8 Great Movies That Are Set (Almost) Entirely In A Single Room

In Lenny Abrahamson's Room, a mother and her son are kept captive inside 'Room' - actually a garden shed behind the house of Old Nick, the disturbed man who keeps them locked in and fed. It's a bold concept, and one that director Abrahamson must have been mad or overly-ambitious (or both) to take on. And yet the ambition paid off, as Room is drawing rave reviews from critics, some of whom see it as an Oscar contender. It perhaps shouldn't be surprising that Room turned out to be something great. There's something in the challenge of a single location movie that forces filmmakers to think outside the box and produce some of their best ideas. And by that logic, when you downsize even further to a single room movie, the movie should prove more fruitful still. In fact, some directors have positively thrived as a result of the location constraints. So, in honor of Room, here are eight more great movies that are also set (almost) entirely in one room. 8) War Book A kind of horror film minus any actual conflict, Tom Harper's War Book could be the film that changes your mind about certain world nations' so-called 'nuclear deterrent.' Set inside a governmental meeting room somewhere in London, eight British civil servants each take on roles of government to take part in a war game, in a bid to decide how ministers and officials should behave in the event of nuclear attack. Essentially, they decide there's no point in Britain returning fire with its aggressors, but that they might as well do so anyway, in order to get some sort of retribution. The only glimpses of the outside world you get are in the neighboring courtyard, where the anonymous government buildings oppressively loom, but all you'll remember is what happens inside that damned war room. Apparently, the concept of mutually-assured destruction is alive and well in the offices of power, even though it's an option that's as insane as ever. 7) Buried Replace 'room' with 'box' and you get Buried, a draining, claustrophobic single location experience that proves - once and for all - that maybe Ryan Reynolds can act, providing you put him center stage and give him something to chew on. Here, he's chewing on questions of life and death as Paul Conroy, a truck driver placed in a coffin and buried somewhere in the Iraqi desert. Over 95 minutes, Paul must use the cell phone and lighter buried with him in an effort to try and either find help or help himself before the oxygen runs out. Cue calamity involving fire and a rogue snake slithering into Paul's new home, and you have one of the more nerve-wracking movies of the decade. You may think you know how this thing's going to end, but that would be optimistically counting on the good nature of director Rodrigo Cortes, who's totally happy to put you through the wringer for a good hour-and-a-half. 6) The Sunset Limited The Sunset Limited is an original play by legendary author Cormac McCarthy. It involves one man - Black - attempting to talk another, suicidal man - White - into finding the point of living, having just prevented him from leaping into the path of an oncoming train. It all takes place in Black's apartment, as he talks deep with White, who's determined to die and - before that - help Black see the futility of staying alive. This is heavy, heavy stuff, full of the kind of philosophical musings that made The Counselor such a turn-off for some. Helpfully, you have two contemporary titans of American cinema - Tommy Lee Jones and Samuel L. Jackson - to ease the passage of this dark treatise on existence. It's two men talking around a dinner table in the center of Black's apartment, yes; but when those two men are Jones and Jackson, the conversation becomes unbelievably involving. 5) Dogville Lars von Trier asks you to use your imagination in Dogville, a film set inside a large theater space with chalk outlines representing individual houses in an old American mining town. It's a neat setup for a film, one that could probably only have come from the warped/pretentious/brilliant mind of Denmark's premier maverick: as the citizens go about their lives indoors in 'private,' we see everything out in the open. Seeing how this is Lars von Trier, citizens 'going about their lives' involves a bit of the old sexual and psychological abuse and slavery, culminating in an act of genocide. Still, it's not all fun and games: Dogville also makes a comment on poverty and exploitation, delivering a strongly anti-US message before it's through. An ordeal, to say the least - no wonder Nicole Kidman and Paul Bettany never wanted to work with von Trier again. 4) Rope Long before Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu was pretending to make a 'single tracking shot' movie with Birdman, Alfred Hitchcock was pretending to do the same with Rope. Proving he was always a filmmaker ahead of his time, Hitch hides the cuts elegantly in this 1948 anti-murder mystery, in which the audience knows the culprits from the start and it's left to Jimmy Stewart's school housemaster to figure it out for himself. Part of the pleasure of Rope is the technical expertise on display - it was, after all, made in a time when cameras couldn't hold more than ten minutes-worth of film, meaning Hitchcock by necessity was forced to break his 'single shot' down into several takes. More impressive is how Hitchcock holds your attention despite never leaving the apartment setting, where the body of the victim of two murderous students hides from a group of unsuspecting guests. 3) Wait Until Dark Little-seen today, Wait Until Dark is still a great little thriller that creates tension out of non-action, before spiralling brilliantly into terror and violence at the end. After a drug deal goes wrong, photographer's wife Susy (Audrey Hepburn) is paid a home visit by a trio of gangsters posing variously as police and friends of her husband in order to get their hands on the heroin-filled MacGuffin inside her apartment. What ensues is a con game slowly unraveling, made even more complicated by one crucial factor: the fact that Susy is totally blind. Facing off against Alan Arkin's nasal and supremely nasty gangster, Audrey Hepburn gives an Oscar-nominated turn, her last before she went into semi-retirement. Her Susy makes for an unexpected heroine, in a home invasion movie where the victim can't even see the invasion taking place - probably for the best, considering the film is home to one of the most frightening jump-scares found outside of horror cinema. 2) 12 Angry Men 12 jurors sit around a table in a stuffy courthouse back room and discuss their verdict on a murder trial, for 96 minutes. It doesn't sound like the most thrilling material, but in the hands of since-departed NYC master Sidney Lumet, it becomes dynamic stuff. Not that the film wasn't already off to a great start with Reginald Rose's compelling screenplay and a sturdy whatshisname cast of outstanding character actors. One of the finer examples of a disparate ensemble becoming a well-oiled team, with each actor complementing the other with his own individual strengths, 12 Angry Men showcases the talents of the likes of Henry Fonda, Lee J. Cobb, Jack Warden, and Martin Balsam at their best. Each of the 12 actors do stellar work, though as the thoughtful Juror 8 and bloodthirsty Juror 3 respectively, Fonda and Cobb under- and over - play it beautifully. 1) Rear Window Hitchcock again, proving he was surely the master of the single location movie. (Along with Rear Window and Rope, Hitch also made Lifeboat, a film set entirely on a raft escaping a sinking wartime ship. You'd think his obligatory cameo would be impossible to fit into that one, but nope, he manages it.) So good it might just be Hitchcock's best, Rear Window is also the finest example of a single location, one-room movie. Holed up in his apartment following a work-related accident, LB Jefferies (James Stewart) takes to spying on his neighbors as a way of passing the time until his broken leg heals. Looking through his window-perched binoculars one day, he witnesses what appears to be a murder - leading to all sorts of typically tension-filled hijinks from Hitchcock, and the sight of Jimmy Stewart losing his mind with paranoiac panic.