Mike Le, who offered up this list about the 20 greatest movies about writers, has another list at GeekWeek.com: “20 Greatest Extended Takes In Movies”:

The extended take or long take is the first time I noticed a filmmaker articulating cinematic space and pushing his/her desire for notions of auteurism. It was the iconic opening shot in Stanley Kubrick’s A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, where we are introduced to our anti-hero Alex in an extreme close-up of his face, a smirking landscape of human evil that never blinks. We then slowly PULL BACK to reveal the Korovo Milk Bar, the surroundings that fosters said evil with its retro-futuristic decay. Ever since then, I’ve been obsessed with the extended take in movies.

Let’s be clear. The extended take is often mistaken for the tracking shot. According to Wikipedia the tracking shot is, “a segment in which the camera is mounted on a wheeled platform that is pushed on rails while the picture is being taken. Tracking shots cannot include complex pivoting movements, aerial shots or crane shots.” So what is an extended take? The extended take is, “an uninterrupted shot in a film which lasts much longer than the conventional editing pace either of the film itself or of films in general, usually lasting several minutes. It can be used for dramatic and narrative effect if done properly, and in moving shots is often accomplished through the use of a dolly or stedicam.“

The extended take is a cinematic hire-wire act that pushes the director, actors, cinematographer, art department, sound design, and every other department to their limits. They take a very long time to set-up, and are very easy to mess up. The longer the take, the more pressure is added to get it right.

This list is, in my opinion, the 20 greatest extended takes in movies. I intentionally did not make reference to movies like TIMECODE, RUSSIAN ARK , PVC-1 , and NOKTA which are products of the digital filmmaking age, features entirely shot in a single take. I believe those movies are a genre in and of themselves and deserve a separate discussion.

There are several amazing extended takes that I would have included in this list but was unable to because they are not available online to view, like the ones in ATONEMENT and JCVD. I felt it would be unfair to make reference to something visually when I could not offer it up for review. But I do recommend checking those films out on DVD if you haven’t done so.

And Le’s 20 greatest extended takes in movies are:

20. “THE PASSENGER” (1975) — directed by Michelangelo Antonioni

19. “ROPE” (1948) — directed by Alfred Hitchcock

18. “THE SHINING” (1980) — directed by Stanley Kubrick

17. “THE MIRROR” (1975) — directed by Andrei Tarkovsky

16. “BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES” (1990) — directed by Brian DePalma

15. “WEEKEND” (1967) — directed by Jean-Luc Godard

14. “KILL BILL Volume 1″ (2003) — directed by Quentin Tarantino

13. “WERCKMEISTER HARMONIES” (2000) — directed by Bela Tarr and Agnes Hranitzky

12. “I AM CUBA” (1964) — directed by Mikhail Kalatozov

11. “BOOGIE NIGHTS” (1997) — directed by Paul Thomas Anderson

Actually I lied. I’ll only give these 10. Hit the link to find out the others and give Mike a lil’ traffic love. I will say that his #1 and #2 selections would be my top two, although I would switch them. Here’s the extended take in Boogie Nights – the death of Little Bill:

What are your favorite extended takes? When do they work? And why do some not work?