20 Best Survival Movies Of All Time

Buried is claustrophobic cinema at its finest. It's dark (both in tone and colour) and a complete one man show. Unlike 127 Hours, though, there is no pretty scenery, no nice splashes of colour or vast, picturesque landscapes. No, this is a film made to freak up out and make you never want to be alone again.

The film sees Ryan Reynolds playing a truck driver in Iraq who is ambushed and buried in a coffin, his location unknown and his phone running dangerously low on battery. That's it; that's the film.

Ryan Reynolds stuck in a coffin. But thanks to Reynolds, and the darkness of the coffin we (like him) never get to leave, the film is seriously powerful and constantly nerve-jangling. Unlike many films with similar situations (127 Hours, All is Lost) the idea that our protagonist will in fact die is clear from the start. It's solidified, in fact, when he imagines he's being saved but then he snaps to, the whole thing a cruel hallucination.

There are some not-so-subtle political overtones here and there, but they're brief and pay no mind to the trajectory of the story. It's tight, harsh, bleak, dark and brilliantly acted (seriously, Reynolds is phenomenal), and it deserves to be viewed more than once.