The best single location films

It's not easy to rivet audiences from just one setting, but these films manage it

Colin Farrell in Joel Schumacher's 2002 neo-noir crime thriller, 'Phone Booth' (20th Century Fox)

Movies set entirely in one place are tricky to pull off. They rely on the premise and location being so interesting that the audience will be willing to spend the best part of two hours there, and there is no room for poor dialogue or characterisation, when it’s pretty much all you’ve got.

With origins in the chamber play, single location films are a very pure form of cinema, the rooting of a character to one spot causing them invariably to instead go on an emotional journey. It’s no coincidence that many single-locationers are psychological dramas, their inherent claustrophobia usually deranging the characters to varying degrees.

As Room 104 returns – the HBO series where each episode is set in the very same motel room – we collect some of the finest examples in the genre:

The Hateful Eight – A stagecoach stopover

Quentin Tarantino is a phenomenal writer and director of scenes. His gift for dialogue suits him perfectly to a single location format, which he flirted with in Reservoir Dogs before finally committing to it with The Hateful Eight. Eight strangers seek shelter in a from a raging blizzard sometime after the American Civil War. It’s very much a film of two halves (even including an intermission at some screenings), and your patience in the slow first half of the movie is more than rewarded in the thrilling second.

Brink of Life – A maternity ward

Though Ingmar Bergman is known for his films – revered as one of the greatest and most thoughtful filmmakers ever to have lived – he also directed over 170 plays. This love of the stage can be felt in 1958’s Brink of Life, Bergman’s meditation on birth. Censored upon its release in Italy, the film is unflinching in its portrayal of the pain involved in the process, set in a maternity ward and following three women as they come to terms with motherhood.

Carnage – a Brooklyn apartment

What starts out as a civilised meeting between two sets of parents about their boys’ playground fall-out devolves into chaos, the conversation becoming a fierce debate about morals and ideals. Based on Tony-winning play God of Carnage, it features expert performances from the whole quartet: Jodie Foster, Kate Winslet, Christoph Waltz and John C Reilly.

Locke – A car

Single location movies don’t get much more claustrophobic than Locke, which takes place entirely inside a BMW X5. Tom Hardy plays the only character seen on screen, a construction foreman whose marriage falls apart during a series of phone calls. You might recognise some of the voices on the other end of the phone, which include those of Olivia Colman, Andrew Scott, Ruth Wilson and Tom Holland.

Tape – A motel room

This camcorder film was shot by Richard Linklater (Boyhood, Dazed and Confused) for just $100,000 and takes place in real time. Vince (Ethan Hawke) and Jon (Robert Sean Leonard) are two old friends reminiscing about high school in a Michigan motel ahead of one’s entry into a film festival. Vince is secretly taping the encounter, however, hoping to get a dark confession out of Jon about his history with ex-girlfriend Amy (Uma Thurman). As seen in his Before trilogy, Linklater writes arguments that feel thrillingly realistic.

Buried – A coffin

Just spending one scene in a casket was enough to make your palms sweat in Kill Bill Vol 2, but in this thriller Ryan Reynolds spends the entire duration buried alive. He plays a truck driver working in Iraq, who wakes in a wooden coffin with no idea how he got there. The action unfolds through the man’s BlackBerry, which he uses to communicate with his kidnapper and the State Department.

Rope – A Manhattan apartment

Alfred Hitchcock made two “limited setting” films, the first being 1944’s Lifeboat and the second being this curious psychological thriller about two men who decide to kill a former classmate just for the intellectual thrill of it. Like Tape, it takes place in real time, with long takes being cleverly edited together so as to give the impression of one continuous shot.

Interview – Another Manhattan apartment

Steve Buscemi wrote, directed and starred in Interview, which you rarely hear talked about but is a bit of a gem. He plays washed-up political correspondent Pierre who is assigned to cover a soap actress (Sienna Miller). The interview is brief and disastrous, but a minor injury lands Pierre back at her apartment, where the pair argue, drink, argue some more and end up sharing a dark night of the soul.

Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) – A Broadway theatre

This was another film presented as one single shot, and a deserving Best Picture winner at the 2014 Oscars. It’s not quite a single location movie as there’s a brief sojourn to a nearby bar, but the overwhelming majority of the film takes place in a Broadway theatre. Michael Keaton is Riggan Thomson, a faded blockbuster star trying to stage a serious play but dogged by the legacy of the superhero character he’s best known for, Birdman.

12 Angry Men – A jury room

Sidney Lumet’s 1957 classic remains one of the best courtroom dramas ever made. At a murder trial, a jury of 12 are deadlocked. In the hope of reaching a unanimous verdict, all jurors explain their positions on the defendant’s guilt, this riveting exchanging amount to a thorough examination of their morals.

The Sunset Limited – A living room

A lot of single-location movies have bleak premises, another example being The Sunset Limited, which is set entirely in one small room and sees Samuel L Jackson’s character trying to dissuade Tommy Lee Jones’s from committing suicide. Based on a play by Cormac McCarthy, it’s a sobering watch.

My Dinner with Andre – A table at Café des Artistes

This brazen 1981 dramedy is just two men sat at a restaurant table discussing experimental theatre. Andre Gregory and Wallace Shawn play fictionalised versions of themselves, one a rationalist, the other more spiritual. What’s most bold about the film is that there is no reconciling of the pair’s differences, and after a long discussion about many aspects of the human condition, no firm conclusions are reached.

Room – A shed

This surprise Best Picture nominee made a star of Brie Larson, who plays a young mother that has been held captive in a shed for seven years. Her son (Jacob Tremblay) was born in captivity, and the fascination of the film is in how he regards the world having never seen it.

The Song of Lunch – An Italian restaurant

It’s rare to see a poem adapted into a film, but it’s done beautifully in this BBC TV movie, Christopher Reid’s lines becoming the inner monologue of Alan Rickman’s protagonist. He meets up with a former lover (Emma Thompson) at a Soho restaurant they frequented while together. Lingering feels are stirred as wine is imbibed, and Rickman’s character unravels. A beautiful and sombre portrait of a mid-life crisis.

The Invitation – A dinner party

There are no monsters or supernatural goings-on in this 2015 horror from Karyn Kusama, the menace is in the foibles of polite conversation. The hosts at a dinner party in LA simply will not stop being weird. Protagonist Will (Logan Marshall-Green) seems to be the only one freaked out by their behaviour, and starts to question whether it’s all in his head.

Phone Booth – obvious

Joel Schumacher’s thriller came in for ridicule due to its bizarre premise, but the film is a lot of fun and unwaveringly tense. Colin Farrell plays Stu, a brash young publicist in New York who answers a ringing public phone. A sniper (Kiefer Sutherland) is on the other end, threatening to kill Stu if he hangs up. Over the course of the movie, the sniper toys with Stu, slowly reducing him to emotional rubble.