13 Best “One-Shot” Scenes in Movie History, Ranked – Armessa Movie News

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The single-shot technique is commonly used in cinema which utilizes a single camera to capture footage in extended takes or to create the illusion that it was. The key factor that influences this technique is the viewer’s increased immersion and participation in what they see and the actions of the filmed characters.


This method has been skillfully used by filmmakers in numerous films to expand the message and enhance the mood of the picture. Some scenes which employed the single-shot technique won an Academy Award while some become so iconic in history that fans are aware of them without ever being told about them.

Updated on April 19, 2023, by Jessie Nguyen:

Extraction 2, the eagerly awaited follow-up to the 2020 Netflix blockbuster, will shortly be available on the platform in June 2023. The first Extraction installment also contains one of the most impressive one-shot scenes in cinematic history, piquing viewers’ interest in finding similar scenes in film.

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Extraction follows Tyler Rake (masterfully played by Chris Hemsworth), a daring black market mercenary as he begins the most dangerous extraction mission of his career when he is employed to rescue the kidnapped son (Rudhraksh Jaiswal) of a jailed international crime lord.

The one-shot sequence lasts an incredible twelve minutes including a car crash, many gunfights, a chase through an apartment building, and Hemsworth sliding off a building into a knife fight. The scenario demonstrates what it’s like to genuinely engage in a life-or-death crisis while defending a so-called asset, with the intensity increasing by the minute and forcing the audience to follow the protagonists’ trip in real time.

Watch on Netflix

12 ‘Spectre’ (2015)

Spectre-Daniel-Craig
Image Via Sony Pictures Releasing

Spectre is an espionage film directed by Sam Mendes and the twenty-fourth in the James Bond series. The movie continues to follow Bond (Daniel Craig) as he learns of Spectre, an international crime organization led by Ernst Stavro Blofeld (Christoph Waltz).

Before the first cut, the opening tracking shot of Spectre seems to last for a full four minutes starting with an elaborate Day of the Dead parade in Mexico City prior to the camera focusing on Bond as he walks down the street with a woman and enters the Gran Hotel Ciudad de Mexico. The sequence is impressive because it depicts Bond’s mood and circumstances before he converts pleasure into business as the viewers can slowly detect the tension arising.

Watch on Fubo

11 ‘Creed’ (2015)

creed (2015) (1) (1)

Serves as a spin-off and the seventh installment in the Rocky franchise, Creed follows the titular amateur boxer, Adonis “Donnie” Creed (Michael B. Jordan) who is taught and mentored by Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone), Donnie’s father’s former foe turned friend.

The iconic one-take sequence follows Donnie as he fights his opponent inside a boxing ring. The best Rocky movies normally cut quickly between rounds to conserve time, but Creed deviates from this pattern by documenting every moment of this fight. The viewers feel as though they are in the ring with Donnie and his opponent as they see every hit being delivered as the camera follows them as they spar.

Watch on Prime Video

10 ‘Atomic Blonde’ (2017)

Charlize Theron as Lorraine Broughton in Atomic Blonde
Image via Focus Features

Based on the 2012 graphic novel The Coldest City, the action-thriller movie Atomic Blonde follows a spy, played by Charlize Theron, who must track down a list of double agents that are being transported into the West on the eve of the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.

The film contains an epic 10-min single-take combat scene between Theron’s character, Lorraine Broughton, and the assassins. The sequence is stunning for a variety of reasons, and one of those reasons is that it is masterfully choreographed and shows how redoubtable and capable Broughton is. Additionally, since it is known that Theron performed all of the actions, the scene is much more enjoyable.

Watch on Apple TV+

9 ‘Atonement’ (2007)

atonement-james McAvoy

Atonement is a romantic war drama film directed by Joe Wright and based on Ian McEwan‘s 2001 novel of the same name. Beginning in the 1930s, the movie follows a 13-year-old girl called Briony Tallis (Saoirse Ronan) as she commits a crime and deals with its repercussions over the period of six decades.

Due to the length, the number of participants, and the aesthetic beauty of the 5-minute Dunkirk beach sequence in the movie, it is acknowledged as one of the best single-shot moments in movie history. Led by James McAvoy, the entire sequence is magnificent in scope and conveys a powerful message about how devastating and horrible war is to men.

Watch on DirecTV

8 ‘Jaws’ (1975)

jaws (1975) (1) (1)

Jaws follows police chief Martin Brody (Roy Scheider) who, with the assistance of a marine researcher, Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss), and a trained shark hunter, Quint (Robert Shaw), pursues a man-eating great white shark that preys on beachgoers in a summer resort town.

The scene takes place as soon as Brody and Hooper locate the shark terrorizing Amity Island, they attempt to convince Mayor Vaughn (Murray Hamilton) to close the beach. As the three men argue in front of the now-vandalized billboard for the town, the camera stays on them, and the actors’ quick-fire conversation makes the scenario even more engrossing and urgent, demonstrating the seriousness and tension of the situation.

Watch on Apple TV+

7 ‘Call Me by Your Name’ (2017)

Oliver and Elio from Call Me By Your Name sitting outside

Call Me by Your Name is a coming-of-age romantic drama film directed by Luca Guadagnino and based on the 2007 novel of the same title by André Aciman. The movie, which takes place in 1983 in Northern Italy, follows the romance between 17-year-old Elio Perlman (Timothée Chalamet) and Oliver (Armie Hammer), a 24-year-old doctoral student who works as Oliver’s father, a professor of archaeology assistant.

The famous one-shot sequence from the movie opens with Elio grieving in front of a fireplace after receiving a call from Oliver to inform him about his impending wedding. Even after the credits rolled, the sequence was still ongoing because it allowed viewers to experience what Elio was feeling rather than cutting it off. This scene in the movie shares the same goal of making viewers confront some unpleasant truths as other such scenes do. As Elio sobs, the background characters move, suggesting that life must go on no matter how much agony you are experiencing.

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6 ‘Oldboy’ (2003)

park chan-wook

Oldboy is a South Korean neo-noir action thriller film directed and co-written by Park Chan-wook and based loosely on the Japanese manga of the same name. The movie tells the story of Oh Dae-Su (Choi Min-Sik), a man who spent 15 years in captivity in a cell that looked like a hotel room without knowing who had taken him or why. When Dae-Su is ultimately freed, he discovers that he is still caught in a web of brutality and conspiracy.

It seems particularly misguided for Oh Dae-Su to make a frantic charge across a congested hallway full of foes in a single take. Nevertheless, he made it through with just a hammer. By the time the sequence is over, Dae-Su is drained, worn out, and hardly capable of celebrating what amounts to one of his rare victories. Consequently, the scene demonstrates how expertly it was choreographed and how resolute Dae-Su is.

5 ‘The Shining’ (1980)

Jack Nicholson and Joe Turkel in The-Shining (1980)

The Shining is a 1980 psychological horror film directed by Stanley Kubrick and based on Stephen King‘s 1977 novel of the same name. The movie follows Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson), a recovering alcoholic and promising writer who accepts a job as the off-season caretaker of the remote old Overlook Hotel in the Colorado Rockies with his wife and child.

The iconic single-shot scene follows Jack’s son Danny (Danny Lloyd) as he cycles around the hotel. The scene is so legendary because of the intensity being increased by making the audience follow Danny’s point of view, which entails being forced to watch every turn of the road with open eyes and not knowing what is ahead.

Watch on HBO Max

4 ‘Goodfellas’ (1990)

Robert De Niro as Jimmy Conway smokes in Goodfellas
Image via Warner Bros.

Goodfellas is a biographical crime film directed by Martin Scorsese and a film adaptation of the 1985 nonfiction book, Wiseguy: Life in a Mafia Family by Nicholas Pileggi. The life story of mob associate Henry Hill, played by Ray Liotta, his friends, and his family from 1955 to 1980 is told through the ups and downs they experienced.

Despite being one of Scorsese’s successful and iconic gangster movies, the picture nonetheless has one of the finest one-shot scenes that deserves its own stand-alone feature. The scene shows Hill meeting and introducing himself to guests as he enters a restaurant through the back door with his woman from the parking lot. The backdoor symbolizes the shadowy world that Hill lives in, demonstrating the influence he has as a mobster and his connections in the industry.

Watch on HBO Max

3 ‘Gravity’ (2013)

Gravity (2013)

Gravity is a sci-fi thriller film directed by Alfonso Cuarón that follows two American astronauts, played by Sandra Bullock and George Clooney, who try to land on Earth after their Space Shuttle is destroyed in mid-orbit and get stranded in space.

Like Cuarón’s Children of Men, Gravity also begins with a famous 17-minute continuous clip that follows veteran astronaut Matt Kowalski’s (Clooney) incredible moves as he drifts weightlessly. Years after the movie’s debut, critics and viewers alike continue to appreciate the classic and spectacular shot. The sequence essentially depicts the film’s main antagonist and difficulty which is gravity in under 17 minutes of uninterrupted footage. It also conveys to viewers the setting in which the story takes place and how terrifying being in space is.

Watch on HBO Max

2 ‘Children of Men’ (2006)

A baby is guided out of a war-zone in Children of Men

Children of Men is a dystopian action thriller film co-written and directed by Alfonso Cuarón and based on P. D. James‘ 1992 novel of the same name. The year 2027, when the movie takes place, has left society on the verge of disintegrating due to two decades of human infertility. The film follows Theo Faron (Owen Clive), who must assist Kee (Clare-Hope Ashitey) flee the mayhem as she is the first woman to get pregnant during this time.

Theo’s party is taking Kee to the refugee camp when they are ambushed on the road, and this leads to the famous one-shot long take. Additionally, Theo’s estranged wife Julian (Julianne Moore), who is the head of an immigrant-rights group, gets shot in the car, making for a tense and nerve-wracking scenario. This uninterrupted scene set the tone for the picture and demonstrated how danger boxes in, forcing the audience to pay attention rather than just cutting away from the action.

Watch on Apple TV+

1 ‘Birdman’ (2014)

A former actor is followed by his Birdman alter-ego
Image via Fox Searchlight Pictures

Birdman is a black comedy-drama film directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu that follows Riggan Thomson (Michael Keaton) a fading Hollywood actor best known for playing the superhero Birdman, struggling as he tries to stage a Broadway rendition of Raymond Carver’s short tale What We Talk About When We Talk About Love.

Birdman is renowned for its many memorable one-shot scenes that not only beautifully convey the message but also improve the viewing experience for audiences. One of the most powerful scenes is when Thomson awakens on the street and is greeted by his Birdman alter ego and how everything could be if he truly were Birdman. Even though there are wonderful actions and visuals in the scene, Thomson’s intense anguish is what the audience can’t help but understand and absorb in that nearly 3-minute continuous take.

Watch on HBO Max

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