Feeling “a sensation of whirling and loss of balance, associated particularly with looking down from a great height” in real life is rarely pleasant. But feeling this sensation while watching a movie can be a wonderful experience. Even if it involves the slight puckering of a certain orifice.
I have always been drawn to films that exploit the cinematic possibilities of vertigo. Tall buildings, cliffs, mountains, bridges, sometimes (but mostly not) planes, hot air balloons and even a tall ladder can provide the circumstances to help a film lean vertiginous.
There is a nebulous art to depicting phobia-inducing height in movies. It can be difficult to specify why it is effective in some instances and not in others. It’s often the puckering that suggests something has worked in this regard: a primal, physical fear response.
Sometimes the vertigo is at the center of the film and helps to carry its themes, like a particular Alfred Hitchcock movie. Other times a vertiginous scene can be an inciting incident, or even just a powerful moment that has no bearing on the rest of the movie. Like the rope-bridge finale from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Or that memorably random bit in Malignant where a car is parked right next to a cliff for no apparent reason other than James Wan wanting to inject his movie with a little acrophobia.
Vertigo in cinema is not constrained to any one genre, but it tends to have more of a presence in thrillers and action movies. We are limiting these selections to scripted features, which precludes notable potential entries such as Man on Wire, Free Solo and Skywalkers: A Love Story.
This starter pack includes films that repeatedly highlight vertiginous circumstances, as well as films with a single, memorably dizzying moment. There’s a wide variety here. But they all, as mentioned, are apt to leave you tightening a certain aperture.
