13. The Shallows (2016)
Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra, this one-woman horror film stars Blake Lively as a surfer caught out in open waters. The tense survival flick follows Nancy Adams, who’s stranded 180 meters from land and encircled by a Great White Shark. Not ideal!
Set on the beaches of Mexico,The Shallowsis an immersive B-movie that hooks and reels us in without barely leaving the shoreline.
The Shallowsalso manages to dodge the usual shark attack tropes found in the likes of, say, theSharknadofilm series. Instead, Blake Lively grips us with her strong, hyper-focused performance.
Related:The Best Movies About Sharks and Shark Attacks
12. Buried (2010)
Blake Lively’s husband and fellow Hollywood star Ryan Reynolds also has his own survival movie where he’s the main (and only) attraction.Buriedwas enjoyed by critics and viewers alike for its bittersweet taste, filled with suspense and brilliant acting.
Rodrigo Cortés' English-language Spanish thriller buries us six feet underground, where a US truck driver wakes up and finds himself trapped in a wooden box deep in the sands of a desert.
Paul Conroy has nothing but the contents of his pockets to get himself out: a dying phone, a lighter, and a glow stick. This claustrophobic psychological drama will have you on your toes.
Related:The Best Desert Movies Set in Dry Wastelands
11. Grand Piano (2013)
It’s hard to transition between scenes when you’re transitioning to… the very same scene. Or, at least, very similar scenes with the same man sitting on the same stage playing the same piano.
Elijah Wood is the stage-frightened concert pianist Tom Selznick in Eugenio Mira’s inventive thrillerGrand Piano. Through notes, texts, and John Cusack’s voice in an earpiece, Tom is told to play a perfect rendition of the complex “La Cinquette”—or else he dies.
Grand Pianoplays out in real time over the course of one nightmarish evening for Tom. We get a few composer and girlfriend cameos, but it’s mainly just Elijah Wood reacting to Cusack’s voice.
Related:The Best Suspense Thriller Movies That Are Seriously Intense
10. All Is Lost (2013)
All Is Loststars Robert Redford as… well, we don’t actually know the protagonist’s name. Which makes sense, given that there aren’t any other characters around to say it! Suffice it to say, our man is lost at sea and caught in all kinds of dramatic shenanigans.
Directed by J. C. Chandor,All Is Losthas a total of just 51 spoken words—and most of that is right at the beginning. It’s a unique film in that it has almost no dialogue, but don’t let that put you off!
The film’s magic is its ability to hook and engage you with only what’s happening on screen despite no talking. The title refers to E. W. Hornung’s observation that “when courage is lost, all is lost.”
Related:The Best Wilderness Survival Movies, Ranked
9. Inside (2023)
Not to be confused withBo Burnham: Inside, Vasilis Katsoupis’s movieInsidemight be a survival story, but it surprisingly features zero battles with nature. It’s just Willem Dafoe trapped in a penthouse.
Akin to Dan Gilroy’s on-the-nose commentary about the art scene inVelvet Buzzsaw,Insideis a meditation on the nature of art, which Nemo believes “is for keeps.”
This motto makes sense given that Nemo is an art thief—one who journey’s into the center of madness while trying to escape a luxurious botched heist.
Related:The Best Movies About Art and Painting, Ranked
8. Life of Pi (2012)
Based on Yann Martel’s 2001 novel,Life of Pitakes place out at sea. A stunning achievement in cinematography, Ang Lee’s adventure drama is sweeping with colorful views and impressive special effects.
Join 16-year-old Pi Patel (played by Suraj Sharma) on his journey across the Pacific Ocean, with no one but a Bengal tiger named Richard Parker for company on his small boat.
When an ocean liner capsizes, Pi is left without a family and must navigate his way back to safety. Winner of four Oscars (and nominated for eleven),Life of Piis grand in every sense of the word.
Related:The Best Ocean Movies Set Out in the Sea
7. Secret Honor (1984)
One-man shows are typically found in theaters rather than cinema. Indeed, there are hundreds of single-actor plays out there—fromFleabagtoA Room of One’s Own—but the majority don’t get a big screen adaptation. Donald Freed’s did, though!
InSecret Honor, Philip Baker Hall’s depiction of Robert Nixon was all the more challenging because of the lack of actors around him.
Every word, expression, and mannerism had to be on the money as he paced around his study with a revolver in one hand and a whiskey in the other shortly after the Watergate scandal.
Related:What’s a Chamber Film? The Best Chamber Dramas, Ranked
6. Moon (2009)
Sam (played by Sam Rockwell) is alone in space, circling the moon to mine Helium-3 fuel, and has no one to talk to except his computer named GERTY. Luckily, GERTY is nothing like the infamously evil artificial intelligence HAL from Stanley Kubrick’s2001: A Space Odyssey.
InMoon, Sam is nearing the end of his three-year mission when an unconscious doppelganger shows up and puts a spanner in the works.
Duncan Jones’s debut film is both funny and tragic at once, investigating the effects that extreme isolation can have.
Voiced by Kevin Spacey, you’ll quickly forget that GERTY is a machine at all, and you’ll find yourself sympathizing with both him and Sam.
Related:The Best Movies About Robots and Artificial Intelligence
5. Gravity (2013)
If this list of one-man movies has taught us anything, it’s that sea and space are the two most lonely places to be.
Alfonso Cuarón’s sweeping space operaGravitymight boast George Clooney on its cast list, but he doesn’t exactly last very long. It’s primarily Sandra Bullock who holds us glued to the screen as she hurtles through space with no connection to Earth.
Lonely and hopeless, Dr. Ryan Stone can see only one way out—and we just pray she doesn’t take it. The sheer scope and velocity ofGravityis enough to make you speechless, and it will blow you away with a central performance that’s as astounding as its special effects.
Related:Great Movies With the Best Cinematography, Ranked
4. Bronson (2008)
Despite a handful of supporting characters,Bronsonmainly stars Tom Hardy and Tom Hardy alone. In fact, it even plays out like a one-man show, with vaudeville-style interludes cut between scenes, in which Hardy speaks directly to us from a stage.
Nicolas Winding Refn’s crime biopic uses elements of the surreal to bring the infamous bare-knuckle boxer to life. Known as Britain’s “most violent prisoner,” Charles Bronson took multiple people hostage while incarcerated.
Bronsontakes a theatrical look into the famous inmate’s life—one that even Charles himself enjoyed watching!
Related:The Best Movies About Prison and Prison Life
3. Cast Away (2000)
One of Tom Hanks’s most defining roles—and there are plenty to choose from—involved him as a FedEx executive stranded on a desert island.
InCast Away, Chuck Noland is on his way to Malaysia for business when his plane crashes and he wakes up surrounded by the Pacific Ocean.
But what seem to be the biggest obstacles at first—food, shelter, survival—are nothing compared to the hardships of isolation.
Growing mad with loneliness, Chuck draws a face out of blood on a volleyball that becomes his sole companion. “Wilson!”
Related:The Best Movies About Loneliness and Feeling Lonely
2. Locke (2013)
It seems Tom Hardy has a knack for holding our attention even when there’s no one else around. Taking place entirely in one car on a journey from Birmingham to London,Lockederives all its dialogue from a series of 36 phone calls made during that ride.
Tom Hardy is Ivan Locke, the man behind the wheel who’s juggling the demands of his wife, the nagging calls from his boss, and a one-night stand who’s going into labor.
Although we hear the familiar voices of Olivia Colman, Ruth Wilson, Andrew Scott, and Tom Holland, director Steven Knight keeps the camera strictly locked to Ivan Locke’s point-of-view.
Related:The Best One Room Movies: Mind Benders, Thrillers, and Suspense
1. 127 Hours (2010)
You’d be hard-pressed to believe this as a true story if it weren’t for the pictures at the end.127 Hoursis the one-man survival story to rule them all, starring James Franco as the unfortunate canyoneer Aron Ralston.
While hiking through Utah’s Canyonlands National Park on a whim, Aron gets his arm pinned by a boulder. With no one else around and only a few supplies on him, Aron has one chance to get out alive: by sawing off his own arm with a dull pocket knife.
Danny Boyle’s gritty and hallucinogenic adaptation of Ralston’s memoirs is tense, to say the least! If you don’t like blood, maybe sit this one out…
Read next:The Best Movies About Mountains and Mountain Climbing
