Top 10 Greatest First Person Movie Scenes
#10: First-Person Shooter
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“Doom” (2005) The “Doom” series is widely regarded as one of the best and most influential first person shooter franchises in video game history. The original was released in 1993 to instant acclaim and popularity, helping to define and influence the first person shooter genre. Twelve years later, a movie adaptation was released, starring Dwayne Johnson and Karl Urban. To honor the game series, the movie contained an epic first person sequence which sees Grimm making his way through various hallways and shooting ghoulish monsters. The sequence reportedly took three months to plan and two weeks to craft. All that work was well worth it, as the first person sequence is what many people remember most from the film.
#9: Drifting
“Gravity” (2013) A masterpiece of technical filmmaking, Alfonso Cuarón’s “Gravity” tells the story of a medical engineer who becomes stranded in space following a shuttle disaster. In one fantastic sequence, Dr. Ryan Stone somersaults her way through space while desperately trying to make contact with the shuttle. The scene begins with a horrifying first person perspective. Viewers can only hear Stone’s panicked breathing while witnessing massive Planet Earth through her dirty helmet. The queasy spinning, darkness of space, and frightened breaths all combine to place viewers in Stone’s predicament, showcasing just how dangerous and frightening space can be.
#8: Phase I Clinical Trials
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“V/H/S/2” (2013) (read as V.H.S. Two) This horror anthology contains four short films, and a bookending prologue and epilogue. The first proper story is titled “Phase I Clinical Trials”, and it follows a man named Herman Middleton receiving an ocular implant following a car accident. The doctor informs Herman that some glitches may occur, owing to the technology’s early phase. The entire short film is shot from the first person perspective, as viewers are given access to what Herman sees through his ocular implant. And what he sees is... quite freaky indeed. Horror movies are particularly effective in the first person, as they place viewers in the terrifying heart of the character’s abnormal reality.
#7: The Whole Movie
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“Hardcore Henry” (2015) Entire movies have been filmed in the first person perspective. In 2009, director Gaspar Noé’s “Enter the Void” put viewers in the mind of a drug dealer in Tokyo. Six years after that, “Hardcore Henry” proved one of the most video game-y movies ever made. The story is told through the perspective of Henry, an amnesiac with cybernetic prosthetics who must rescue his erstwhile wife from a band of telekinetic mercenaries. The first person perspective is certainly a gimmick, albeit a very unique and well-filmed gimmick. It’s a first-person shooter in movie form, and it is every bit as exciting as that sounds.
#6: Malkovich Vision
“Being John Malkovich” (1999) As the title suggests, “Being John Malkovich” puts viewers, and the other characters of the movie, inside the mind of beloved actor John Malkovich (who plays a fictionalized version of himself). Written by Charlie Kaufman, and directed by Spike Jonze, this movie sees Craig Schwartz, a sad sack puppeteer-turned-file-clerk, discovering a portal into John Malkovich’s mind. Any time the characters are inside Malkovich’s head, the perspective suitably changes to the first person, as both the characters and the audience become Malkovich, culminating in a deeply disturbing scene in which the actor enters his own mind. It’s a very bizarre bit of meta-narrative, but then again, we wouldn’t expect anything less from Charlie Kaufman.
#5: Bat-Eyes
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“The Dark Knight” (2008) Christopher Nolan is an inventive filmmaker, and he loves to pepper his movies with unique bits of imaginative filmmaking. And while first-person perspectives aren’t anything new, this scene still stands out from the otherwise traditionally-filmed “The Dark Knight”. While storming a building filled with thugs, Batman activates his so-called Bat-Sonar Lenses, which allows both him and Alfred to see in sonar vision. The screen turns blue and pulses with white beams as the camera swoops through the building to reveal the location of goons and SWAT members. It’s not only a creative way to film the scene and provide exposition, but it also showcases the sheer technological brilliance of Bruce Wayne.
#4: Jeff’s View
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“Rear Window” (1954) Serving as one of Alfred Hitchcock’s greatest accomplishments, “Rear Window” stars James Stewart as L.B. Jefferies, a photographer who is confined to his apartment, and wheelchair, because of a broken leg. Bored and lonely, he begins watching his neighbors through binoculars and a camera and begins to suspect that one of them is a murderer. Many scenes throughout the movie are shot in the first person, as audiences see what Jefferies sees. It lends the movie an air of mystery and intrigue, as viewers are only privy to what Jefferies sees and knows. The limited perspective does wonders for the movie’s suspense, and it guarantees that viewers will be glued to the screen - just as Jefferies is glued to his camera.
#3: Awakening
“RoboCop” (1987) Alex Murphy is a police officer working in a future, crime-ridden Detroit. While pursuing a notorious criminal named Clarence Boddicker, Murphy is shot by Boddicker and his gang, and it’s not a pretty sight. Murphy is later revived as the cyborg RoboCop, who is specifically programmed to uphold the law. In a great bit of filmmaking, Murphy’s re-awakening as RoboCop is filmed in the first person, with many doctors and scientists hovering over his face, fiddling with various pieces of technology, and speaking directly into the camera. It’s a great way to transition Murphy’s character from human to cyborg, and it puts off the physical RoboCop reveal just a little bit longer, helping to further the suspense.
#2: Thermal Imaging
“Predator” (1987) This Arnold Schwarzenegger flick is an all-time classic, and it contains one of the most memorable villains in action movie history. The villain, of course, is the titular Predator, an alien entity who stalks a mercenary rescue team through the jungles of Central America. At odd intervals throughout the film, viewers are treated to the Predator’s point of view as he stalks the mercenaries with thermal imaging. It’s a great way to establish the Predator as something abnormal and alien, and physically watching the protagonists being stalked adds to the suspense and drama. The thermal visuals have since become one of the most famous aspects of this classic movie.
#1: Terminator Vision
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“The Terminator” (1984) James Cameron is a brilliant director, and he knows how to make even the most mundane of scenes exciting and inventive. In this menacingly entertaining bit, a janitor knocks on the Terminator’s door. The camera then shifts to the Terminator’s computerized thermal head-up-display perspective, and viewers see a funny list of responses that include “please come back later” and the far ruder response he eventually goes with. It’s a great bit of scary comedic relief, and it just goes to show that what are pejoratively called pointless scenes are always welcome in movies, so long as they’re creative and entertaining. And Cameron certainly knows how to craft cool scenes!