20 fantastic films that mostly take place in one location

One of Alfred Hitchcock's most classic films, Rear Window, is a masterclass in visual storytelling. James Stewart plays a photographer with a broken leg who is restrained to a wheelchair and stuck in his apartment. As he watches his neighbors through the window to pass the time, he becomes convinced that he has witnessed a murder. The film's mystery unravels entirely within the protagonist's apartment, as twists unravel right in front of him through his vast window view. 

When it comes to iconic films from the ‘80s, The Breakfast Club usually takes the top spot. The John Hughes teen classic sees five very different high school students stuck in detention on a Saturday. As they are forced to spend time together, they grow closer and realize they have more in common than they thought. The story limits the action to its high school setting — the school library, in particular. Set over one day, The Breakfast Club remains movingly intimate. 

From Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight, Locke is a psychological drama set entirely within a car as a man drives and talks on the phone. Tom Hardy plays a construction manager and family man with a big work project the next day. When he receives a phone call from a woman he had a one-night stand with who is currently in labor, his world is turned upside down. Hardy's character makes a series of phone calls throughout the film, each pushing the story forward. 

The second film in the Cloverfield franchise, 10 Cloverfield Lane, is an old-school thriller full of mystery and tension. It follows Michelle, who wakes up in a bunker and is told the outside world is uninhabitable. She soon begins questioning whether she is being told the truth and searching for a way to escape. Until the film’s final moments, the conflict takes place in the walls of the bunker and highlights how humans can be just as monstrous as the otherworldly ones we are afraid of. 

The directorial debut from Bottoms director Emma Seligman, Shiva Baby is a darkly comedic take on overbearing relatives and self-identity. While at a Jewish funeral with her parents, a young woman runs into her sugar daddy and ex-girlfriend. The film creates a nightmarishly claustrophobic atmosphere within the overcrowded house it takes place in, placing viewers directly into the headset of the protagonist. It feels unnervingly authentic and immersive.

David Fincher is known for hits like Fight Club, Se7en, and Gone Girl, but one of his most underrated films is the 2002 thriller Panic Room . Jodie Foster and Kristen Stewart star as a mother and daughter who hide in their new home’s safe room when three intruders break in looking for a missing fortune. The drama is confined to all the crevices and spaces within the home, and the film cleverly uses its production design to create an edge-of-your-seat watch. 

Another Hitchcock film enters the list with Rope, one of his earliest hits and many collaborations with actor James Stewart. The film follows two young men who murder their former classmate and hide his body in their apartment. They invite his family over for dinner to prove they have committed the perfect crime. The events fully take place in the characters’ apartment, and it’s unnerving to watch as everybody stands by while viewers know a body is in the room. 

Claustrophobic viewers may want to skip this one. In Buried, Ryan Reynolds stars as a man buried alive after being attacked in Iraq. Trapped in a coffin with only a cell phone and lighter, he must race against time to find a way out. With a tight runtime of ninety-five minutes, the film leaves you barely any room to breathe, feeling just as trapped as Reynolds in that coffin. A singular setting has never been so terrifying on screen. 

12 Angry Men is the defining courtroom drama that sits at No. 5 on IMDb’s top 250 movies. Based on the teleplay of the same name, the film follows a jury in a murder trial, where eleven out of the twelve men vote guilty. All the action takes place in the jury room, where the members argue amongst one another as they consider the evidence. Its sophisticated script and dialogue make for a riveting watch, as well as its innovative camera techniques. 

Director Bong Joon-ho took the world by storm with his Oscar-winning hit Parasite, but the Korean filmmaker previously tackled class warfare in 2013’s Snowpiercer . With an all-star cast including Chris Evans, Tilda Swinton, and John Hurt, the film is set in a dystopian future where Earth is completely frozen. The remaining survivors live on a class-divided train, with the poor at the back and the wealthy at the front. Over the film’s runtime, the lower-class make their way to the front of the train to reclaim power. 

The Guilty is a Danish thriller that earned a U.S. remake in 2021 starring Jake Gyllenhaal, but it’s the original that is a tight and heart-pounding masterpiece. The film follows a police officer who receives an emergency call from a kidnapped woman. When the call is disconnected, he frantically searches for her whereabouts. For the film’s short runtime of an hour and twenty-five minutes, viewers sit with the officer at his workplace as he makes calls and puts together all the pieces. 

The film that gave us Brendan Fraser’s triumphant comeback and won him an Oscar, The Whale is an emotionally draining ride that packs a real punch. Fraser plays Charlie, an English teacher suffering from extreme obesity who tries to reconnect with his estranged daughter. The story plays out in Charlie’s reclusive and darkened home, just like the play it is based on. Relying heavily on character relationships and lengthy dialogue, The Whale is a heavy and affecting experience. 

Based on a true story in Brooklyn and starring Al Pacino, Sidney Lumet's Dog Day Afternoon is a crime classic. The film follows a bank robbery gone awry, where everything that could go wrong does, and the criminals are forced to take hostages, resulting in a stand-off with the police. Most of the film occurs inside the bank where the robbery occurs, and tensions run high. Pacino's performance is utterly captivating, keeping viewers glued to the screen. 

Based on the board game of the same name, Clue is a good old-fashioned murder mystery with plenty of twists and turns. Six guests are invited to a dinner party at a mysterious mansion, but when their host is killed, they must figure out the identity of the murderer. After the guests arrive, the conflict is confined to the mansion, where these eccentric characters try to cooperate with the staff in order to untangle the mystery. Dark, witty, and hilarious, Clue is worth unraveling. 

Die Hard is one of the biggest action movies of all time and an unconventional Christmas movie. Bruce Willis plays detective John McLane, who travels to L.A. to spend Christmas with his wife. When he discovers that she and her co-workers have been taken hostage at a Christmas party by terrorists, he comes to their rescue. With the hostages trapped inside the Nakatomi Plaza, John must face the notorious Hans Gruber, famously played by the late great Alan Rickman.

Kevin Smith's low-budget cult classic Clerks is the definition of stripped-back filmmaking. The film follows a day in the lives of two store clerks named Dante and Randal while on the job. They annoy customers, discuss movies, mess around, and play hockey on the store roof. The slice-of-life film, which highlights the frustration of working in customer service and dead-end jobs, takes place entirely in the convenience store where the main characters spend their day.

Spanish film [Rec] is one of the scariest found-footage horror movies, thanks to its intimate scale and immersive production elements. It shows a television reporter and her cameraman following emergency workers into an apartment building. After they are locked inside after a virus outbreak, they become trapped in a nightmare. The darkened apartment building makes for the perfect scary movie setting, with something terrifying ready to pop out around each corner. 

Robert Redford and a boat, and he's gonna need a bigger one. That pretty much sums up All Is Lost, a lost-at-sea survival drama. Redford plays a man on a solo sea voyage whose yacht collides with a shipping container. Left with limited resources, he must brave extreme weather conditions and fight for his survival. The viewer is placed into the protagonist's world, feeling the isolation of being alone and lost at sea, as the film chronicles his journey to reach land and be saved.

Before there was Saw, there was Cube. The sci-fi horror flick sees a group of strangers awaken to find themselves in a giant cube, where they must work together to escape an endless maze of lethal traps. The characters, each gifted with a special skill to help them survive, travel through several cubes throughout the film. Each is the same in design, with the only difference being lighting. Despite moving throughout these cubes, Cube feels like one singular claustrophobic nightmare.

The Alien franchise is one of the longest-running in cinematic history, but its origins are small in scale. The very first Alien film, directed by Ridley Scott and released in 1979, is set on the spacecraft Nostromo. When the famous Xenomorph alien makes its way onto the spaceship, blood is shed, and each member is hunted down, leaving heroine Ellen Ripley to fight for her survival. Alien proves you don’t need massive spectacle to create a great and thrilling sci-fi film.