Precinct 13 becomes the last stand between bloodthirsty, almost inhuman Street Thunder and an unlikely alliance of cops, prisoners, and other unlucky souls caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. A creative cross between Howard Hawks and George Romero, Assault on Precinct 13 simply rocks.
9. Late Night with the Devil
Year: 2023
Director(s): Colin and Cameron Cairnes
Live from New York, it’s the scariest thing America has ever seen! The Cairnes Brothers' third feature film is the immersive Late Night with the Devil, a horror show in every sense of the phrase. David Dastmalchian plays Jack Delroy, the gee-shucks host of a failing 1970s variety show, Night Owls with Jack Delory. Half fictional documentary, half found footage reel, Late Night with the Devil presents itself as the "uncut" reel from the show's notorious 1977 Halloween special, in which a demonically possessed young girl appeared as a guest in a ghastly attempt to boost ratings. Though Late Night with the Devil doesn't fully commit to the found footage approach, it's an unusual and unforgettable piece of horror that nearly grazes the fourth wall.
8. Knock at the Cabin
Year: 2023
Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Are you willing to believe complete strangers if your life depended on it? This is the uneasy concept that drives Knock at the Cabin, M. Night Shyamalan's understated 2023 cabin horror. When a loving family escapes to a forest cabin for a vacation getaway, their good times are interrupted by the arrival of four strangers – played by Dave Bautista, Rupert Grint, Abby Quinn, and Nikki Amuka-Bird – who claim the apocalypse will begin unless the family kills one of their own. The scariest part about Knock at the Cabin isn't the intrusion of invaders and the deranged violence they claim must happen, but the possibility that they might be telling the truth.
7. Sanctuary
Year: 2022
Director: Zachary Wigon
In this sensual psychological black comedy, Margaret Qualley toys with Christopher Abbott in a titillating and delirious game of wits and control. Abbott stars as the newly-crowned CEO of a massive corporation whose final session with his dominatrix (Qualley) escalates to dangerous degrees inside the confines of their lavish hotel suite. Wielding power and losing control have never felt so good, nor has it been this funny, than in Sanctuary. It's a movie that begs you to surrender.
6. My Dinner with Andre
Year: 1981
Director: Louis Malle
Call it experimental. Call it sublime. Call it boring. Whatever you want to call it, My Dinner with Andre is something you won't soon forget. Directed by Louis Malle, My Dinner with Andre stars actors André Gregory and Wallace Shawn playing fictionalized versions of themselves who meet for dinner at a fine dining restaurant, the now-closed Café des Artistes. (Filming actually occurred in Richmond, Virginia, in the Jefferson Hotel.) Over the course of one meal, the two grill each other over their work, the theater, and their professional and personal lives. Is the world at stake? No. Are the characters in danger? No. Does anything really happen? No. But My Dinner with Andre just might leave you feeling full anyway.
5. Clue
Year: 1985
Director: Jonathan Lynn
Let's consider each murder one, by, one… The board game Clue comes to life in one of the greatest comedies the 1980s has to offer. Directed by Jonathan Lynn, Clue rounds up all the characters from the game – from Mrs. Peacock, played by Eileen Brennan, to Tim Curry as Wadsworth the butler – all of them strangers who attend a dinner party thrown by Mr. Boddy (Lee Ving) at his secluded New England mansion. But when Mr. Boddy winds up dead, the night takes a hilarious turn. Who did it in this whodunit? You'll have to decide between one of its three different endings.
4. Clerks
Year: 1994
Director: Kevin Smith
They're not even supposed to be here today. In Kevin Smith's first feature film as writer and director, New Jersey slackers Dante (Brian O'Halloran) and Randall (Jeff Anderson) put up with unruly customers and deal with personal dramas as the hours pass by in their little corner of nowhere. The day starts with being pelted by cigarettes, and it ends with a dead body in a bathroom. Smith's low-budget indie is a landmark of the 1990s, embodying the era's grunge culture and DIY ethos to become the unlikely cornerstone of an expansive media franchise.
3. The Hateful Eight
Year: 2015
Director: Quentin Tarantino
Identity is currency in Quentin Tarantino's mid-2010s Western masterpiece, The Hateful Eight. In 1877, somewhere in frigid Wyoming, a collection of bounty hunters, war veterans, and other violent misfits gather together for warmth and comfort at a haberdashery. But even with the Civil War long over, tensions remain, and soon this rustic hideaway becomes a battleground. Standing out in this all-star cast is none other than Samuel L. Jackson, who puts on the performance of his long and prolific career as the movie's de facto main character, Major Marquis Warren.
2. 12 Angry Men
Year: 1957
Director: Sidney Lumet
In Sidney Lumet's directorial debut, this sweltering critique of the American justice system drops viewers into the boiling hot deliberation room where twelve jurors debate the verdict of an 18-year-old boy accused of murdering his father. Did he do it? Or did he not do it? What actually matters is how the jurors arrive at their decision, where prejudices come to light, and biases weigh the scales of justice. Widely regarded as a cinematic classic, 12 Angry Men earns its reputation as a watershed courtroom drama.
1. Rope
Year: 1948
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Is the murder of David Kentley in a Manhattan penthouse the perfect crime? Or is it the abhorrent arrogance of bored and powerful people? With Rope, the legendary Alfred Hitchcock fixates his camera on two young men (played by John Dall and Farley Granger) who strangle and kill one of their old prep school mates. The duo also hosts a dinner party in the same place of the crime, in a bizarre attempt to prove how much their superior intellect and class serve as the perfect alibi. Based on Patrick Hamilton's 1929 play, Rope strings along audiences for a Nietzsche-esque psychological exercise that is also a tableau on the lowliness of high society.
