History of the long take in cinema: from its origins to the present day
From the Lumière brothers' fixed camera to the digital marvels of 1917, the long take has a history as rich as cinema itself. This article takes you through 130 years of evolution, the films that changed everything, the technical inventions that pushed the boundaries, and the directors who dared not to cut.
Summary
Before the long take: when all cinema was a single shot
The pioneers: Hitchcock, Welles and the birth of the artistic gesture
The 1960s and 70s: The New Wave and the desire for freedom
The invention that changed everything: the Steadicam
1990s-2000s: The long take becomes spectacular
The digital age: Entire films in a single shot
Today: The long take conquers TV series
Three little-known long takes that deserve your attention
FAQ
The long take is captivating. A continuous shot, without cuts, where the camera follows the action in real time. When it's done well, the viewer forgets they're watching a film. They're immersed in it.
But this technique didn't emerge from a single stroke of genius. It has a history, made up of technical innovations, daring experiments, and stubborn directors who refused to cut. From the Lumière brothers' first reels to Netflix series shot entirely in long takes, each era has pushed the boundaries of what the long take in cinema could achieve.
This article is for anyone who wants to understand the origins of this technique, how it has evolved, and why it continues to fascinate filmmakers and audiences alike. Whether you're a curious film buff, a film student, or a budding videographer, you'll discover the key films, decisive inventions, and historical turning points that have shaped the long take into what it is today.
From Hitchcock's Rope to Sam Mendes' 1917 , via Sokurov's Russian Ark , let's embark.
1. Before the long take: when all cinema was a single shot
A curious paradox: the very first films in history were, technically, single-take shots. The Lumière brothers' *Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory * (1895) and *Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat Station * (1896) each consisted of a single, fixed shot, with no editing. But nobody talked about "sequence shots" at the time, for a simple reason: editing didn't exist yet.
The single shot was not an artistic choice. It was a constraint. The reels lasted a few minutes, the camera didn't move, and the very idea of combining two shots hadn't yet taken root.
Everything changed at the turn of the 20th century. Georges Méliès discovered editing by accident: a film reel jammed, then restarted, and suddenly a bus transformed into a hearse on screen. Edwin S. Porter took the idea further with The Great Train Robbery (1903), which used a series of shots to tell a story. Then, in the 1910s, D.W. Griffith systematized classic editing
Editing becomes the norm. And it is precisely at this moment that the long take can emerge as a deliberate choice. When everyone else is cutting, not cutting becomes an act. It will take until the 1940s for someone to truly dare to do it.
2. The pioneers: Hitchcock, Welles and the birth of the artistic gesture
Orson Welles and the opening of Touchof Evil (1958)
Let's start with a shot every film buff knows. The opening of Touch of Evil : a bomb is placed in the trunk of a car. The camera, mounted on a crane, follows the vehicle through the streets of a border town. No cut for over three minutes. The tension mounts because you know the bomb is there, but the shot refuses to let go.
Welles didn't invent the long take with this scene. But he proved something fundamental: a continuous shot can create a tension that no editing could match. You are trapped in real time. There are no ellipses to offer relief.
Alfred Hitchcock and Rope( 1948)
Ten years earlier, Hitchcock had been even more radical. Rope is the first film in history designed to give the illusion of a single 80-minute take. In reality, the film is composed of shots of approximately 10 minutes each, the maximum length of a 35mm reel at the time, linked by transitions on dark objects (a jacket back, a trunk).
The result is imperfect. Hitchcock himself would later consider the experiment a technical failure. But the intention was revolutionary: to eliminate editing in order to trap the viewer in the claustrophobic setting with the characters. The long take as a psychological prison.
Pro tip : The "invisible cut" technique used by Hitchcock in Rope— hiding the cut behind a dark object that fills the frame—is still used today. You'll find it in Birdman, 1917 , and many contemporary series. It's the basis of the "false long take."
The forgotten precursors: Renoir and Ophüls
Hitchcock and Welles didn't work in a vacuum. Before them, Jean Renoir was already exploring the long take as a narrative tool. In The Rules of the Game (1939), his camera glides from one character to another in the castle, following the interwoven storylines without cutting, a fluidity that foreshadows everything to come. Renoir was one of the first to understand that continuous camera movement could replace editing to connect the characters.
Max Ophüls took this approach even further in the 1950s. His circular tracking shots in Lola Montès (1955) and Le Plaisir (1952) are breathtakingly elegant; the camera dances around the characters, refusing to settle. Ophüls proves that a long take doesn't need to be a feat of duration to be memorable. It's the quality of the movement that counts, not its length.
Why the 1940s and 50s were decisive
From Renoir to Hitchcock, by way of Welles and Ophüls, these decades laid the foundations for everything that followed. The long take can serve suspense (Welles), enclose the viewer (Hitchcock), connect characters (Renoir), or elevate movement (Ophüls). Four approaches, one observation: when the camera doesn't cut, something powerful happens in the viewer's mind.
3. The 1960s-70s: The New Wave and the desire for freedom
The 60s exploded. In France, the New Wave blew up the rules of classical cinema. Godard, Truffaut, Rivette, Rohmer, these directors rejected academic editing and shot with handheld cameras, in the street, with a new freedom.
The long take becomes a tool for spontaneity. In Cléo from 5 to 7 (Agnès Varda, 1962), long, continuous shots follow the heroine through Paris in near real time. It's no longer Hitchcockian suspense, it's immersion in everyday life.
On the other side of Eastern Europe, Miklós Jancsó took the concept to its extreme. His Hungarian films of the 1960s, The Hopeless (1966) and Reds and Whites (1967), used long takes lasting several minutes with complex camera movements and dozens of choreographed extras. Jancsó wasn't aiming for realism. He created military ballets filmed continuously.
In the USSR, Andrei Tarkovsky developed his own vision. His long takes in Stalker (1979) and The Mirror (1975) are not technical feats—they are contemplative, meditative. Time stretches out. The camera glides over water, faces, ruins. Tarkovsky would call this "sculpting time."
Pro tip : If you're studying the history of the long take, don't limit yourself to Hollywood. Eastern European directors (Jancsó, Tarkovsky, Béla Tarr) pushed the technique much further and much earlier than most American filmmakers. Their influence on contemporary cinema is immense.
At the same time, Béla Tarr began his work in Hungary. In the following decades, he would become the absolute master of the contemplative long take; Satan Tango (1994, over 7 hours, only 150 shots) and The Turin Horse (2011) remain absolute references for anyone interested in the use of continuous time in cinema.
4. The invention that changed everything: the Steadicam
1975. Garrett Brown, American inventor and cameraman, develops the Steadicam, a stabilization system that allows the camera to be worn on oneself while obtaining a smooth image, without the shaking of the camera on the shoulder.
It's a revolution. Before the Steadicam, a moving long take required dolly tracks, a crane, or an operator with steel arms and a lot of luck. After the Steadicam, the camera can follow a character everywhere—down a corridor, a staircase, through a crowd—with the fluidity of a ghost.
The first films to utilize the Steadicam immediately became legendary:
Rocky (1976): Garrett Brown himself operates the camera for the scene of the ascent of the steps at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. One of the most iconic shots in American cinema.
In The Shining (1980), Kubrick uses the Steadicam to follow young Danny through the corridors of the Overlook Hotel on his tricycle. The fluidity of the movement creates a sense of unease; the camera is too calm for such a terrifying place.
Goodfellas (1990) The Copacabana tracking shot. Henry Hill and Karen walk through the club's kitchens, greet everyone, and sit down at a table that appears as if by magic. Three uncut minutes. Scorsese makes you feel what it's like to be a mobster; doors open, everyone knows you, the world is yours.
The Copacabana shot in Goodfellas is probably the most studied long take in the history of cinema. It has inspired dozens of directors and remains a masterclass in what the Steadicam can do: transform a mundane movement into a visceral experience.
Pro tip : The Steadicam made the long take accessible, but it also created a trap. Many directors use it simply to "look good" without the continuous shot actually serving the narrative. A good long take isn't a long shot for the sake of it; it's a long shot because cutting would weaken the scene.
5. 1990s-2000s: The long take becomes spectacular
The 90s and 2000s marked a turning point. The long take moved from the realm of experimentation to become a tour de force eagerly awaited by the public.
The corridor in Oldboy (2003)
Park Chan-wook films a fight in a corridor in a single lateral shot. The hero faces off against a dozen opponents with a hammer. It's brutal, clumsy, exhausting, and that's precisely the point. No editing to make the blows more dynamic. You see the fatigue, the mistakes, the pain. The long take as the raw truth of the fight.
Children of Men (2006) - Alfonso Cuarón pushes all boundaries
Cuarón and his cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki created several long takes that redefined what was technically possible. The car ambush scene, where the camera rotates 360° inside the vehicle while the characters are attacked, required the design of a custom rig capable of rotating the camera within the car's interior.
The final sequence in the Bexhill refugee camp lasts approximately six minutes. Explosions, gunfire, hundreds of extras all in a single shot (with a few invisible digital edits). Cuarón isn't filming a spectacle. He's plunging you into the chaos of war from which there's no escape.
The Cuarón-Lubezki duo
It's impossible to tell thestory of the long take in cinema without mentioning Emmanuel Lubezki, known as "Chivo." This Mexican cinematographer won three consecutive Oscars (2014-2016) for Gravity, Birdman , and The Revenant, three films built around long, immersive takes. His work with Cuarón and then Iñárritu redefined the visual standards of contemporary cinema.
6. The digital age: Entire films in a single shot
The arrival of digital technology changed everything. The 10-minute film reel limit was a thing of the past. A digital camera could record for as long as the memory card allowed. This technological revolution opened up an incredible possibility: filming an entire feature film in a single take.
Russian Ark (2002) - The One-Shot Film
Alexander Sokurov achieves the impossible. Russian Ark is a 96-minute film shot in a single, continuous take, without any cuts, in the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg. More than 2,000 actors and extras, 33 rooms traversed, three orchestras, costumes from three different centuries.
Filming took place on December 23, 2001. Sokurov was only allowed one successful take per day (the museum's natural light only provided a limited shooting window). After several failed attempts, the last take was the one that worked. 96 minutes without a break. An unprecedented logistical and artistic feat.
Victoria (2015) - The raw long take
Sebastian Schipper shot Victoria in a single 138-minute on the streets of Berlin at night. No digital effects, no hidden edits. Just one take, chosen from three attempts. The story follows a young Spanish woman who meets a group of Berliners and finds herself caught up in a robbery.
What distinguishes Victoria from Russian Arkis its raw realism. There's no meticulously choreographed, museum-like sequence here; the actors improvise to some extent, the camera races through the streets, up staircases, and through underground parking garages. The viewer is physically exhausted by the end of the film.
Birdman (2014) and 1917 (2019) - The "fake" long take in Hollywood
Alejandro González Iñárritu with Birdman and Sam Mendes with 1917 take a different approach: the film is designed to give the illusion of a continuous shot, but it is actually composed of dozens of shots digitally stitched together. Passages behind walls, rapid pans, and day/night transitions serve to mask the cuts.
The result is spectacular. 1917 plunges you into the trenches of the First World War in real time. No respite, no ellipses, you march alongside the soldiers for two hours. Theimmersion is total, even if the process is technically a montage.
The debate between "true" and "false" long takes regularly stirs up film buffs. The pragmatic answer: what matters is the effect on the viewer. If you don't see the cut, the long take does its job.
7. Today: The long take conquers TV series
The long take is no longer reserved for the big screen. Television series have embraced it, sometimes with results as impressive as the best of cinema.
True Detective, season 1 (2014): The six-minute tracking shot in the housing project, episode 4. Rust Cohle infiltrates a gang during a raid gone wrong. The camera follows him through houses, gardens, and over fences. Cary Joji Fukunaga delivers one of the most famous tracking shots in television history.
Adolescence (Netflix, 2025) The series goes even further. Each episode is filmed in a single, uncut take. The short format (25-35 minutes per episode) makes this technically possible, but the execution remains impressive. The camera follows the teenage characters in their daily lives, and the lack of editing creates an immersion and tension that traditional editing could not replicate.
We also find striking sequence shots in Mr. Robot, Haunting of Hill House (episode 6, almost entirely in sequence shot) and Daredevil (the corridor fight, a direct homage to Oldboy).
Why now?
This trend can be explained by a convergence of technical and cultural factors. On the equipment side: motorized gimbals (DJI Ronin, Movi) have replaced the heavy and expensive Steadicam with stabilizers accessible to everyone. Drones allow for continuous aerial shots that were impossible just fifteen years ago. Compact digital cameras (RED, Sony FX) can record for hours without changing equipment.
On the cultural front: a new generation of directors grew up admiring the long takes of Cuarón and Scorsese. The long format of series (entire seasons, episodes of varying lengths) also allows for more freedom to experiment; a showrunner can dedicate an entire episode to a single take without compromising the overall structure of the season.
And then there's the viral effect. An impressive long take generates buzz, YouTube analytics, and social media threads. The long take has become as much a marketing tool as an artistic choice. For better or worse, it draws attention to ambitious works, and sometimes for the worse, when technique takes precedence over substance.
Three little-known long takes that deserve your attention
Atonement - Joe Wright (2007)
The Dunkirk beach scene. Five minutes shot with a Steadicam through the chaos of the 1940 evacuation: singing soldiers, slaughtered horses, a Ferris wheel on the beach, burning boats. Wright recreated the entire scene with over 1,000 extras on an English beach and filmed it in a single continuous shot. The camera movement never stops, and that's what gives the scene its hallucinatory, unreal quality. The takeaway : the long take can transform a historical reenactment into a sensory experience.
Satan's Tango - Béla Tarr (1994)
Over seven hours of film. Only about 150 shots. Some exceed 10 minutes. Tarr films Hungarian peasants in a muddy village, in the rain, and time stretches out until it becomes physically palpable. No spectacle, no visible feat. Just raw time. The takeaway : the long take doesn't have to be spectacular to be radical.
Gravity - Alfonso Cuarón (2013)
The first 13 minutes of the film are a single, continuous shot, filmed in zero gravity, in space. Technically, it's a complex digital montage blending live-action footage and computer-generated imagery, but the illusion is perfect. The camera circles the astronauts, plunges into Sandra Bullock's helmet, emerges, and returns without ever cutting. The key takeaway : digital technology allows for continuous shots that are physically impossible to film in real-world conditions.
FAQ
What was the first long take in the history of cinema?
Technically, the Lumière brothers' films (1895-1896) were long takes, a single fixed shot, without editing. But the first intentional long take, conceived as an artistic choice, is generally attributed to Rope (1948), even though directors like Orson Welles, Jean Renoir, and Max Ophüls were already experimenting with long takes in the 1930s and 40s.
What is the difference between a "real" and a "fake" sequence shot?
A true long take is filmed in a single continuous shot, without any cuts (Russian Ark, Victoria). A fake long take assembles several shots with digital edits or masked transitions to give the illusion of a continuous shot (Birdman, 1917). The effect on the viewer can be identical.
Why was the Steadicam so important for the long take?
Before the Steadicam (1975), a moving long take required dolly tracks or a crane, heavy equipment with limited range of motion. The Steadicam allowed the camera to follow an actorfluidly everywhere, even in tight or cluttered spaces. This made shots like the Copacabana scene in Goodfellas.
What is the longest single-take film ever shot?
Victoria (2015) holds the record for a theatrical feature film: 138 minutes in a single take. For a more experimental format, Russian Ark (96 minutes) remains the most famous reference.
Is the long take only for big budgets?
No. With a gimbal costing a few hundred euros and a digital camera, any videographer can shoot a technically sound single-take sequence. The difficulty isn't financial; it's in the preparation : choreographing the actors, scouting locations, rehearsals. Victoria had a modest budget. What matters is the preparation time, not the equipment.
Conclusion
Thehistory of the long take in cinema is the story of a gradual liberation. Liberation from the constraints of film stock, liberation from the weight of cameras, liberation from the limits of editing. From Hitchcock, who cleverly manipulated his 10-minute reels, to Sokurov, who traversed the Hermitage without a cut for 96 minutes, each decade has added a new possibility.
But the most important lesson remains the same since 1948: technique doesn't make the long take. Intention does. Why not cut here? What does the viewer gain by staying within the shot? The best long takes in history all have a clear answer to this question.
Today, with gimbals, drones, and digital editing, the tools have never been so accessible. The next great chapter of this story may be being written right now, on a film set, in a TV studio, or in a videographer's bedroom with a smartphone and a good idea.
👉 Want to delve deeper? On plan-sequences.com, you'll find detailed analyses of over 100 iconic sequence shots.
