Top 10 Elevators on the Big Screen

Elevators are an ordinary part of most people’s day-to-day lives. But they have a claustrophobic element as well, and both of these dimensions have been used masterfully in a range of films.

10. The Blues Brothers

In this classic comedy, the titular brothers board an elevator on the mundane business of paying a tax bill. Meanwhile, an army of police officers arrive outside the building to arrest them. The calm of the elevator is masterfully contrasted with the chaos outside.

9. Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory

Willy Wonka introduces a triumphant Charlie to his great glass elevator (which was planned to be the focus of a sequel, as in the original books). Wonka gives Charlie some good news before the elevator blasts off like a rocket.

8. Total Recall

Usually, action scenes in elevators are claustrophobic, but this one takes a different approach. The fight happens in an industrial elevator with no walls. Instead of being enclosed, the scene uses a fear of plummeting to the ground.

7. The Departed

A well-crafted scene from one of the more ultra-violent films on the list. A corrupt policeman is handcuffed into an elevator, begging for death. A few seconds later there is indeed a death, but not in the way the audience expected.

6. The Silence of the Lambs

One of the more effective and tense horror moments in an elevator. While Hannibal Lecter is escaping from jail, some guards spot him on the roof of an elevator. But when they try to apprehend him, they find all is not as it seems.

5. Dressed to Kill

This is another violent film, and also one that draws a lot of influence from Alfred Hitchcock. A frustrated housewife enters an elevator to retrieve her wedding ring from the home of a one-night stand. She’s met with a gory death, but one that has a lot more to it from a filmmaking point of view than just shock value.

4. Drive

This scene manages to pack much more into an elevator than most films can dream of. The hero and love interest enter an elevator. They also share it with a suspicious man carrying a gun. The result is a tonally varied scene that first turns steamy and then shifts shockingly into violent mode.

3. Aliens

Elevator journeys are often slower than we would like, and they certainly take their time to arrive. James Cameron’s Aliens manages to use that fact to its advantage, as Ellen Ripley is forced to rely on an elevator to flee a horde of angry extra-terrestrial horrors. The resulting scene is simple, yet wonderfully tense and thrilling.

2. Die Hard

The best part of Die Hard’s entry on to the list is that it is not technically in an elevator. Rather, it is the suspenseful climb through an elevator shaft as John McClane makes his way stealthily around the buildings picking off terrorists. A mistake where a stuntman slipped and almost fell made the scene better still.

1. Diamonds are Forever

Of all the actors to play Bond, Sean Connery has probably the most distinctive fighting style. This created some action scenes that are still among the best in Bond’s history. In Diamonds Are Forever, he calmly boards an elevator masquerading as a tourist, before launching into a fight with one of the villains. The resulting action scene is exceptionally well choreographed and makes full use of the claustrophobic nature of the lift. Heads are pushed through glass, and the lift’s movement threatens to crush skulls before the fight finally spills out on to the landing and comes to a dramatic end.