Top 5

Top 5 movies that take place within 24 hours

It's amazing how many great movies take place within a 24-hour time span or less.

Here are my favorites :

1. The Hours (Stephen Daldry, 2002) - We follow three women from three different time periods for one specific day of their lives. I can keep watching this film over and over again and there will always be something new to discover.  I love the cutting between the storylines, how one storyline seems to influence the other and most of all I love Julianne Moore.

2. Sunrise : A Song of Two Humans (F.W. Murnau, 1927) - A man from the country, corrupted by a woman from the city, tries to murder his wife, but can't make himself go through with it. They end up in the city, where they spend one afternoon and one evening while falling in love again. This to me is the greatest masterpiece of 'silent' filmmaking.

3. Before Sunrise / Before Sunset (Richard Linklater, 1995/2004) - Boy meets girl on train to Paris and convinces her to get off in Vienna with him and catch the next train so they can have a chance to get to know each other. I immediately fell in love with this film when I first saw it, and was extatic when I heard there was going to be a sequel (which did not disappoint one bit).

4. Magnolia (P.T. Anderson, 1999) - The seemingly unrelated stories of a dozen or so people seeking forgiveness and a chance at happiness during one day in the San Fernando Valley. This movie blows me away every time I see it. Some powerful emotional moments, some wonderful characters, and great performances all around.

5. Dazed and Confused (Richard Linklater, 1993) - On the last day of school in 1976 we follow a bunch of teens as they get drunk, get high, get laid, and basically just rock and roll all night. This is practically a remake of American Graffiti with seventies nostalgia instead of fifties nostalgia. Linklater did the same thing again later with the nineties in SubUrbia, but this is my favorite of the bunch. It's just an incredibly fun and memorable teen comedy.

Re: Top 5 movies that take place within 24 hours

Re: Top 5 movies that take place within 24 hours

Great topic!  This one will take some thought.  Some films really emphasize the 24 hour period thing (run lola run), and others you wouldn't really consciously think about the 24 hour time frame (the hours for example, I never noticed it was only a one day thing and i've seen it three times.) 

1. Do The Right Thing - Possibly one of the greatest films ever made.

2. The Celebration - The best of the Dogme 95 films.  If you haven't seen this film I highly recommend it.

3. Elephant - A really beautiful, tragic film with a truely unique style.

4.Roger Dodger - An uncle teaches his nephew how to score with the ladies.  (Well there is one scene in the very end which takes place later.)

5. The Lady Vanishes - an often overlooked Hitchcock film where a woman dissapears on a train.  It's been a while since I've seen it but I'm pretty sure it spans 24 hours.

I'll second The Hours, Magnolia, and Night of the Living Dead, some of my favorites.  I have yet to see before sunrise, but I am really looking forward to it.   

Re: Top 5 movies that take place within 24 hours

Re: Top 5 movies that take place within 24 hours

Woah I did a search for keywords one-day on IMDB for movies that I've seen and I didn't get too much, so I think I'll have to go back and look through things myself.  But here's some stuff that came up:

Kids

Clerks.

Butley

Escape from New York

Re: Top 5 movies that take place within 24 hours

Re: Top 5 movies that take place within 24 hours

1) American Graffitti

2) Before Sunrise/ Before Sunset

3) Clerks

4) Dogfight (Minus the four or five minute epilogue....beautiful in it's own right)

5) Magnolia

Re: Top 5 movies that take place within 24 hours

I've been adding the tag "one-day" to films I've seen that take place within 24 hours. Movies that take place in real time got the tag "real-time".

 There's some I'm not entirely sure about though :

* Does Roman Holiday count ? I'm pretty sure the time span is more than 24 hours, but it's been too long since I've seen it.

* Does Live Free or Die Hard follow the example of its predecessors and take place within one day ?

Re: Top 5 movies that take place within 24 hours

Mully - Roman Holiday is an excellent movie, one of my favorite Audrey Hepburn flicks, but it does not take place in one day.

By the way, I've never seen High Noon, but I understand it has this 24-hour thing going on.  I can't stand John Wayne movies, so I probably wouldn't like it.

I totally agree with 12 Angry Men and Magnolia and would like to add one that I think should be pretty obvious: The 25th Hour.  Is that cheating?

Re: Top 5 movies that take place within 24 hours

GradysGhost:

By the way, I've never seen High Noon, but I understand it has this 24-hour thing going on.  I can't stand John Wayne movies, so I probably wouldn't like it.

From what I remember about High Noon, it doesn't just take place in 24 hours, it takes place in real time.  So it takes place in an hour and a half or however long the movie is.

And also from my memory John Wayne doesn't appear at in this movie at all.  Gary Cooper and Lloyed Bridges actually.  And Lee Van Cleef in a non speaking role as well I think.  I remember liking it a lot.