10 Movies That Are Best Watched Alone (original) (raw)
Characters from Taxi Driver, Her, and Drive
Image by Zanda Rice
Published Jul 19, 2024, 5:15 PM EDT
Jeremy has more than 2600 published articles on Collider to his name, and has been writing for the site since February 2022. He's an omnivore when it comes to his movie-watching diet, so will gladly watch and write about almost anything, from old Godzilla films to gangster flicks to samurai movies to classic musicals to the French New Wave to the MCU... well, maybe not the Disney+ shows.
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A good deal of the time, movies belonging to fairly broad and crowd-pleasing genres – like comedies and action flicks – benefit from being watched with a crowd; preferably a pleased one. It’s one thing that a good theater experience can add to a movie, but similarly fun can be something like a movie night, with either friends or family, or even a date night, if you’re feeling romantic.
And hey, depending on how you like to watch movies, maybe you’d even prefer to watch some of the following with another person or two. It’s all subjective, but the following films are selected because they communicate loneliness or other solitary feelings in one way or another. Some focus on individuals rather than a group of characters, some feature only one main actor, and others explore the complex nature of feeling isolated and/or alone. If you find yourself on your own and in the mood for a film or two, they may bring some level of catharsis.
10 'Moon' (2009)
Director: Duncan Jones
Sam Rockwell in the sci-fi movie Moon (2009)
Image via Sony Pictures Classics
Moon takes isolation to a whole other level, focusing on one man isolated far more than any earthbound characters, given the film follows the single human who's been overseeing a manufacturing facility on the moon. His only companion is a computer program named GERTY, and that’s how it’s been for almost three years, with Moon beginning near the end of his assigned duration spent there.
Things obviously change, but in a novel way that’s best not spoiled. Moon deals with loneliness and the psychological toll of not having other human beings for company in an interesting way, and goes in enough unexpected directions to make it one of the best science fiction movies of its year. That could sound like narrow praise, sure, but 2009 was an uncharacteristically good cinematic year for the sci-fi genre.
Release Date
July 10, 2009
Runtime
97 minutes
Director
Duncan Jones
9 'Chungking Express' (1994)
Director: Wong Kar-wai
Woman looking at a reflection of herself in Chungking Express (1994)
Image via Jet Tone Production Co., Ltd.
There aren’t too many traditional romance movies that are best watched alone, rather than with a date or significant other, but unconventional and/or bittersweet romantic films? They might well be better watched on one’s own, especially if they deal with breakups or the more difficult parts of being in love. Chungking Express deals with such things, but not in a way that feels downbeat or overly cynical.
It is about being alone, but also about longing and remaining romantic, offering some potential hope at the film’s end by way of an unlikely connection in a vast sea of people, always coming and going somewhere. Chungking Express is energetic, unique, and structurally fascinating, with its two halves telling two different stories, both similar in some ways yet rather different in others.
Release Date
March 8, 1994
Runtime
103 minutes
Director
Wong Kar-wai
8 'Buried' (2010)
Director: Rodrigo Cortés
Ryan Reynolds as Paul Conroy looking at the flames of a lighter in Buried
Image via Lionsgate
Claustrophobia and tension are what Buried is all about, given it plays out in real time and takes place entirely inside a coffin. It’s also a movie where only one actor appears on screen throughout: Ryan Reynolds. His character’s unfortunate enough to find himself inside that aforementioned coffin, with the entire film being about his attempts to get out or contact someone who can find where he is.
The other actors credited with appearing in Buried only have their voices heard, so it really is a one-man show for Reynolds, and he nails what’s ultimately a very serious and non-comedic role. Buried is very simple and perhaps even one-note in some ways, but it’s also impressive how much suspense it builds from such a straightforward premise, and the film can certainly call itself one of the most confined bottle movies of all time.
Release Date
September 24, 2010
Runtime
95 minutes
Director
7 'Le Samouraï' (1967)
Director: Jean-Pierre Melville
Alain Delon as Jef Costello with a gun pointed to his face
Image via S.N. Prodis
Le Samouraï is about a lone wolf assassin placed in a continually worsening predicament, with people on both sides of the law trying to catch him following a hit he thought went fine. He’s not totally alone, with some connections shown throughout the film, but nonetheless, a good deal of Le Samouraï is just Alain Delon in the lead role walking places, looking suspicious, and occasionally resorting to violence to get out of a sticky situation.
It's a movie with plenty of style, not to mention effortless cool alongside a healthy dose of bleakness for good measure. As far as crime/thriller movies go, it’s perhaps one of the slower ones out there, but it’s quietly compelling and effectively builds tension, likely appealing to anyone who’s aware ahead of time that it’s more about the build, rather than explosive action.
After professional hitman Jef Costello is seen by witnesses his efforts to provide himself an alibi drive him further into a corner.
Release Date
October 25, 1967
Director
Jean-Pierre Melville
6 'Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles' (1975)
Director: Chantal Akerman
Delphine Seyrig as Jeanne Dielman peeling potatoes in Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles
Image via Janus Films
By design, Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles is not an easy movie to finish, because, in unflinching detail, it depicts a life that is not easy to live. The titular character is a single mother who’s unappreciated by her son, and generally goes about her days with a certain detachment, methodically doing a series of mundane tasks one by one.
It’s all a very slow build, because, eventually, there’s the suggestion of a psychological breakdown happening, but it’s subtle and unfolds over a runtime that nears three and a half hours. Maybe it’s fair to say that Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles is much easier to appreciate than it is to enjoy, but few films about the struggles of a solitary life are so taxing and brutally honest, making it one of the more impressive arthouse films of its time.
A lonely widowed housewife does her daily chores, takes care of her apartment where she lives with her teenage son, and turns the occasional trick to make ends meet. Slowly, her ritualized daily routines begin to fall apart.
5 'Gravity' (2013)
Director: Alfonso Cuarón
Dr. Stone is tangled in a parachute cord. She holds a broken tether as she watches her colleague float away in Gravity - 2013
Image via Warner Bros.
Perhaps a little like Buried, Gravity can also be described as a movie about survival that mostly focuses on one character, though the scope is much bigger than that 2010 film, and there’s a much bigger use of special effects. It’s the spectacle of Gravity that jumps out most of all, with a desperate fight against the harshness of space being spectacularly well realized, not to mention extremely immersive if watched in 3D.
Gravity is simple, and some may find it corny, but survival movies don’t get much bigger or more elaborate than this. That Gravity can achieve such things while also telling a personal story and having Sandra Bullock give a great performance, even when she doesn’t have another actor to directly interact with, all adds up to make this film one of the best pieces of science fiction of the 21st century so far.
Release Date
October 3, 2013
Runtime
1h 31m
Director
Alfonso Cuarón
4 'It's Such a Beautiful Day' (2012)
Director: Don Hertzfeldt
An uncompromisingly unconventional animated film, It's Such a Beautiful Day captures the human condition better than most movies that set out to do such a thing, and it’s all so minimalist and surprisingly short, at just 62 minutes long. The central character is a man named Bill, and the film is simply about his life getting turned upside down following a grim medical diagnosis.
It’s hard to sell it all in the way an ordinary movie might be sold, and that’s probably got something to do with the fact that It’s Such a Beautiful Day is no ordinary movie. It seems to constantly go back and forth between expanding in scope and getting more personal with its exploration of Bill’s psyche. The end result is hypnotic, moving, sometimes funny, and remarkably thought-provoking for what at first might look deceptively like a crudely animated little film with stick people.
3 'Her' (2013)
Director: Spike Jonze
A close-up shot of Joaquin Phoenix as Theodore smiling in 'Her.'
Image via Warner Bros. Pictures
2013 was a different time, because it would be much harder to make a movie about a man falling in love with his virtual assistant that’s powered by artificial intelligence, what with the scarier connotation a term like “AI” has taken on. But, for better or worse, Her is about a man falling in love with a computer program, and it ultimately works to a greater extent than one might expect.
Her benefits from being empathetic and insightful when it comes to exploring love and the feeling of wanting to be loved, and Joaquin Phoenix’s performance helps greatly in this regard, too. It’s the sort of film that might sound like it could be disastrous on paper, but the execution was pretty much nailed, making for a great, bittersweet, sometimes lonely, and sometimes heartwarming romance/sci-fi/drama film.
Her
Release Date
January 10, 2014
Runtime
126 Mins
Director
2 'Drive' (2011)
Director: Nicolas Winding Refn
Ryan Gosling as the driver behind the wheel of a car and looking to his left in the film Drive (2011)
Image via FilmDistrict
Understandably, Drive is one of the more popular arthouse films in recent memory, satisfying in some conventional ways while also being a little offbeat in terms of pacing and style. It’s also famous for being a movie about a very lonely, stoic, withdrawn, and ultimately somewhat romantic guy played by Ryan Gosling at his most brooding (well, actually, it’s between this and Blade Runner 2049).
Drive is about a getaway driver who takes on a job that goes disastrously wrong, setting off a violent chain of events that the driver – known only as Driver – must then fight his way out of. Nicolas Winding Refn’s subsequent thrillers have some comparable elements, but Drive is perhaps the most introspective and engaging, not to mention it also feels like one of the most definitive “lone wolf” type movies of the century so far.
Release Date
September 16, 2011
Runtime
100 minutes
Director
Nicolas Winding Refn
1 'Taxi Driver' (1976)
Director: Martin Scorsese
Robert De Niro as Travis Bickle in 'Taxi Driver'
Image via Columbia Pictures
Few movies are about alienation, isolation, and loneliness quite as intensely as Taxi Driver is about all of those things. It’s unwavering in its exploration of a man lashing out against society after a prolonged psychological breakdown, with Travis Bickle being one of the most fascinating and disconcerting main characters in cinema history, especially because the viewer hears so many of his unfiltered thoughts.
Robert De Niro’s lead performance is remarkable, and Taxi Driver can also count itself as one of the greatest films within Martin Scorsese’s immense body of work, which is no small feat. Credit should be given to Paul Schrader, too, who’s written a good many movies (also directing some) that deal with comparable themes to Taxi Driver, but arguably none leave quite the same impression.