10 Greatest ‘One Shot’ Scenes In Movie History

10. Birdman

We have to start with Birdman here because, well, it's changed the game.

Despite not being the oldest entry on this list (and being nowhere near the oldest entry in the one-shot genre) Birdman is widely considered to have popularised the modern trend of the Arty Long-Take. Specifically, because the entire movie is shot in such a way as to appear like one, incredibly arty, incredibly long take, and it scooped Best Picture as a result.

Of course, it isn't one long take, and in actual fact took several months of both filming and painstaking editing to achieve this effect. However, it's so well executed that it opened the door for a host of films that have followed to try and replicate it on a smaller scale. It now feels a lot more acceptable to create the impression of an unbroken shot, without actually having to film one.

Either way, Birdman is an astonishing piece of cinema, and is to thank for the inordinate popularity this filmmaking trope currently enjoys.