Long takes in TV series: the new trend (Adolescence, The Studio, The Collapse)
What you will understand here: why the best recent series have chosen to film without cuts and what radically changes this for the viewer.
Summary
The long take leaves behind auteur cinema
Adolescence (Netflix, 2025): each episode is a single breath
The Studio (Apple TV+, 2025): the long take as a comedic weapon
The Collapse (Canal+, 2019): a discreet precursor of a trend
What the long take brings to TV series
Production challenges that no one anticipates
Why this trend is accelerating
FAQ
1. The long take is leaving auteur cinema
In 2025, two series simultaneously introduced the long take to a global audience: Adolescence on Netflix and The Studio on Apple TV+. One is a British drama about a shattered childhood, the other a satirical comedy about Hollywood. They have nothing in common except the principle: filming without cuts, in a single take.
This is not a coincidence. It's a trend that has been building for several years. And it won't stop there.
For decades, the long take belonged to a very specific category of filmmakers. Orson Welles opens Touch of Evil with a three-minute shot in one continuous take. Scorsese takes Henry Hill into the kitchens of the Copacabana. Cuarón films the war in Children of Men as if the camera were a stray bullet. Iñárritu pushes the concept to the extreme, making an entire film, Birdman, fit into a single apparent shot.
It's auteur cinema. Prestige. Substantial budgets and legendary cinematographers.
Then something changes. The long take in TV series migrates from festivals to streaming. Not as a gimmick in an isolated episode, but as a fully-fledged filmmaking philosophy.
2. Adolescence (Netflix, 2025): each episode is a single breath
The concept
Four episodes. Each lasts approximately one hour. Each is filmed in a single continuous shot, without any cuts, from beginning to end.
The story: Thirteen-year-old Jamie is accused of murdering a classmate. The series follows the investigation, the parents, the therapists, and the prison. Four different worlds. Four radically different atmospheres. And each time, the same rule: no interruptions.
Director Philip Barantini, who previously directed the film Boiling Point, shot in a single take, is at the helm. The screenplay is by Stephen Graham and Jack Thorne.
What it brings
Barantini did not choose the long take for stylistic effect. He chose it because the story demanded it.
When you follow an investigator entering a devastated family home, remaining with him unable to look away, without any editing to offer respite, you feel something no amount of cuts can replicate. The actual duration imposes itself. The unease builds. There's nowhere to go.
The same goes for the prison episode, locked inside with Jamie. There are no cutaways to catch your breath. The camera stays put, and you stay with it.
Pro tip : This is the fundamental principle of the long take: eliminate any escape. Traditional editing offers the viewer brief respites between shots. Without cuts, the accumulation becomes physical. Actors know this: performing for an hour without a break requires a different mental state. The viewer feels it without being able to articulate it.
The technical feat
Each episode required a week of filming to get the right take. Weeks of rehearsals even before arriving on set.
Episode 2 contains one of the most technically ambitious sequences in the series: the camera follows a student to the traffic lights at the end of classes, then, instead of cutting, it is attached to a drone that flies 500 meters to the scene of the crime, before being smoothly recovered by the team which then cuts to a close-up of Stephen Graham.
One single move. Three teams coordinated to the second.
During the filming of the final episode, Barantini had family photos of Stephen Graham discreetly placed on set without the actors' knowledge for the final take. What we see on screen in those moments is genuine surprise.
3. The Studio (Apple TV+, 2025): the long take as a comedic weapon
The concept in reverse
Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg have created a comedy about Hollywood. Each scene is filmed in a single take, with a single camera and a single lens. Episode 2, simply titled "The Oner," is a 25-minute single take shot in several real locations in Los Angeles, including a John Lautner-designed house with glass walls.
The Studio uses the opposite technique to Adolescence. Where the Netflix series seeks crushing, suffocating tension, The Studio seeks energy, chaos, comic rhythm.
Pro tip : The long take doesn't just have one emotional connotation. In Goodfellas, it's exhilarating; we enter the Copacabana as if we own the world. In Children of Men, it's brutal and disorienting. In The Studio, it's both stressful and comical. The tool remains the same. The effect depends entirely on the intention.
Cinematography
Cinematographer Adam Newport-Berra studied Robert Altman (The Player), Mikhail Kalatozov (Soy Cuba), and Birdman to prepare for the series. His rule: one camera, one lens, no second camera as a backup.
It's a mental discipline as much as a technical one. If you have a plan B, you'll never be fully committed to plan A.
The weapon against production ratings
There's a tasty detail in the way Rogen defended The Studio against Apple TV+ executives.
When executives wanted to modify scenes after filming, as is standard practice in the industry, the answer was always the same: impossible. Everything is shot in a single take. No cuts = no possibility of re-editing, reordering, or adding an insert.
The formal structure protected the work from creative interference. This was not an accident. It was a strategy.
4. The Collapse (Canal+, 2019): a discreet precursor of a trend
The series that arrives before everyone else
When L'Effondrement (The Collapse) aired on Canal+ in November 2019, nobody was expecting it. The collective Les Parasites (Guillaume Desjardins, Jérémy Bernard and Bastien Ughetto) delivered eight 20-minute episodes on the gradual collapse of French society.
Each episode is a single, or nearly single, shot sequence, filmed with a handheld camera. A gas station. A supermarket. A hospital. A different scene, a different perspective on the same unfolding disaster.
What this changes narratively
The Collapse does not choose the long take to impress. It chooses it because it is the only device consistent with its subject.
The collapse isn't an event that can be neatly segmented. It unfolds in real time, without any possibility of interruption. By filming each episode in a single take, Parasites forces the viewer to experience the chaos at the same speed as the characters.
We don't take a step back. We're in it.
Pro tip : The handheld camera in The Collapse adds a documentary dimension. It's not a cinematic camera that "observes," but a human presence that "experiences" alongside the characters. This formal constraint creates a sense of realism that traditional editing cannot replicate.
The difference with the other two series
The Collapse is more modest technically, with no drones and no coordination between fifteen teams. But its simplicity is a strength. The long takes are organic, almost documentary-like, which perfectly reflects the world it depicts.
Adolescence impresses with its virtuosity. The Studio with its comedic audacity. The Collapse, however, convinces with its coherence.
5. What the long take brings to TV series
Radical immersion
Without cuts, the viewer cannot disconnect. No transitions to redirect attention, no editing to speed up what would be too long. Everything happens in real time.
This technique is particularly powerful for emotionally charged scenes. In Adolescence, a conversation between a father and his son accused of murder lasts as long as it lasts. No one will cut it out at the most awkward moment.
The authenticity of the performances
Performing for an hour without a break is different from performing 3-minute sequences that are then assembled in the editing room. The actors enter a state of sustained concentration that leaves its mark on the screen.
This concentration, and sometimes this exhaustion, is visible. It's not a flaw. It's information.
The continuity of space and time
The long take imposes a geographical and temporal logic that traditional editing can transgress with impunity. A camera movement must go from point A to point B without teleportation. An actor must cross a corridor at human speed.
This constraint forces the teams to build walkable sets, precise choreography, and carefully planned transitions. It's a discipline of total stage direction.
6. Production challenges that no one anticipates
Rehearsals before filming
On Adolescence, the team spent weeks rehearsing before even setting up the camera. Not acting rehearsals, but movement rehearsals. Where is the camera operator when the actor crosses the room? Who opens the door and when? How does the sound crew reposition themselves without appearing in the shot?
It's as much a choreography as a rehearsal of text.
The pressure on the actors
Forgetting a line at the 45-minute mark of a one-hour single take means starting over from the beginning. Not from the previous scene from the beginning.
This pressure produces performances of a particular intensity. It can also lead to botched takes after 50 minutes of perfect work. On Adolescence, a week of filming per episode was not a luxury.
Pro tip : Directors of long takes often work with the question: "The best take is incomplete, or the correct take?" A technically perfect but emotionless take isn't necessarily more valuable than a take with a barely perceptible hesitation but an electrifying performance. Barantini said it explicitly: he was looking for life in the take, not perfection.
Team coordination
On The Studio, the episode "The Oner" involved teams positioned in several separate buildings in Los Angeles. Each camera transition from one team to another was choreographed down to the second.
On Adolescence, a drone physically transports the camera over 500 meters. One timing error, and the entire day's footage is lost.
7. Why is this trend accelerating?
Streaming requires standing out
On Netflix, Apple TV+ or Canal+, hundreds of series arrive every month. To stand out, you have to offer something that can't be "scrolled" in the background.
The long take demands attention. It's a pact with the viewer: stay there. Don't look away. What happens next will matter.
The technique is now accessible
Steadicam, gimbal, film drone—equipment that cost a fortune twenty years ago has become standard. Collectives like Les Parasites can use it with an independent series budget. The gap between "what I can imagine" and "what I can shoot" has shrunk considerably.
The prestige of constraint
Shooting in a single take is also a statement of artistic intent. It signals: we didn't cheat in the editing. It's a form of honesty which, in a landscape saturated with digital effects and intensive post-production, has its own intrinsic value.
And it shows. Even viewers unfamiliar with the term "long take" sense that something different is happening. This feeling is precisely what showrunners aim to create.
FAQ
Is a long take in a TV series really filmed in a single shot? It depends on the series. In Adolescence, yes: each hour-long episode is a single, continuous take. In The Studio, it's more nuanced; each scene is filmed in a single shot, but the series doesn't claim to be a single shot from beginning to end. In The Collapse, an episode is almost a single continuous shot, with occasional subtle cuts.
Why not simulate the long take in editing, like Birdman? Birdman uses hidden cuts to simulate a single shot, but it's not the same thing. Directors who choose the true long take are precisely claiming the absence of trickery. The performance is real, the space is real, the time is real. An attentive viewer feels it, even without being able to verbalize it.
Will this trend last, or is it just a fad? The hype surrounding Adolescence could quickly become saturated, and we'll inevitably see less skillful imitations. But the long take existed before (The Collapse in 2019) and will continue to exist after. It's a narrative tool. It will remain relevant when it serves the story, not when it becomes the main focus.
What equipment is used for these long takes? A motorized gimbal and Steadicam for the long, moving shots. A film drone for the aerial transitions, used in Adolescence for the 500-meter sequence. On The Studio, a single camera and a single lens, without backup. Technology has simplified what was reserved for the most experienced crews ten years ago.
Are there other series that have made significant use of the long take? True Detective season 1 contains one of the most celebrated long takes in television history, a six-minute sequence during a nighttime raid. Game of Thrones pushed the technique further in battle scenes. More recently, Severance uses very long takes to amplify the feeling of confinement. The list grows longer every year.
Conclusion
The long take didn't "invade" TV series by chance. It responds to a real demand: works that bet on the viewer's attention rather than fragmenting it.
Adolescence proves that you can maintain an hour of uninterrupted action and create unbearable tension. The Studio proves that you can film comedy in one-off segments and extract a rare energy from it. The Collapse proves that with the right artistic resources and a deliberate adherence to formal constraints, a small production can leave a lasting mark.
What these three series have in common is that the long take is not their subject. It is their tool. And that is precisely why it works.
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