No film here is good or bad. It is only like something.

2007 · Comedy

Two best friends about to leave for different colleges try to buy drink for a party, mostly so the night will mean something. The plan rests on a fake ID with one name on it.

• SimpleStrongly simple

1995 · Romance

A young American and a young French woman meet on a train and get off together in Vienna, with one night before his flight. That is the whole film: two people walking around a city, talking.

• IntimateStrongly intimate
• RealisticStrongly realistic
• Character-drivenStrongly character-driven
• SlowClearly slow

2013 · Science fiction

Eight friends at a dinner party start noticing odd things the night a comet passes overhead, beginning with the phones. Almost all of it happens in one house, with the cast working from an outline.

• ComplicatedStrongly complicated
• IntimateStrongly intimate
• HeavyClearly heavy

2019 · War

Two young British soldiers are sent on foot across enemy ground to call off an attack that would walk sixteen hundred men into a trap. Shot to look like one unbroken take, so it runs at their pace.

• RealisticClearly realistic
• HeavyClearly heavy

2007 · Science fiction

A man spots something through binoculars behind his new house, walks into the woods to look, and ends up somewhere he cannot easily explain. Almost all of it happens on one hillside over a single afternoon.

• ComplicatedStrongly complicated
• Plot-drivenStrongly plot-driven
• IntimateClearly intimate

2013 · Drama

A construction manager gets into his car the night before the biggest concrete pour of his career and drives to London instead, sorting out his life on the phone. One man, one car, eighty-five minutes.

• IntimateStrongly intimate
• RealisticStrongly realistic
• Character-drivenStrongly character-driven

1988 · Action

A New York cop visiting his wife's office Christmas party in a Los Angeles tower is the only one out of the room when armed men take it over. He spends the night barefoot in the building's guts.

• Plot-drivenStrongly plot-driven
• FastStrongly fast

2004 · Romance

Nine years after one night in Vienna, a writer on a book tour runs into her again in a Paris bookshop, and they have the afternoon before his flight. One long walk and one long conversation.

• RealisticStrongly realistic
• IntimateStrongly intimate
• Character-drivenStrongly character-driven
• SlowClearly slow

2022 · Horror

A group of rich twenty-somethings ride out a hurricane at a family mansion and start a party game where one of them is secretly the killer. Mostly one house, in the dark, with a lot of bickering.

• IntimateStrongly intimate

2019 · Comedy

Two straight-A students find out the night before graduation that the classmates they looked down on got into the same colleges, so they cram four years of fun into one evening. It is one long night, mostly the two of them talking.

• SimpleClearly simple
• IntimateClearly intimate

2008 · Science fiction

A going-away party in Manhattan is cut short by something very large coming ashore, and the whole night is filmed on one guest's camcorder. Short, shaky and more or less in real time.

• FastStrongly fast
• Plot-drivenStrongly plot-driven
• SimpleClearly simple

2004 · Thriller

A Los Angeles cab driver picks up a smooth passenger who offers good money for a night of stops around the city, and the first stop goes badly. It is one night, mostly the two of them in the car.

Sits near the middle on every axis.

2013 · Drama

New Year's Eve in Oakland, and a twenty-two-year-old runs errands, picks up his daughter and tries to sort his life out. Based on real events, shot close and small, staying with one man hour by hour.

• RealisticStrongly realistic
• HeavyStrongly heavy
• Character-drivenStrongly character-driven
• SimpleStrongly simple
• IntimateClearly intimate

2018 · Comedy

A couple who take their weekly game night seriously turn up for a murder-mystery party thrown by his brother, and the fake kidnapping goes wrong. It runs fast and is played for laughs throughout.

• FastClearly fast

2017 · Crime

After a bank job goes wrong, a man spends one night crossing Queens trying to get his brother out of custody, and every fix he tries makes it worse. It never stops moving and the music sits right on top of you.

• FastStrongly fast
• HeavyClearly heavy
• RealisticClearly realistic

2015 · Horror

A broke punk band takes a late gig at a bar in the Oregon woods run by skinheads, and after the set they see something backstage they were not meant to see. Almost all of it is one building, one night, and trying to get out.

• HeavyStrongly heavy
• IntimateStrongly intimate
• RealisticClearly realistic
• Plot-drivenClearly plot-driven

2020 · Drama

On a night in February 1964, Malcolm X, Cassius Clay, Sam Cooke and Jim Brown sit together in a motel room after a title fight. From a play, and it is four men arguing in one room for most of it.

• RealisticStrongly realistic
• IntimateStrongly intimate
• Character-drivenStrongly character-driven

2020 · Comedy

Two guests at a wedding in the desert find themselves living the same day over and over, with no way out and no reason to behave. Fast, silly, and it explains itself early.

Sits near the middle on every axis.

2019 · Horror

A bride marries into a very rich family and learns that tradition calls for a game on the wedding night, with everyone in the house playing. One house, one night, fast and bloody and funny.

• SimpleClearly simple
• FastClearly fast
• IntimateClearly intimate

2007 · Horror

A late-night TV reporter and her cameraman follow a fire crew into a Barcelona apartment block, and the building is sealed off with them inside. Shot entirely as camera footage, in one place, and it is short.

• IntimateStrongly intimate
• HeavyStrongly heavy
• SimpleClearly simple
• FastClearly fast
• Plot-drivenClearly plot-driven

2020 · Comedy

A student turns up at a family shiva and finds her ex-girlfriend and the older man she has been seeing in the same crowded house. Seventy-eight minutes in one home, and it tightens the whole way.

• RealisticStrongly realistic
• IntimateStrongly intimate
• Character-drivenClearly character-driven

2025 · Horror

Twin brothers come home to the Mississippi Delta in 1932 and open a juke joint in an old mill, and opening night brings more than dancers. Half of it is the day of getting ready, and the blues playing matters as much as the plot.

• HeavyClearly heavy

2018 · Comedy

A general manager holds together a highway sports bar and the young women who work there through one very long day of small disasters. Almost all of it is in that one bar, across a single shift.

• RealisticStrongly realistic
• IntimateStrongly intimate
• Character-drivenStrongly character-driven
• SimpleClearly simple

2016 · Horror

A father and son who run a small-town morgue take in an unidentified body late at night and start the autopsy, and the basement gets stranger with every step. Two men, one building, most of one night.

• IntimateStrongly intimate
• HeavyClearly heavy

2015 · Thriller

A man goes to a dinner party at the house he used to live in, thrown by his ex-wife and the husband she came back from two years away with. One house, one evening, and it takes its time.

• IntimateStrongly intimate
• RealisticStrongly realistic
• HeavyClearly heavy

2013 · Comedy

A man in his forties drags four old schoolfriends back to their hometown to finish the twelve-pub crawl they failed as teenagers, and the town is not quite as they left it. Fast, very English, jokes stacked on jokes, and it turns into a fight.

• FastClearly fast
• FantasticClearly fantastic

2001 · Crime

A rookie's first day with the LAPD narcotics unit is spent in a car with a detective who has his own way of doing things. One day, mostly two men talking, and the ground keeps shifting under the new guy.

• HeavyClearly heavy