I really love movies that take place almost entirely in one location/room, and I'm looking for more like it. Open to all genres.
What I've seen: The Hateful Eight, Reservoir Dogs, Dog Day Afternoon, 12 Angry Men (1957), The Thing (1982), Bullet Train
On my watchlist from this sub: Coherence, Locke, Rope, Devil, The Man From Earth, The Breakfast Club, Cube, The Sunset Limited
Rear Window
And Rope
This one is so underrated
Lifeboat
Yup.
Classic Hitchcock pick, that movie's basically a masterclass in building tension without leaving Jimmy Stewart's apartment
Beat me to it.
Phone booth
A whole room? Puh.. that's for amateurs. How about a whole movie in a Phone Booth.
(Seriously though, this movie is freaking awesome, and not ENTIRELY in the phone booth lol)
Room (2015)
10 Cloverfield Lane (2016)
10 Clover Lane is such a great movie 👍💯
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Consider putting a spoiler redaction on that, for OP’s sake.
Do a > and then a ! before the start of the text, and then ! and then < at the end (all pushed together, though, no spaces).
The Whale
The movie sucks you in so much that during the first watch I never even thought about the fact that we never leave his house
I was genuinely impressed with this movie. Highly recommended, but make sure to have some tissues handy.
And not happy tissues …
Hard Candy
Underrated classic
Clue
Two movies I have not seen mentioned in the comments till date:
1. Sleuth (1972) - Avoid the remake, watch this one.
2. Buried (2010) - An overlooked film starring Ryan Reynolds.
Buried was a creative and well made film… and I would never recommend it to anyone.
Buried gave me so much anxiety!!!
Sleuth is one of my all-time favorites. Great to see it get a mention!
The first iteration of Sleuth is absolute genius. I personally felt that Knives Out and its descendants owed a lot to it -- not in concept, but in tone.
Clerks
Cube
Locke
Locke is so underrated.
I was looking for Cube, glad to see it's here.
Clerks has scenes outside the store and the hockey game on top of it
*Edit: I ignored the /location bit of this and was just thinking of one room. So yeah, Clerks is a good example.
Clerks also has the driving to the funeral scene.
The Outfit.
Fabulous movie.
So underrated, so good.
Came here to say this.
I knew nothing about it and it really impressed me. Fantastic cast and such tension and story.
Hitchcock's Rope. One location, and it's almost a continuous shot. There are a couple of edits, but it feels like a play
Lifeboat too
The idea behind Rope was supposed to be Hitchcock taking a play and making it into a movie. So everything takes place in one location, because it's supposed to be the stage. That's why people tended to dash on and off the set the way they did...just like you'd see in a play.
I think the idea (or the other idea) was to make a film wo editing. It’s all continuous takes with the only cut being the length of film in the canister. Hitchcock regretted the experiment. I’ll second “My Dinner with Andre” already mentioned (as was Rope in the OP’s request).
Glengarry Glen Ross.
There's a pretty key scene from the bar nearby.
And the Chinese restaurant. Almost none of the films listed are literally in one room.
My Dinner With Andre
Such a fantastic movie, love it.
Moon (2009)
Carnage (2011)
If your of a philosophical mind I would say check out The Man From Earth. A man claims to be a Caveman who lives to the modern day as he opens up to his friends. All of whom are professors in different fields and have different beliefs.
I would also try A Dinner With Andre. Old friends meet after a period of separation and discuss their life philosophy and lived experiences
Came for this comment. The Man from Earth is the truth! Super fun thought exercise.
the acting can be a bit cheesy but the main guy and the anthropologist are really good in it. It's also completely free on youtube.
Pontypool
Gerald's Game
Such a good book and a really impressive movie. Completely fucked but incredibly well made.
1408.
Somehow, Jodi Foster's movies came first to mind:
Flight Plan
Panic Room
Tape
Aniara
High Life
Vivarium
Ex Machina
Beyond the Black Rainbow
The Invitation
Coherence
Something In The Dirt
Resolution
Woman In The Dunes
Persona
The Lower Depths
Coherence is absolutely brilliant. And the backstory of how it was written and directed is wild.
Can you explain a little bit? Google is pretty useless these days and I'm trying to find out more
iirc It was mostly improvised. the director would give them random ideas and they’d improvise scenes and then the film was edited down from something like 8 days of footage
it seems so deliberate but it was made more like a Godard film
Interested to know the backstory
Sure thing. The dialog was almost entirely improvised. The director reportedly gave each person a card with just character notes each morning about who they distrust or what they’re scared of. The whole thing had a $50k budget and was shot consecutively which they say caused characters to react more genuinely.
The more I dug into the filming and director’s process the more interesting it got.
I really enjoyed The Invitation.
We’re getting pretty liberal here with the definition of “one room” here. Maybe “one location” or a “mostly one location” is what you have here. But a single, solitary room where everything happens? Nahh.
OP says location/room and lists films like Dog Day Afternoon and The Thing
I don’t like films shot in a single room so i’ve listed isolated locations
Here with Tom Hanks
They did a great job adapting this. The book is so charming too.
there's another Hitchcock, the best example, a VERY confined space and tense wartime stuff: Lifeboat
and Bill Bendix too
The first Saw movie
Exterminating Angel
I came to talk about this one
The Platform (2019)
Four Rooms (1995)
The Shining (1980)
Four Rooms is my rec, especially for New Years Eve.
Arsenic and Old Lace
One of my favorites! Cary Grant is excellent in this film!
I’ve all but forgotten about this movie. I need to look it up.
You won’t regret it.
It's not in the room, but you might like it. Buried (2010)
Dogville
Sunset Limited deserves more love.
The Autopsy of Jane Doe (morgue/mortuary)
Night on Earth (cab rides around the world)
Open Water (lost at sea without a boat)
The Mist (a grocery surrounded by mist)
The Void (small town hospital)
Night on Earth is one of my all time favorites. Jim Jarmusch is coming out with a new film soon. Looking forward to it.
I’ve been waiting for someone to mention Jane Doe. Night on Earth is fantastic, too.
Let's see how far I take this without breaking the rules =)
Room. A woman is abducted and she and her eventual child live locked in a single room
Does Apollo 13 count? They spend 1/3 of the mission in the apollo capsule, and 2/3 of it in the LEM, and being in orbit, they're never in the same location twice...
And SPEED! if the bus that Keanu and Sandra are on stop, they die.
Oh, and Bullet Train. It's a single, narrow single train, loaded with kungfu and assassins. If that counts, then Train to Busan counts, where a zombie infection takes over the train, car by car.
All is lost, Robert Redford. The entire movies is him on a sinking sailboat.
Open Water 1 & 2. In #1, scuba divers get left behind. in #2, college kids get stuck in the water, next to the boat.
Wouldn't Snowpiercer also count?
Locke takes place in a car. It a really good movie
Misery
The Man From Earth (2007)
How about in four rooms? Because I recommend Four Rooms.
Compliance
Panic Room
Evil Dead
What Happened Was (1994)
My Little Eye (2002)
Amour (2012)
The Autopsy of Jane Doe (2016)
A Pure Formality (1994)
Corn Island (2014)
The Guilty (2018)
Tape (2001)
Oxygen (2021)
Meander (2020)
Exam.
The boys in the band.
Mass (2021)
Closet Land, with Madeline Stowe and Alan Rickman. And a room.
I did not think anyone was gonna say this one. I only know it because working on it was my first real job.
Gosford Park
Locke!!!
12 ANGRY MEN
Reservoir Dogs. Mostly.
It qualifies.
Wait Until Dark (1967)
What I was going to say. Alan Arkin wasn’t always funny.
The Hateful Eight, Rear Window, Glengarry Glenross
Paranormal activity.
Watch The man from earth ASAP!!.. This movie literally blew my mind and made me fall in love with movies all over again. Don't sleep on it for too long.
heretic
Sinners
Aniara
Heretic
John Q
Locked (2025)
Big Night is really close. There are a few extra locations... but most of its all in a single restaurant.
Rear Window
Cujo
The Exterminating Angel from 1962. Directed by Luis Buñuel
Ma Rainey's Black Bottom
Empire Records
Rope (1948 Alfred Hitchcock).
Simon of the desert (Buñuel, 1965)
Simon is living in the top of a column and the devil is trying to tempt him
Hallow Road is a recent film from the UK that entirely takes place in a car, al la Locke, but with a strong thriller / folk horror vibe. Well worth a watch.
Also Boiling Point - single location / single shot movie set in a restaurant.
My Dinner with Andre
August, Osage County
Bug
Barbershop
The Menu
Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes
Second this and River
Climax
Lo
The Outfit, The Whale, Phone Booth
Albino Alligator
Dial M for Murder, pretty much takes place in one room
The Man From Earth
the outfitter
Le prénom (What's In a Name) /2012/
Crimson Tide
You’re Next (2011)
Boiling Point
The Invitation (2015)
Panic Room
Death Trap!
12 angry men
His Daughters
Dogville
The man from Earth
buried
Exam. The single room is basically a puzzle!
From Dusk Til Dawn
House of Yes - this film is the darkest comedy film I've ever seen.
The Exam
Assault on Precinct 13
Room(2015), The Immaculate Room(2022), Abigail(2024), Titanic(1997), Mr. K(2024), Phantom of The Opera(2004), Masterminds(1997), Suicide Kings(1997),The Shining(1980), Evil Dead Rise(2024), The Bad Seed(1956)
That's all I can think of off the top of my insomnia ridden brain...
Inside (2023)
Almost entirely just Willem Dafoe... inside...
Das Boot.
Oleanna. American Buffalo
The first Saw movie
30 Days Of Night
Phonebooth
Red Eye
Both are great, taunt thrillers that take place almost entirely in a phonebooth and plane respectively.
Bad Times at the El Royale, Vacancy (I think), Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (looks like it doesn’t but it MOSTLY does), Inside Out, Panic Room, The Breakfast Club, My Dinner with Andre, Bio-Dome (lol) Barbarian, Inside Man
Vanya on 42nd St. - Wonderful ensemble cast. Actors rehearsing Checkov. Dir by Louis Malle.who also directed My Dinner with Andre which was written by the two actors who starred, who are also in Vanya. Julianne Moore is in it too.
Recently saw Blue Moon with Ethan Hawke. Takes place in Sardi’s restaurant in NYC. Great movie. Hoping he’s nominated for his performance.
Lifeboat, Rope, Disturbia
Panic Room
The Shining
Moon
Dead Calm, Nicole Kidman, Sam Neill, Billy Zane, on one-ish boat
Women Talking (2022) is pretty close.
Dogville (2003) but this is subversive. It’s all on a barebones soundstage. It's also brutal and I do not recommend.
i saw dogville many years ago and it has haunted me and when it comes up it’s my brain reminding me of very specific abuse in this movie and the feeling of being trapped. it’s one of those i don’t know i can even see again. good rec though.
It's awful and everyone should watch it but I am so distraught for everyone who has.
My roommate critiqued it for a class in uni and it was on our communal TV too many times. It's hard to remember anything IRL that happened that week aside from that story. It also comes up for me a lot and it is so derailing.
Haunted is the perfect way to describe it.
Evil Dead (1981)
Ghost Ship ( 2002)
Poseidon Adventure (1972)
Event Horizon
Pandorum
Event horizon, that's a true underrated 90's gem
Bug with Ashley Judd and Micheal Shannon. Really interesting movie that ramps the paranoia up to 11.
Wait Until Dark
Great choice. It took me a few watches to realize it had originally been a play.
Not a fan favorite but Phone Booth. Frankly the film has business being as good as it is.
From IMDB
Cynical, smarmy PR man Stu Shepard picks up a ringing phone in a booth in a busy New York street to find a killer on the line. Armed with a high-powered sniper's rifle, the anonymous caller soon proves his prowess and presents Shepard with a choice - convince the police of his story before they shoot him or drop the phone and be shot. His only hope lies in self abasement and facing up to the truths of his life
Empire Records - except for one scene at the beginning, the rest of the movie is all at the record store. Damn the man! Save the Empire!
Unknown (2006). Good cast. Movie just went under the radar. Surprised it was not bigger.
Death and the Maiden (1994). Sigourney Weaver. Gripping thriller.
Twelve Angry Men.
The Man From Earth.
It’s incredible.
Gravity
My Dinner with Andre
The Mist
127 hours
Jungle
Cast away
Saw
Misery?
Murder on the Orient Express (I prefer the one from, the 1970s)
My dinner with Andre
The Guilty (2018)
Thank goodness you said this version! It’s soooooo good
Would You Rather
Lifeboat
Pontypool
‘Night, mother. Great movie. Only two actors, Sissy Spacek and Anne Bancroft (in the 1986 version that I saw). It all takes place in one location. I saw it when it came out and it has stuck with me all these years.
The Outfit. A Detective Calls.
His Girl Friday. Masterful
Dial M for Murder 1954 is almost in one room or apartment.
10 Cloverfield Lane and Room fit your criteria.
Spider Baby
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Black Christmas
Panic Room
the room
oh hi mark
Noises Off
Panic Room
The Man From Earth