At ALLpaQ, it’s hip to be square. Of course, we would say that. After all, we design and supply bioprocess boxes to the pharma industry.
This got us thinking about our favourite films involving boxes. Different, we know. But there’s actually more classic movies out there featuring our four-sided friend than you might think. So many, in fact, that we had to narrow it down to five.

Here our top 5 box office hits

5. Hellraiser

We had to stick a pin (head) in this one. A classic horror movie in every sense of the word. Lemarchand’s box – which doubles as Pandora’s – features prominently throughout Clive Barker’s Hellraiser movie series. Get the configuration right and all hell is raised – literally.

4. No Country For Old Men

A modern masterpiece centring around the classic ‘what if scenario’ – an eager nod by the Coen Brothers to the cinematic stylings of directors such as Alfred Hitchcock and Sam Peckinpah.
What if Llewellyn takes the box full of money? He does. It could go one of two ways. Rather than sunning himself on a Caribbean beach though, the character meets with a Greek Tragedy of an ending.
His fate is sealed by the flip of the coin wielding antagonist, Anton Chigurh. To open the box or not to open the box, that is the question. The answer, the film would suggest, is as random as life itself.

3. Old Boy

A chain reaction from No Country actor, Josh Brolin. But we’re not talking about the Brolin fronted 2013 remake, we’re talking about director Park Chan-wook’s original outing.
The film follows Oh Dae-Su, played by Min-sik Choi, who is trapped in a literal Pandora’s box for 15 years. Once released, the character must think outside the box to find his captor.

2. Buried

Paul is a US truck driver working in Iraq. After an apparent attack, he awakens to find he is buried alive inside a box. With only a lighter and a cell phone for company, it’s a race against time to escape this claustrophobic death trap.
A tense, twisted one-location nightmare which takes place in a box. Buried makes it to number 2.

1. Se7en

“What’s in the box?” The climactic finale of Se7en makes it our number one movie about boxes.
The symphony of information is inferred with slow reveal to the viewer. Director David Fincher plays the scene out note by note with the precision of a concert pianist. Somerset opens the box. The contents remain unspecified, his horrified reaction our only indicator to what lies within.
Se7en is head and shoulders above the rest.

Honourable mentions

• The Box
• 7 Boxes
• 12 Angry Men
• Kill Bill Part 2

Do you agree with these movies? Have we missed any box office hits off the list?

Author

Phill Allen

Managing Director

An in and outside the (bioprocess) box thinker, fluid management specialist Phill knows a thing or two about keeping pharma liquid logistics flowing.

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