Mobile phone technology is the most important invention that has transformed the growth of films and the process of making films easier. What used to require the employment of a professional crew, expensive gadgets, and very huge resources is now taken by everyone with just a smartphone. In recent years many remarkable films have been shot with smartphones and presented in front of the audience. Ranging from modern drama films to experimental short films, mobile phones prove an important tool.
These movies demonstrate how cell phones are versatile and can produce effective and interesting narrative experiences. In this blog, discover some of the outstanding movies shot on smartphones that demonstrate that great storylines are not limited by the medium.
List of Top 10 Films Shot on Mobile Phones
Mobile phone filmmaking has grown progressively more popular thanks to camera improvement. Here is a list of films shot on mobile phones:
1. Tangerine (2015)
- Director: Sean Baker.
- Shot on: iPhone 5S with additional lenses and stabilizers.
- Writers: Sean Baker and Chris Bergoch
- Film Story: A ground-breaking movie about two transgender prostitutes navigating Los Angeles on Christmas Eve.
In the movie Tangerine, which was shot in Los Angeles and took place on Christmas Eve, the protagonist is Sin-Dee Rella, a transgender sex worker with a boyfriend and a pimp, who betrays her by cheating. Sin-Dee, with her best friend Alexandra, goes on a hilariously wild, frantic, and touching chase around the city, to confront him. The movie also has adopted the narrative of Razmik, a cab driver of Armenian descent with whom their paths cross.
2. Unsane (2018)
- Director: Steven Soderbergh.
- Shot on: iPhone 7 Plus.
- Writer: Jonathan Bernstein and James Greer
- Story: An involuntary commitment to a mental facility is the subject of this psychological thriller.
The horror drama “Unsane” depicts the life of Sawyer Valentini, a young woman, who moves to a new city to get away from her stalker. During a casual therapy session, she accidentally ends up making commitments to be admitted to a psych ward. Sawyer also feels her stalker trailed her inside the building and he now works there as a staff member. The movie looks at psychological manipulation, gaslighting, and the fuzziness of the boundaries between delusion and reality.
3. High Flying Bird (2019)
- Director: Steven Soderbergh.
- Shot on: iPhone 8.
- Writer: Tarell Alvin McCraney
- Story: A drama that takes place amid a lockout in the professional basketball world.
Set during an NBA lockout, High Flying Bird is the story of Ray Burke a sports agent who comes up with a master plan to bring change to basketball players, owners, and executives. Like Benin with his boys, Ray aims at granting the players autonomy by subverting professional basketball, however, in a rather unfriendly and high-pressure atmosphere. The matters of race, as well as the problem of exploitation in the sphere of sports business, are illustrated in the film.
4. 9 Rides (2016)
- Director: Matthew A. Cherry.
- Shot on: iPhone 6.
- Writer: Matthew A. Cherry
- Story: An account of life-changing experiences for an Uber driver on New Year’s Eve.
9 Ride is a one-night journey where we follow a driver who takes several passengers on a type of ridesharing on New Year’s Eve. Each ride looks into different lives and personalities; thus, it is a mosaic of human experience. As the Driver goes along his encounters, he faces a life-altering personal dilemma after receiving surprising news, which unfolds throughout the film. You are given a story that combines elements of the characters’ internal search and main social conflicts in the context of the contemporary metropolis.
5. Night Fishing (2011)
- Director: Park Chan-wook and Park Chan-kyong.
- Shot on: iPhone 4.
- Writer: Park Chan-wook
- Story: A fisherman meets an enigmatic woman in this strange short film.
Night Fishing is an art piece that can be best described as a mystical short film inspired by life and death as well as the circles of life. The plot starts with a man fishing alone at the riverside. He catches a strange fish only to find that it is related to a shaman. Whilst the man becomes involved in the ritual process, then the reality and the imaginary, the world of the spirits overlap. It’s a movie about grief, desire, and disconnection with the self and the world.
6. Snow Steam Iron (2017)
- Director: Zack Snyder.
- Shot on: iPhone 7 Plus.
- Writer: Zack Snyder
- Story: A four-minute silent short film showcasing noir aesthetics.
Snow Steam Iron is a graphic short movie that presents the story of revenge and the woman’s power without any words. Based on the urban scenery with elements of crime noir, the story tells the audience the vengeance story of a woman who decides to punish the oppressors. The film is raw and uninhibited and represents Zack Snyder’s aesthetics of mood, movement, and more, than conventional storytelling.
7. Detour (2017)
- Director: Michel Gondry.
- Shot on: iPhone 7.
- Story: A whimsical short film about a family road trip.
Detour revolves around the life of Harper, a college student who is deeply grieved by his father’s accident. Thinking that it was not an accident that he tumbled down, he decided that he must get even. To do this he recruits the services of a criminal identified as Red and his girlfriend Cherry.
That is when the action unfolds the show is transformed into a revelation of the psychological hell that Harper suffers from manipulation, vengeful plan, and guilt she feels. The movie maintains an element of uncertainty and the use of the cardinal idea of destiny, morality is relative.
8. Olive (2011)
- Director: Hooman Khalili.
- Shot on: Nokia N8.
- Writer: Brett Haley
- Story: The story of a little girl who changes the lives of three strangers.
Olive is a short play that explores the deep complexity of emotion in childhood and innocence. The story goes through Olive, a child girl who, at the age of 8, has her life going through a pretty complicated moment of growth as she deals with loss and develops this changing sense of the world around her. In addition to her struggles, Olive’s sense of herself is influenced by her relations with her family and through experiencing love and loss.
9. I Play with the Phrase Each Other (2014)
- Director: Jay Alvarez.
- Shot on: iPhone 5.
- Writer: Gillian Robespierre
- Story: A dialogue-driven experimental film about millennials.
“I Play with the Phrase Each Other” is a comic drama based on rich human credible relations and personal motivation. The film revolves around Hannah, a young lady, and her effort to rebuild her relationship with her family, especially her mother after a misunderstanding.
From scene to scene we can see the underlying conflicts with her mother and friends telling the stories of humorous but subtle relationships. The title of the film translates the title phrase, derived from a linguistic mishap, to understand that the issues in the movie stem from being unable to communicate in the way one wants or the way one is perceived.
10. Searching for Sugar Man (2012)
- Director: Malik Bendjelloul.
- Shot on: iPhone using an app to replicate Super 8 film aesthetics.
- Writer: Malik Bendjelloul
Searching for Sugar Man is a film on two South African fans, Stephen “Sugar” Segerman and Denis Glover, who went on a quest to uncover the truth about the enigmatic disappearance of an American musician named Rodriguez.
The film explores the life of Rodriguez, a singer-songwriter who was unknown in America but became a legendary icon in South Africa without ever knowing he was successful there. With rumors of his death circulating in the 1970s, the fans set out to find out whether he was dead or alive.
Conclusion
In summary, mobile phone filmmaking has become prominent, especially with improved camera technology, and it’s not the kind of camera that counts, but the kind of storytelling. Despite the fact that many of these films used supplementary accessories such as stabilizers, lenses, and paid editors for footage, the works presented here prove that lack of expensive equipment does not negate a good idea.
