Here’s the Wikipedia entry on movies that were either all filmed in one shot or were edited to appear as though they were in one shot:
I saw Victoria recently. That’s listed as being the second longest of the one-shot films. The entry claims that there’s a 2016 film called Immortality that’s five minutes longer, but I can’t any mention of such a film actually being released. Perhaps it doesn’t get released until later this year.
I once saw a single continuous take in real life! They were all dressed in costume, up on a raised platform, saying their lines. I don’t know how they remembered it all, it went on for over an hour! It began right after some curtains opened, then went on until the curtains closed again. It even had live music that accompanied it! Pretty amazing.
Boogie Nights has a nice opening scene that is done in one long shot.
Here’s a list of other long shots in movies. A number have already been mentioned.
The Revenant has a very long battle scene done in one shot.
Was the Daredevil scene definitely one take? There were several places where they could have easily made a cut.
What do you do?
Construction.
Yes it was. The camera was suspended from above, so could move back and forth without a crew or getting stuck by the fallen door, and no cuts were made. That’s their claim, at least, and I trust their word.
The funeral procession scene from I Am Cuba. It’s less than three minutes long but it’s still amazing they were able to set up this combination of shots in one take.
The *Boogie Nights *intro is the first one that came to mind; there’s also another long take later in the film that provides a lot of development for some of the minor characters. The long cut starts about 40 seconds into this YouTube clip and ends about two minutes later.
I absolutely love Boogie Nights – such a great movie.
Please forgive my ignorance but I see references to one take scenes often and while I understand *what *they are, I’m not sure I totally get the significance. It was here that I first heard about the one in Touch of Evil and I watched it just a few weeks ago specifically to see the opening. It was a good scene but I’m not sure I would have noticed / realized the one take aspect. Are these things noteworthy because of the technical difficulty or do they bring some sort of artful brilliance that I’m too dense to appreciate 
I think it depends how they are using it.
I haven’t seen touch of evil, but if you watch the opening shot of episode 208 of Better Call Saul (free if you have AMC - you can watch it on demand) - I think it puts it to good use - and while you might not realize it is one shot if you weren’t looking for it - I think most will be impressed by the scope of it.
At least in my opinion, they show an unusual degree of planning and foresight: the amount of time it takes to place the actors, establish the set, and manage the lighting, sound, and cameras for a five-second shot is significant; the preparation for a two- or three-minute shot is extreme. A long shot probably takes a lot of different takes, but the final result is pretty cool.
To me, long shots are a way to show us a scene closer to real life since we don’t experience edits, fades, and different camera angles from our perspective.
I think to be really good, a long shot doesn’t call attention to itself; of course, one doesn’t know one is experiencing one until/unless it’s a minute or so into the shot (and I imagine a lot of viewers see them but they don’t register as an unedited shot).
They’re a way for filmmakers to tell their story in a “look at what I can do” sort of way, but as I noted, the best ones do it subtly. (The one in Panic Room, which I saw in the theater, goes way over the top; I remember laughing at it, which took me out of the scene.)
Ok I’ll take their word too. Here is the scene. There are 3 times where I thought there could be cuts, around 1:12, 1:45 and 2:25. The pause at 2:25 is probably where they switched out with the stunt double since there was a fancy spin move after that.
I came here to mention Russian Ark, how would you like to have been the actor who forgot his line at minute 92 and then everyone has to do the whole thing over again?
A stage play is a one take scene. Everything happens in front of you, live. Everybody must be fully in that moment - everybody including the actors, the lighting, the sound, the stagehands, the set designer, the director, anyone whose mistake might ruin the illusion. Think of the split-second timing that is so necessary to a farce like Noises Off. It’s fun in a movie, but the audience knows that a flub is impossible. Dozens of takes can be sliced together to achieve perfection. On stage, the achieved perfection is breathless and astonishingly funny.
A good one take scene in a movie enlarges that achieved perfection. No cuts, no retakes, no changing the lighting, no touching-up the makeup. Life, larger than life, unrolls before your eyes with, hopefully, the effect of pulling you in to the scene almost as a participant, just as great theater does.
Yes, sometimes it’s done just for the technical challenge, which may be a reward in itself. Yes, sometimes it calls attention to itself and makes the audience drop focus to look for the backstage gadgetry. *Birdman *became too self-conscious toward the end because of that, IMO.
We go to circuses and x-games and magic shows just to see and thrill to impossible feats, whether real or faked or helped along a bit. Why not a movie effect that plays with the conventions of movies, to say: normally we can do this easily - let’s see what happens if we make it really hard. Sometimes hard is worth it.
Wow! I can’t usually listen to that song due to severe overexposure, but that was amazing!
Thanks for the explanations, all. If I’m understanding correctly it does sound more of technical thing rather than a visual, I guess at least or until you know you’re witnessing it. I’ll try to find some of the examples mentioned here and see if it changes my perspective, knowing what about it before hand.
I ran across this one today - mountain biking down a loooong course, one take, top to bottom. Very well done. (There’s a How’d They Do It companion video, as well.)
One Shot: Brandon Semenuk's unReal Segment - YouTube
In The Moon’s a Balloon, David Niven’s salute to old Hollywood, he describes an extended take in a costume drama, where a courtier leaves the throne room, descends a huge stairway, hurries through the opulently ballroom, through doorways, hallways, and other rooms, to arrive in a remote part of the castle and deliver his line to the cast. One long unbroken shot. Very impressive, if done well. Only problem was, the actor in question had terrible breath, and the cast would either recoil or break out laughing. Take after take after take.
There’s also the obverse of being aware of long takes: watch a movie, maybe one of your favorites that you’re really familiar with, and pay attention to how many edits are in some scenes. It’s an eye-opening experience that really makes you appreciate the roles of directors and editors, as well as scriptwriters and actors and everyone else involved. Some action movies in particular can have dozens of edits in a single minute of a scene.