Going stir crazy is a real fear for those trapped indoors, and filmmakers love to use confined spaces for just that reason.
Though a single-location film does present some challenges, when done well, it can become a pressure cooker for human emotions that fosters an intensity you just don't get from a more traditional narrative structure. Below are ten such single-location films.
Rope (1948)
Moments before their dinner party, Nietzsche-inspired aesthetes, Philip (Farley Granger) and Brandon (John Dall) murder their former Harvard University classmate. Stashing the body in a chest dressed for serving dinner, the duo play dutiful hosts to their guests as their former professor (James Stewart) begins to sniff them out.
A pre-cursor to his most famous single-location pic Rear Window, Alfred Hitchcock's "single take" experiment is a remarkably tense thriller that stands shoulder to shoulder with his best-loved classics.
12 Angry Men (1957)
Just after the closing arguments in a murder trial, a twelve-man jury sets about deliberating. While the men are almost unanimous in their decision, one stubborn juror (Henry Fond) holds out, making his cohorts examine their biases and the facts that had previously appeared unquestionable.
One of the great American movies, Sidney Lumet's Oscar-nominated masterpiece shows that the essence of drama is personalities in conflict.
Wait Until Dark (1967)
When Sam Hendrix (Efrem Zimbalist Jr.) returns home with a souvenir doll for his wife, Susy (Audrey Hepburn), he has no clue it's stuffed full of heroin. When he leaves on a business tip, a group of criminals hatch a plan to get the doll back from the now solitary Susy—who happens to be blind.
This creepy chiller may seem like an odd fit for Hepburn, but she matches a truly frightening Alan Arkin blow-for-blow in her final Oscar-nominated performance.
The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (1972)
In German national treasure Rainer Werner Fassbinder's lesbian drama, two women (Hanna Schygulla and Irm Hermann) struggle in a romantic triangle with a cruel fashion deg narcissist (Margit Carstensen) in her luxurious apartment.
A cold, brittle, and stylized vision of desperate souls longing for connection, The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant uses it's staginess to examine human interaction as performance.
My Dinner With Andre (1981)
Old friends, Andre (Andre Gregory) and Wallace (Wallace Shawn) meet for dinner, having seen hide nor hair of each other for half a decade. Once great friends, they are both struck by how different their perspectives on life have become in the intervening years.
Louis Malle casts Gregory and Shawn as loose versions of themselves in this ambitious two-hander that slowly reveals its depth as small talk gives way to genuine pathos.
Cube (1997)
A handful of strangers awaken to find themselves in a series of booby-trapped prison cells and are forced to use their combined skills to escape.
Vincenzo Natali's fascinating debut is a surreal, Kafkaesque nightmare that may not know exactly where to take its premise, but still manages to anchor itself in your memory.
Tape (2001)
Close friends Vince (Ethan Hawk) and Jon (Robert Sean Leonard) meet in a motel room in the small town where Jon's new documentary film is set to play a film festival. As they reminisce, a point of contention emerges in Amy (Uma Thurman), the woman who they've both had sexual dalliances with.
Shot on a cheap HD camcorder and unfolding in real time, Richard Linklater's Cinéma vérité-styled experiment manages to catch bracing emotional truth, thanks in no small part to his three committed performers.
Exam (2009)
In an alternate vision of the U.K., eight job candidates gather in a room vying for a corporate position. A company rep explains that they will have eighty minutes to complete an exam consisting of a single question, but there are three rules: don't talk to the armed guard near the door, don't "spoil" your paper, and don't leave the room.
Claustrophobic and economical, Exam is a soft Sci-fi thriller that will set your teeth on edge.
Buried (2010)
When a civilian truck driver (Ryan Reynolds) is captured in Iraq, he comes to in a cramped coffin with nothing but a lighter and cell phone. Panicked and faced with limited oxygen and dwindling battery life, he will have to think fast if he wants to make it out alive.
Before he was pigeon-holed into grating funnyman parts, Reynolds held the screen all on his own in this stunningly convincing performance. It's enough to make you wonder what dramatic roles he could be playing today had Deadpool never happened.
Locke (2013)
Having worked his fingers to the bone to build the life he's always dreamed of, Ivan Locke (Tom Hardy) receives a phone call that could leave it all in tatters.
This stunning one-man show is a masterclass in script economy and tension built around a career-best performance by Hardy.
