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Beginning with La Promesse, when they crystallized the realist style of their films (a style that doesn’t characterize any of their earliest works, which were far more conventional), the Dardennes have generally shot their scripts in chronological order. Luc Dardenne told the A.V. Club that “we cannot imagine any other way to work. We are enriched by it, we are nourished by it, and we find new ways and new perspectives to follow—the next step, the next natural scene in the chronology of the movie. Actors we’ve worked with come back and always say it feels more natural. Why? Because it gives time to mature within the film.”

This method of working is notable in Two Days, One Night because the film does leave and return to several locations throughout the narrative. For cost and logistical reasons, film productions usually shoot all scenes from the same location at roughly the same time - doing so saves time as it cuts down on set-up time and/or time reserved in a space as well as transportation and moving of equipment. Since that wasn’t the case with Two Days, One Night, the costs were greater. Jean-Pierre Dardenne told the A.V. Club they often had to “leave the set dressing as it is. We take the lights, but we leave the scenario as it is until we come back. Filming this way allows us to really have a better sense—to feel things better, to feel the decoration, to feel the story, to feel the characters.”