Cliff Notes – Incredible films that were shot on an iPhone including 28 Years Later and Netflix hit
- 28 Years Later is the largest film shot on a smartphone, utilising an adapted iPhone 15, showcasing the evolving capabilities of mobile technology in filmmaking.
- Directors like Danny Boyle and Steven Soderbergh advocate for iPhone filming, citing its flexibility and intimacy, allowing for innovative storytelling techniques.
- Other notable films, such as Unsane and Tangerine, demonstrate the effectiveness of iPhones in capturing high-quality cinematic experiences while keeping production costs low.
Incredible films that were shot on an iPhone including 28 Years Later and Netflix hit
While there is endless filmmaking equipment out there costing from hundreds to £80,000 (and more), you would have thought the most anticipated horror film of 2025 might be using gear at the higher end of the scale… Right?
Wrong. If you’re saving up for the best camera in the business to film your next project, you may just be wasting your time.
Why not just use your iPhone? Everyone else is, including Danny Boyle’s 28 Years Later, which Metro has given 5 big fat emotional stars in our review.
It’s not the first time this has happened, either. Here are all the films you might not know were filmed primarily using an iPhone. One even made it to the Oscars.
28 Years Later
Hitting cinemas on Friday and starring Jodie Comer and Aaron Taylor-Johnson, the hotly-anticipated sequel to 28 Days Later used an adapted iPhone 15 for the job, making the Hollywood thriller – with its $75million budget – the biggest film to be shot with a phone to date.
In 2002, 28 Days Later was one of the first Hollywood feature films to be shot with a Canon XL-1 for an intentionally low-fi look. This new flick – which kicks off a new trilogy for the franchise – took inspiration from its original.
Boyle recently explained why he used an adapted iPhone 15 for the job during the London premiere of the film.
The director told The Independent: ‘We decided to shoot it on the upgrade of a domestic video camera. That’s smartphones, they’re everywhere. They are lightweight in the countryside. You can create special rigs with them, filming the violence. But also you can give it to the actors and they can film themselves sometimes.
‘Horror movies let you refresh the palate – you don’t have to go classical.’
He also added to Business Insider: ‘Any smartphone now can record at 4K, indeed up to 60 frames per second, which is more than enough resolution you need for cinema exhibition.’
Boyle went on to reveal how they utilised farm animals to help, explaining: ‘We did strap a camera to some animals a couple of times — yeah, a goat.’ Nice.
Big Man
Stormzy’s new film Big Man was fortunate enough to get their hands on an iPhone 16 Pro for filming… Eat your hear out Danny Boyle. Slow-motion scenes were captured in 4K 120 fps, while cinematic mode was also used to blur backgrounds.
Apple’s short film tells the story of Tenzman, a fed up musician played by Stormzy whose life is changed by two youngsters when they embark on a journey together.
‘I’ve never shot an entire piece of narrative filmmaking on an iPhone before, and it’s been a really invigorating process,’ director Aneil Karia said.
‘iPhone is much smaller than the traditional cameras used for television, film, or music videos, and the lightness and flexibility that comes with that is boundless in a sense.
‘I like trying to strive for an intimacy with characters, and sometimes a big camera is not particularly conducive for that.’
Unsane
Psychological thriller Unsane, starring Claire Foy and Joshua Leonard, was filmed entirely on an iPhone 7 Plus.
Unsane follows a stalking victim called Sawyer Valentini (Foy) who is trapped in a mental institution against her will.
Unsane stars Claire Foy as the protagonist of Unsane
The 2018 film became one of the most high-profile uses of iPhone filming (until 28 Years Later) as its prominent director, Steven Soderbergh, championed the method through it.
‘I think this is the future,’ he told Indiewire. ‘Anyone going to see this movie without any idea of the backstory to the production will have no idea this was shot on the phone.’
High Flying Bird
Soderbergh’s second iPhone-only film came hot off the heels of Unsane in the form of NBA drama High Flying Bird. This time though, an iPhone 8 was used. Fancy!
In it Andre Holland stars as sports agent Ray Burke who tries to accelerate a rookie player’s career in an unusual way.
While it seems unlikely an iPhone would be able to capture the subtle details that make up a tense, dramatic sports film, it’s largely focused on the chatter around the gamerather than the game itself.
‘It was shot in February and March of 2018, in three weeks. It’s a very small crew and the gear that’s available to enhance this already pretty extraordinary capture-device made it even better,’ Soderbergh told The Hollywood Reporter.
‘So, if I had to do it in a more traditional way, it would have actually hurt the film. I was able to do things because of the ease of shooting something.
‘You can basically shoot anything you can think of, you can put the lens anywhere you want. If I were in a more traditional mode, there were things that I wouldn’t have been able to execute as well as I’d wanted, because of the size of the equipment and people necessary to move it around.’
Tangerine
Tangerine, a 2015 film by Sean Baker – who swept the board at the Oscars this year with Anora – was shot entirely on an iPhone 5s using the FiLMIC Pro App, which gives further focus, aperture and colour temperature control.
The independent film, which was met with critical praise and was Sundance Film Festival’s breakout movie, was shot using an iPhone to keep costs low.
‘It was surprisingly easy,’ Baker told The Verge. ‘We never lost any footage.’
Alongside the help of the $8 app, Baker used a Steadicam to stabilise the footage.
‘These phones, because they’re so light, and they’re so small, a human hand – no matter how stable you are – it will shake. And it won’t look good,’ he explained.
They also used an adapter lens that was attached to the iPhone, which was ‘essential’ to make it cinematic.
‘To tell you the truth, I wouldn’t have even made the movie without it,’ he said. ‘It truly elevated it to a cinematic level.’
Searching for Sugar Man
2012’s Oscar-winning film Searching for Sugar Man follows two fans of a South African icon – believed to be dead – as they set out to learn his true fate.
While Swedish filmmaker Malik Bendjelloul didn’t set out for the film to make this list, he ran out of money so was forced to use an iPhone for the final shots.
‘I started shooting this film with a Super 8 camera, which is pretty expensive stuff. I completely ran out of money. I had just a very few shots left, but I needed those shots,’ he told CNN in an interview.
‘I realised that there was this app on my iPhone and I tried it and it looked basically the same.’
The iPhone App in question was called 8mm Vintage Camera, which did a decent job at imitating a real 8mm camera. Good to know.