short film essay

How to Write a Film Analysis Essay: Examples, Outline, & Tips

A film analysis essay might be the most exciting assignment you have ever had! After all, who doesn’t love watching movies? You have your favorite movies, maybe something you watched years ago, perhaps a classic, or a documentary. Or your professor might assign a film for you to make a critical review. Regardless, you are totally up for watching a movie for a film analysis essay.

However, once you have watched the movie, facing the act of writing might knock the wind out of your sails because you might be wondering how to write a film analysis essay. In summary, writing movie analysis is not as difficult as it might seem, and Custom-writing.org experts will prove this. This guide will help you choose a topic for your movie analysis, make an outline, and write the text.️ Film analysis examples are added as a bonus! Just keep reading our advice on how to get started.

❓ What Is a Film Analysis Essay?

• 🚦 Film Analysis Types

📽️ Movie Analysis Format

✍️ how to write a film analysis, 🎦 film analysis template, 🎬 film analysis essay topics.

• 📄 Essay Examples

🔗 References

To put it simply, film analysis implies watching a movie and then considering its characteristics : genre, structure, contextual context, etc. Film analysis is usually considered to be a form of rhetorical analysis . The key to success here is to formulate a clear and logical argument, supporting it with examples.

🚦 Film Analysis Essay Types

Since a film analysis essay resembles literature analysis, it makes sense that there are several ways to do it. Its types are not limited to the ones described here. Moreover, you are free to combine the approaches in your essay as well. Since your writing reflects your own opinion, there is no universal way to do it.

• Semiotic analysis . If you’re using this approach, you are expected to interpret the film’s symbolism. You should look for any signs that may have a hidden meaning. Often, they reveal some character’s features. To make the task more manageable, you can try to find the objects or concepts that appear on the screen multiple times. What is the context they appear in? It might lead you to the hidden meaning of the symbols.
• Narrative structure analysis . This type is quite similar to a typical literature guide. It includes looking into the film’s themes, plot, and motives. The analysis aims to identify three main elements: setup, confrontation, and resolution. You should find out whether the film follows this structure and what effect it creates. It will make the narrative structure analysis essay if you write about the theme and characters’ motivations as well.
• Contextual analysis . Here, you would need to expand your perspective. Instead of focusing on inner elements, the contextual analysis looks at the time and place of the film’s creation. Therefore, you should work on studying the cultural context a lot. It can also be a good idea to mention the main socio-political issues of the time. You can even relate the film’s success to the director or producer and their career.
• Mise-en-scene analysis . This type of analysis works with the most distinctive feature of the movies, audiovisual elements. However, don’t forget that your task is not only to identify them but also to explain their importance. There are so many interconnected pieces of this puzzle: the light to create the mood, the props to show off characters’ personalities, messages hidden in the song lyrics.

To write an effective film analysis essay, it is important to follow specific format requirements that include the following:

• Standard essay structure. Just as with any essay, your analysis should consist of an introduction with a strong thesis statement, body paragraphs, and a conclusion. The main body usually includes a summary and an analysis of the movie’s elements.
• Present tense for events in the film. Use the present tense when describing everything that happens in the movie. This way, you can make smooth transitions between describing action and dialogue. It will also improve the overall narrative flow.
• Proper formatting of the film’s title. Don’t enclose the movie’s title in quotation marks; instead, italicize it. In addition, use the title case : that is, capitalize all major words.
• Proper use of the characters’ names. When you mention a film character for the first time, name the actor portraying them. After that, it is enough to write only the character’s name.
• In-text citations. Use in-text citations when describing certain scenes or shots from the movie. Format them according to your chosen citation style. If you use direct quotes, include the time-stamp range instead of page numbers. Here’s how it looks in the MLA format: (Smith 0:11:24–0:12:35).

Even though film analysis is similar to the literary one, you might still feel confused with where to begin. No need to worry; there are only a few additional steps you need to consider during the writing process.

Need more information? It can be found in the video below.

Starting Your Film Analysis Essay

There are several things you need to do before you start writing your film analysis paper. First and foremost, you have to watch the movie. Even if you have seen it a hundred times, you need to watch it again to make a good film analysis essay.

Note that you might be given an essay topic or have to think of it by yourself. If you are free to choose a topic for your film analysis essay, reading some critical reviews before you watch the film might be a good idea. By doing this in advance, you will already know what to look for when watching the movie.

In the process of watching, keep the following tips in mind:

• Consider your impression of the movie
• Enumerate memorable details
• Try to interpret the movie message in your way
• Search for the proof of your ideas (quotes from the film)
• Make comments on the plot, settings, and characters
• Draw parallels between the movie you are reviewing and some other movies

Making a Film Analysis Essay Outline

Once you have watched and possibly re-watched your assigned or chosen movie from an analytical point of view, you will need to create a movie analysis essay outline . The task is pretty straightforward: the outline can look just as if you were working on a literary analysis or an article analysis.

• Introduction : This includes the basics of the movie, including the title, director, and the date of release. You should also present the central theme or ideas in the movie and your thesis statement .
• Summary : This is where you take the time to present an overview of the primary concepts in the movie, including the five Ws (who, what, when, where, and why)—don’t forget how!—as well as anything you wish to discuss that relates to the point of view, style, and structure.
• Analysis : This is the body of the essay and includes your critical analysis of the movie, why you did or did not like it, and any supporting material from the film to support your views. It would help if you also discussed whether the director and writer of the movie achieved the goal they set out to achieve.
• Conclusion: This is where you can state your thesis again and provide a summary of the primary concepts in a new and more convincing manner, making a case for your analysis. You can also include a call-to-action that will invite the reader to watch the movie or avoid it entirely.

You can find a great critical analysis template at Thompson Rivers University website. In case you need more guidance on how to write an analytical paper, check out our article .

Writing & Editing Your Film Analysis Essay

We have already mentioned that there are differences between literary analysis and film analysis. They become especially important when one starts writing their film analysis essay.

First of all, the evidence you include to support the arguments is not the same. Instead of quoting the text, you might need to describe the audiovisual elements.

However, the practice of describing the events is similar in both types. You should always introduce a particular sequence in the present tense. If you want to use a piece of a dialogue between more than two film characters, you can use block quotes. However, since there are different ways to do it, confirm with your supervisor.

For your convenience, you might as well use the format of the script, for which you don’t have to use quotation marks:

ELSA: But she won’t remember I have powers?

KING: It’s for the best.

Finally, to show off your proficiency in the subject, look at the big picture. Instead of just presenting the main elements in your analysis, point out their significance. Describe the effect they make on the overall impression form the film. Moreover, you can dig deeper and suggest the reasons why such elements were used in a particular scene to show your expertise.

Stuck writing a film analysis essay? Worry not! Use our template to structure your movie analysis properly.

Introduction

• The title of the film is… [title]
• The director is… [director’s name] He/she is known for… [movies, style, etc.]
• The movie was released on… [release date]
• The themes of the movie are… [state the film’s central ideas]
• The film was made because… [state the reasons]
• The movie is… because… [your thesis statement].
• The main characters are… [characters’ names]
• The events take place in… [location]
• The movie is set in… [time period]
• The movie is about… [state what happens in the film and why]
• The movie left a… [bad, unforgettable, lasting, etc.] impression in me.
• The script has… [a logical sequence of events, interesting scenes, strong dialogues, character development, etc.]
• The actors portray their characters… [convincingly, with intensity, with varying degree of success, in a manner that feels unnatural, etc.]
• The soundtrack is [distracting, fitting, memorable, etc.]
• Visual elements such as… [costumes, special effects, etc.] make the film [impressive, more authentic, atmospheric, etc.]
• The film succeeds/doesn’t succeed in engaging the target audience because it… [tells a compelling story, features strong performances, is relevant, lacks focus, is unauthentic, etc.]
• Cultural and societal aspects make the film… [thought-provoking, relevant, insightful, problematic, polarizing, etc.]
• The director and writer achieved their goal because… [state the reasons]
• Overall, the film is… [state your opinion]
• I would/wouldn’t recommend watching the movie because… [state the reasons]
• Analysis of the film Inception by Christopher Nolan .
• Examine the rhetoric in the film The Red Balloon .
• Analyze the visual effects of Zhang Yimou’s movie Hero .
• Basic concepts of the film Interstellar by Christopher Nolan.
• The characteristic features of Federico Fellini’s movies.  
• Analysis of the movie The Joker .
• The depiction of ethical issues in Damaged Care .  
• Analyze the plot of the film Moneyball .
• Explore the persuasive techniques used in Henry V .
• Analyze the movie Killing Kennedy .
• Discuss the themes of the film Secret Window .
• Describe the role of audio and video effects in conveying the message of the documentary Life in Renaissance .  
• Compare and analyze the films Midnight Cowboy and McCabe and Mrs. Miller .  
• Analysis of the movie Rear Window . 
• The message behind the film Split .
• Analyze the techniques used by Tim Burton in his movie Sleepy Hollow .
• The topic of children’s abuse and importance of trust in Joseph Sargent’s Sybil .
• Examine the themes and motives of the film Return to Paradise by Joseph Ruben.
• The issues of gender and traditions in the drama The Whale Rider.   
• Analysis of the film Not Easily Broken by Duke Bill. 
• The symbolism in R. Scott’s movie Thelma and Louise .
• The meaning of audiovisual effects in Citizen Kane .  
• Analyze the main characters of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo .  
• Discuss the historical accuracy of the documentary The Civil War .  
• Analysis of the movie Through a Glass Darkly . 
• Explore the core idea of the comedy Get Out .
• The problem of artificial intelligence and human nature in Ex Machina .  
• Three principles of suspense used in the drama The Fugitive .
• Examine the ideas Michael Bay promotes in Armageddon .
• Analyze the visual techniques used in Tenet by Christopher Nolan.
• Analysis of the movie The Green Mile .
• Discrimination and exclusion in the film The Higher Learning .  
• The hidden meaning of the scenes in Blade Runner .
• Compare the social messages of the films West Side Story and Romeo + Juliet .
• Highlighting the problem of children’s mental health in the documentary Kids in Crisis .
• Discuss the ways Paul Haggis establishes the issue of racial biases in his movie Crash .
• Analyze the problem of moral choice in the film Gone Baby Gone .
• Analysis of the historical film Hacksaw Ridge .
• Explore the main themes of the film Mean Girls by Mark Walters .
• The importance of communication in the movie Juno .
• Describe the techniques the authors use to highlight the problems of society in Queen and Slim .  
• Examine the significance of visual scenes in My Family/ Mi Familia .  
• Analysis of the thriller Salt by Phillip Noyce. 
• Analyze the message of Greg Berlanti’s film Love, Simon .
• Interpret the symbols of the film The Wizard of Oz (1939).
• Discuss the modern issues depicted in the film The Corporation .
• Moral lessons of Edward Zwick’s Blood Diamond . 
• Analysis of the documentary Solitary Nation . 
• Describe the audiovisual elements of the film Pride and Prejudice (2005) .
• The problem of toxic relationships in Malcolm and Marie .

📄 Film Analysis Examples

Below you’ll find two film analysis essay examples. Note that the full versions are downloadable for free!

Film Analysis Example #1: The Intouchables

Raising acute social problems in modern cinema is a common approach to draw the public’s attention to the specific issues and challenges of people facing crucial obstacles. As a film for review, The Intouchables by Oliver Nakache and Éric Toledano will be analyzed, and one of the themes raised in this movie is the daily struggle of the person with severe disabilities. This movie is a biographical drama with comedy elements. The Intouchables describes the routine life of a French millionaire who is confined to a wheelchair and forced to receive help from his servants. The acquaintance of the disabled person with a young and daring man from Parisian slums changes the lives of both radically. The film shows that for a person with disabilities, recognition as a full member of society is more important than sympathy and compassion, and this message expressed comically raises an essential problem of human loneliness.

Movie Analysis Example #2: Parasite

Parasite is a 2019 South Korean black comedy thriller movie directed by Bong Joon-ho and is the first film with a non-English script to win Best Picture at the Oscars in 2020. With its overwhelming plot and acting, this motion picture retains a long-lasting effect and some kind of shock. The class serves as a backbone and a primary objective of social commentary within the South Korean comedy/thriller (Kench, 2020). Every single element and detail in the movie, including the student’s stone, the contrasting architecture, family names, and characters’ behavior, contribute to the central topic of the universal problem of classism and wealth disparity. The 2020 Oscar-winning movie Parasite (2019) is a phenomenal cinematic portrayal and a critical message to modern society regarding the severe outcomes of the long-established inequalities within capitalism.

Want more examples? Check out this bonus list of 10 film analysis samples. They will help you gain even more inspiration.

• “Miss Representation” Documentary Film Analysis
• “The Patriot”: Historical Film Analysis
• “The Morning Guy” Film Analysis
• 2012′ by Roland Emmerich Film Analysis
• “The Crucible” (1996) Film Analysis
• The Aviator’ by Martin Scorsese Film Analysis
• The “Lions for Lambs” Film Analysis
• Bill Monroe – Father of Bluegrass Music Film Analysis
• Lord of the Rings’ and ‘Harry Potter’ Film Analysis
• Red Tails by George Lucas Film Analysis

Film Analysis Essay FAQ

• Watch the movie or read a detailed plot summary.
• Read others’ film reviews paying attention to details like key characters, movie scenes, background facts.
• Compose a list of ideas about what you’ve learned.
• Organize the selected ideas to create a body of the essay.
• Write an appropriate introduction and conclusion.

The benefits of analyzing a movie are numerous . You get a deeper understanding of the plot and its subtle aspects. You can also get emotional and aesthetic satisfaction. Film analysis enables one to feel like a movie connoisseur.

Here is a possible step by step scenario:

• Think about the general idea that the author probably wanted to convey.
• Consider how the idea was put across: what characters, movie scenes, and details helped in it.
• Study the broader context: the author’s other works, genre essentials, etc.

The definition might be: the process of interpreting a movie’s aspects. The movie is reviewed in terms of details creating the artistic value. A film analysis essay is a paper presenting such a review in a logically structured way.

• Film Analysis – UNC Writing Center
• Film Writing: Sample Analysis // Purdue Writing Lab
• Yale Film Analysis – Yale University
• Film Terms And Topics For Film Analysis And Writing
• Questions for Film Analysis (Washington University)
• Resources on Film Analysis – Cinema Studies (University of Toronto)
• Does Film Analysis Take the Magic out of Movies?
• Film Analysis Research Papers – Academia.edu
• What’s In a Film Analysis Essay? Medium
• Analysis of Film – SAGE Research Methods
• Share to Facebook
• Share to LinkedIn
• Share to email

A critique paper is an academic writing genre that summarizes and gives a critical evaluation of a concept or work. Or, to put it simply, it is no more than a summary and a critical analysis of a specific issue. This type of writing aims to evaluate the impact of...

What is a creative essay, if not the way to express yourself? Crafting such a paper is a task that allows you to communicate your opinion and tell a story. However, even using your imagination to a great extent doesn’t free you from following academic writing rules. Don’t even get...

A compare and contrast essay — what is it? In this type of paper, you compare two different things or ideas, highlighting what is similar between the two, and you also contrast them, highlighting what is different. The two things might be events, people, books, points of view, lifestyles, or...

What is an expository essay? This type of writing aims to inform the reader about the subject clearly, concisely, and objectively. The keyword here is “inform”. You are not trying to persuade your reader to think a certain way or let your own opinions and emotions cloud your work. Just stick to the...

Have you ever tried to write a story analysis but ended up being completely confused and lost? Well, the task might be challenging if you don’t know the essential rules for literary analysis creation. But don’t get frustrated! We know how to write a short story analysis, and we are...

Have you ever tried to get somebody round to your way of thinking? Then you should know how daunting the task is. Still, if your persuasion is successful, the result is emotionally rewarding. A persuasive essay is a type of writing that uses facts and logic to argument and substantiate...

One of the most critical skills that students gain during their college years is assignment writing. Composing impressive essays and research papers can be quite challenging, especially for ESL students. Nonetheless, before learning the art of academic writing, you may make numerous common essay mistakes. Such involuntary errors appear in:...

You’re probably thinking: I’m no Mahatma Gandhi or Steve Jobs—what could I possibly write in my memoir? I don’t even know how to start an autobiography, let alone write the whole thing. But don’t worry: essay writing can be easy, and this autobiography example for students is here to show...

Some people know which profession to choose from childhood, while others decide much later in life. However, and whenever you come to it, you may have to elaborate on it in your personal statement or cover letter. This is widely known as “Why I Want to Be a Teacher” essay.

Assigned with an essay about friendship? Congrats! It’s one of the best tasks you could get. Digging through your memories and finding strong arguments for this paper can be an enjoyable experience. I bet you will cope with this task effortlessly as we can help you with the assignment. Just...

When you are assigned an autobiography to write, tens, and even hundreds of questions start buzzing in your head. How to write autobiography essay parts? What to include? How to make your autobiography writing flow? Don’t worry about all this and use the following three simple principles and 15 creative...

A life experience essay combines the elements of narration, description, and self-reflection. Such a paper has to focus on a single event that had a significant impact on a person’s worldview and values. Writing an essay about life experience prompts students to do the following: You may struggle with such...

Have you ever read a review and asked yourself how the critic arrived at a different interpretation for the film? You are sure that you saw the same movie, but you interpreted it differently. Most moviegoers go to the cinema for pleasure and entertainment. There’s a reason why blockbuster movies attract moviegoers – cinema is a form of escape, a way to momentarily walk away from life’s troubles.

EXCELENT COVERAGE!

Hi Rebecca,

Glad you liked the post. Sure thing, feel free to share the link with your audience!

All the best.

Step By Step Guide to Writing an Essay on Film

By Film Threat Staff | December 29, 2021

Writing an essay about a film sounds like a fun assignment to do. As part of the assignment, you get to watch the movie and write an analytical essay about your impressions. However, you will soon find that you’re staring at an empty sheet of paper or computer screen with no idea what to write, how to start writing your essay, or the essential points that need to be covered and analyzed. As an  essay writing service proves, watching the movie countless times isn’t all there is to write a film analysis essay. Here’s a step-by-step guide to help you with an essay service :

1. Watch the Movie

This is the obvious starting point, but surprisingly many students skip this step. It doesn’t matter if you’ve watched the movie twice before. If you’re asked to write an essay about it, you need to watch it again. Watching the film again allows you to pay more attention to specific elements to help you write an in-depth analysis about it.  

Watching the movie is crucial because it helps you not specific parts of the movie that can be used as illustrations and examples in your essay. You’re also going to explore and analyze the movie theme within your structured plan. Some of the critical elements that you have to look out for while watching the movie that may be crucial for your essay are:

• Key plot moments
• Editing style
• Stylistic elements
• Scenario execution
• Musical elements

2. Introduction

Your introduction will contain essential information about the film, such as the title, release date, director’s name, etc. This familiarizes the reader with the movie’s primary background information. In addition, researching the filmmaker may be crucial for your essay because it may help you discover valuable insights for your film analysis.

The introduction should also mention the movie’s central theme and explain why you think it was made that way.

Do not forget to include your thesis statement, which explains your focus on the movie.

3. Write a Summary

According to an  essay writing service  providing students   help with essays , a movie summary comes after the introduction. It includes the film’s basic premise, but it doesn’t have to reveal too many details about the film. It’s a summary, after all. Write the summary like your readers have not heard about the movie before, so you can mention the most basic plots but assume you have minimal time so you won’t be going into great details.

4. Write Your Analysis

This is the central part of the essay in which you analyze the movie critically and state your impressions about the film. Ensure to support your claims with relevant materials from the movie.

There are also several creative elements in a movie that are connected to make the film a whole. You must pay attention to these elements while watching the movie and analyze them in this part of the essay.

In this, you are looking out for the dialogs, character development, completion of scenes, and logical event sequences in the film to analyze.

Ensure you try to understand the logic behind events in the film and the actor’s motives to explain the scenario better.

The responsibility of different parts of the movie, such as plan selection and scenario execution, falls on the director. So, your analysis here focuses on how the director realized the script compared to his other movies. Understanding the director’s style of directing may be crucial to coming up with a conclusion relevant to your analysis and thesis.

The casting of a film is a significant element to consider in your essay. Without a great actor, the scriptwriter and director can’t bring their ideas to life. So, watch the actor’s acting and determine if they portrayed the character effectively and if their acting aligns with the film’s main idea.

• Musical element

A movie’s musical element enhances some of the sceneries or actions in the film and sets the mood. It has a massive impact on the movie, so it’s an essential element to analyze in your essay.

• Visual elements

This includes special effects, make-up, costumes, etc., which significantly impact the film. These elements must reflect the film’s atmosphere. It is even more crucial for historical movies since it has to be specific about an era.

Ensure to analyze elements relevant to your thesis statement, so you don’t drift from your main point.

5. Conclusion

In concluding your essay, you have to summarize the primary concepts more convincingly to support your analysis. Finally, you may include a CTA for readers to watch or avoid the movie.

These are the crucial steps to take when writing an essay about a film . Knowing this beforehand prevents you from struggling to start writing after watching the movie.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

… [Trackback]

[…] Find More Info here to that Topic: filmthreat.com/features/step-by-step-guide-to-writing-an-essay-on-film/ […]

[…] Read More: filmthreat.com/features/step-by-step-guide-to-writing-an-essay-on-film/ […]

It’s really amazing instructions! I have got the great knowledge.

[…] now and then. Unfortunately, not all of us can afford to get cinema tickets to do so.  Some…Writing an essay about a film sounds like a fun assignment to do. As part of the assignment, you get…Since a few decades the film and entertainment sector have undergone some drastic transformation. […]

I can’t list the number of essays that don’t follow this format in the least. But then I find most reviews of movies terrible and most people who purport themselves to be writers as people who need to spend more time drafting and editing before publishing.

Thanks for this

Is Movie Streaming the Next Step for NFT?

Since a few decades the film and entertainment sector have undergone some drastic transformation. The first ever format to bring movies in the household...

How To Get A New Netflix Series On Your Subscription?

There are also some problems in getting new Netflix series on your subscription because of geo-restriction. If you are not in the USA then you still can't...

Amazing CBD Movies And TV Shows To Enjoy On Weekends 

Most avid consumers of CBD attribute their love for it to cinemas and movies. The media always adds a touch of pizzazz to all that has to do with various...

8 Steps to Enjoy a Boring Movie

Sometimes, movies can be boring. Maybe your spouse dragged you to the theatres to watch a romantic comedy that made you fall asleep? Or maybe you went on a...

What Can We Learn from Netflix’s All-Time Top 10 movies?

Our excitement for the weekend never fades, and we begin making plans from the weekdays. Weekdays are too busy to relax and watch Netflix, so the weekends...

Where to Get Your Fill of Fantasy

Reality can be incredible, but nothing beats the feeling of stepping into a new world filled with magic, mystery, and excitement. We all need a break from...

Join our Film Threat Newsletter

Writing a Short Film

The key to writing a short film is to keep it simple. It’s just not possible to squeeze a feature film idea or a particularly complex idea into a short format and do it justice. It’s a bit like trying to squeeze a novel into a short story – they’re different animals.

• Focus on One Core Idea

Multi-layered stories aren’t going to work and neither are stories, which rely heavily on the main character’s back-story. You simply will not have time to explore back-story. It’s also best to avoid subplots, numerous characters, multi-protagonists, expensive set pieces, and stories set in two or more different time periods.

• Scope Your Story

Once you have a basic story idea, there are some questions to be asked and a number of decisions to be made:

• What is the core idea? What is my story about? (Premise)
• Who is it about? (Protagonist)
• What is the genre and style of my screenplay?
• Who or what is giving the Protagonist grief? (Antagonist)
• What is the question of my story?
• Whose POV is the story told from?
• What happens in my story? (Plot)
• How does it happen? (Structure)
• What is my screenplay about thematically?
• How can I convey my plot, action and theme in images?

Try to write your story idea down in a single sentence as in: This story is about a ________ who ________ and ________ but then ________ . #icon-1.g1-icon { color: #55acee; }

Know Your Protagonist

• Know Your Antagonist

An antagonist can take many forms, anything from another character or monster to a force of nature or a council with a new bylaw. It or they is whatever is making the Protagonist’s life difficult.

• Define Your Genre

Ask yourself – what type of film will this be made into? And what will the audience expect from a film in this genre? This is not about crushing experimentation or creativity but more as a reminder to self as you proceed, that your original goal was to write a short screenplay that scared / moved / amused / shocked the audience. When you get stuck, you can go back to this intention to remind yourself of your original goal.

• Define the Tone and Style

You may also like to clarify for yourself what tone and style you have in mind, as this will influence the way you write your action and your dialogue. In the end the tone will be dictated by the director and the performances he/she elicits from actors, but the screenplay still establishes the foundations of the film’s ultimate tone by choices made by the writer in their characters, plot, direction (or big print), symbolism and dialogue.

• Decide on the Point of View

Whose Point Of View (POV) are we seeing this story through? Is it the protagonist or is someone else narrating the story? There are numerous examples of this type of narration – two that spring to mind are “Ray” (d. & w. Tony Mahony) and “Zinky Boys Go Underground” (d.Paul Tickell, w.Adsid Tantimedh).

• Focus on the Central Question

For a great example of a simple, universal story with a simple question, watch the Oscar nominated Two Cars, One Night (Taika Waititi).

• Weaving the Plot

Brainstorm for possible events in the story without censoring yourself. Ask – what could possibly happen to my character given his/her situation? What could he/she possibly do? And then – what might happen as a result of his/her actions? Many elements will influence what happens in your story, including genre, pace and what you’re hoping to elicit from your audience. If you’re writing a comedy and you want the audience to laugh, then some funny stuff should be happening in your plot.

• Reconstructing the Plot

When you’re re-drafting, you may realize that certain plot points or actions just don’t work in the genre you’ve chosen or they don’t illustrate the theme well or distract from the story you want to tell. At this point, you’ll change the plot points to find a more satisfying series of events and actions – and hopefully a more satisfying story.

• Identifying the Theme

In an idea about the man trying to keep his dog – the theme might be loneliness or the desire to be loved. It could even be about the ridiculous nature of bureaucracy. And once you have identified what your story is about on a deeper level it can help you to improve the piece and give it unity by asking – do my images, symbols, music, motifs, scenarios and locations reflect my theme?

Re-writing a Short Film

• Find More Efficient Ways to Convey Information

• Images/Symbolism
• Sound/Music
• Recurring Motif
• Choice of Location
• Effective / Visual Characterization
• Make Every Word of Dialogue Count

Ask yourself – how can I convey this same meaning in fewer words? When you are editing consider the following:

• Is the same thing being said twice?
• Can lines be replaced with an action that conveys the same meaning?
• Is the dialogue telling us something we can see?
• Is verbal conflict moving the story forward or revealing information about the character? If not – why is it there?
• Is the exposition natural or clumsy?
• Is the dialogue true to this type of character?

If your character’s dialogue isn’t moving the story forward, revealing information about them or someone else then it probably needs editing or re-writing.

Tip: Read your dialogue out loud. You’ll very rapidly discover what sounds clunky and long-winded. #icon-2.g1-icon { color: #55acee; }

Take a Break – Then Re-evaluate Your First Draft

• What is the core idea of this script?
• What genre am I in?
• What emotions do I want to create in the audience?

Examine the main character, main and plot points – do they contribute to the core idea of your script? Is there too much back-story? Is all the interesting stuff happening in the past? If so, re-think your core story. What is the story or story element that excites you?

Examine Each Scene

Ask yourself:

• What is the purpose of this scene?*
• Does this scene contribute to the core idea?
• Does this scene end on a question that will lead the reader/viewer into the rest of the story?
• If a scene isn’t working – can I brainstorm another idea for the scene?
• Have I given too much screen time to unimportant or minor characters?
• What is the question posed by the beginning of your story? Does my script answer it? (If your script revolves around a bank robbery, your climax can’t be about the robber’s marriage break up.

*If you can’t answer the question that’s a good indicator that the scene might be redundant.

© Kathryn Burnett 2015

Shortfilm Writing Checklist:

• Who is the Protagonist?

Re-writing a Short Film:

• Take a Break – Then Re-evaluate Your First Draft

Screenplay Checklist

There are 8 common mistakes that can send a script on the reject pile – even if the idea is good. Give your screenplay a fighting chance with this checklist. Read the article or sign up free to download the checklist (and heaps of other free resources) from Filmsourcing members area.

Pingback: Bibliography. – Hayley Dean – Unit 7

Pin It on Pinterest

Be first to hear about new resources

• 5.5k Followers
• 8.5k Followers
• 170 Followers
• 460 Followers
• 1k Followers

Essays About Films: Top 5 Examples and 10 Prompts

Get ready to binge-watch some of the best films of all time and write essays about films with our essay examples and prompts. 

Films are an exciting part of the entertainment industry. From romance to science fiction, there is a film genre for everyone. Films are a welcome escape from reality, providing a few hours of immersive entertainment that anyone can enjoy. Not only are films masterful works of art, but they are also great sources of employment for many. As a work of intellectual property, films can promote job creation and drive economic growth while advancing a country’s cultural esteem. With such a vast library of films available to us, many topics of discussion are available for your next essay.

5 Intriguing Film Essays

1. scream therapy: the mental health benefits of horror movies by michael varrati, 2. reel truth: is film school worth it by jon gann, 3. why parasite’s success is forcing a reckoning in japan’s film industry by eric margolis, 4. streaming services want to fill the family movie void by nicole sperling, 5. church, critics say new movie on marcos family distorts philippine history by camille elemia, 10 engaging writing prompts on essays about films, 1. the best film that influenced me, 2. the evolution of animated films, 3. women in modern films, 4. creating short films, 5. diversity in films, 6. film critique of my favorite film, 7. how covid-19 changed the film industry, 8. promoting independent films , 9. importance of marketing strategies in films’ success, 10. how to combat film piracy.

“Galvanized by the genre’s ability to promote empathy and face down the ineffable monsters of our daily lives, Barkan’s exploration of how others use horror to heal and grow speaks to the wider impact of our engagement with these movies that are so often dismissed as having little moral value.”

Initially criticized for enabling sadistic tendencies, horror films are now proven to provide a relieving experience and psychological ease to their audience. Numerous theories about the mental health benefits of watching horror films have emerged. But beyond these profound reasons, horror films could be a great source of thrilling fun. You might also be interested in these essays about The Great Gatsby .

 “These programs are great at selling the dream of filmmaking, but rarely the realities of the business, so students graduate with few real-world skills, connections, or storytelling ability. Unable to get a job out of school, newly minted “filmmakers” go back into the system for a higher graduate degree… The cycle is self-perpetuating, and rarely benefits anyone, except the institution’s bottom line.”

One has to weigh several personal and external factors in determining whether a full degree would be worth the leap and their pockets. Directors spill the beans on their thoughts and experiences with film school to help the lost find their way. 

“Japanese cinema was trending on Japanese Twitter right after the Oscars, with cinephiles and film directors alike airing grievances about a film industry that is deeply flawed despite ample talent and a global appetite for Japanese goods.”

The Japanese lamented their lackluster film industry and waning cultural influence worldwide as the first Korean film took home the Oscars. Reminiscing its golden years of film in the mid-20th century, Japan is stricken with nostalgia. But for the industry to see a renaissance, Japan has to end exploitative labor conditions for creators and censorship.

“The decline today is due to a combination of factors: a hangover from the pandemic, efforts by studios like Disney and Paramount to bolster their own streaming services with fresh content and the risks of greenlighting family films that aren’t based on well-known intellectual property.”

The latest trend in the race to rule film streaming compensates for the lack of family movies in theaters. Giant video-on-demand platforms have started rolling their production and investments into the genre plans for animation and even expensive live-action.

“The film… has amplified existing online narratives that portray the elder Marcos’ presidency as the “golden era” of the Philippines rather than as the darkest chapter of the Southeast Asian country’s recent history, as critics allege.”

A film in the Philippines draws crowds and criticisms for revising facts in one of the country’s most painful periods. But, overall, the movie paints a positive image of the dictator’s family, whose two-decade reign was marked by murders and an economic crisis that was among the worst to hit the country.

Beyond being a source of entertainment, films have the power to shape how we lead our lives and view the world. In this essay, talk about the film that etched an indelible mark on you. First, provide a summary and specify what drew you to the story or its storytelling. Next, narrate the scenes that moved you the most. Finally, explain how you relate to this film and if you would have wanted a similar or different ending to your story and personal life. 

Animated films used to be a treat mainly for children. But now, their allure cuts across generations. For your essay, look into the history of animated films. Find out which countries are the biggest influencers in animated films and how they have fostered these intellectual properties to thrive in global markets. Research how the global direction of animation is heading, both in theatrical releases and streaming, and what animation fans can expect in the next few months.

Have the roles of women progressed in modern films? Or do they remain to be damsels in distress saved by a prince? Watch recent popular films, explain how they depict women, and answer these questions in your essay. Take note of apparent stereotypes and the depth of their character. Compare how they differ from the most popular films in the 90s. You can also compare original films and remakes and focus on the changes in women characters.  

Short films are great starting points for budding directors. They could require much less financing than those in theater releases and still deliver satisfactory quality content. For this essay, brief the readers through the stages of short film production — writing the script, choosing the cast, production, marketing, and so on. To go the extra mile in your essay, interview award-winning short filmmakers to gain tips on how they best optimize their limited budget and still bag an award.  

Has the film industry promoted diversity and inclusivity in its cast selection? Explore recent diverse films and analyze whether they have captured the true meaning of diversity. One example is when people from underrepresented backgrounds take on the leading roles, not just the story’s sidekicks. You can also build on this research by the Center for Scholars and Storytellers to show the revenue challenges non-diverse films face at the box office.

Watch your favorite film and write a critique by expressing opinions on various aspects of the film. For example, you can have comments on the plot, execution, effects, cinematography, actors, and dialogue. Take time to relay your observations and analysis, as these will be the foundations that will determine the strength or weakness of your comments. 

As it has impacted many of us, COVID-19 accelerated how we watch films. Explore the exodus to streaming during the pandemic and how theater operators cope with this shift. In addition, you can look into how the competition among content producers has shifted and intensified. 

Independent films can be a hidden treasure, but it could be difficult to sell them, given how niche their concepts can be. So, find out the best strategies that have worked wonders for now successful independent filmmakers. Specifically, learn how they marketed their content online and in film festivals. Then, find out what forms of support the government is extending to high-caliber independent filmmakers and what could be done to help them thrive.

The biggest mistake made by filmmakers and producers is not marketing their films when marketing is the best way to reach a bigger audience and gain profits to make more films. This essay should provide readers with the best practices filmmakers can adopt when marketing a film. For example, directors, producers, and actors should aggressively attend events for promotion. Developing viral movie campaigns also provide a big boost to exposure. 

As more films are released digitally, filmmakers must better protect their intellectual property. First, write about the needed measures before the film release, such as adopting a digital rights management strategy. Next, lay down what production companies need to do to deter piracy activities immediately. Some good responses include working closely with enforcement authorities.

Don’t forget to proofread your essay with Grammarly , the best grammar checker. 

For more related topic ideas, you can also check our guide for writing essays about cinema .

Purdue Online Writing Lab Purdue OWL® College of Liberal Arts

Film Writing: Sample Analysis

Welcome to the Purdue OWL

This page is brought to you by the OWL at Purdue University. When printing this page, you must include the entire legal notice.

Copyright ©1995-2018 by The Writing Lab & The OWL at Purdue and Purdue University. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, reproduced, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without permission. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our terms and conditions of fair use.

Introductory Note

The analysis below discusses the opening moments of the science fiction movie  Ex Machina  in order to make an argument about the film's underlying purpose. The text of the analysis is formatted normally. Editor's commentary, which will occasionally interrupt the piece to discuss the author's rhetorical strategies, is written in brackets in an italic font with a bold "Ed.:" identifier. See the examples below:

The text of the analysis looks like this.

[ Ed.:  The editor's commentary looks like this. ]

Frustrated Communication in Ex Machina ’s Opening Sequence

Alex Garland’s 2015 science fiction film Ex Machina follows a young programmer’s attempts to determine whether or not an android possesses a consciousness complicated enough to pass as human. The film is celebrated for its thought-provoking depiction of the anxiety over whether a nonhuman entity could mimic or exceed human abilities, but analyzing the early sections of the film, before artificial intelligence is even introduced, reveals a compelling examination of humans’ inability to articulate their thoughts and feelings. In its opening sequence, Ex Machina establishes that it’s not only about the difficulty of creating a machine that can effectively talk to humans, but about human beings who struggle to find ways to communicate with each other in an increasingly digital world.

[ Ed.:  The piece's opening introduces the film with a plot summary that doesn't give away too much and a brief summary of the critical conversation that has centered around the film. Then, however, it deviates from this conversation by suggesting that Ex Machina has things to say about humanity before non-human characters even appear. Off to a great start. ]

The film’s first establishing shots set the action in a busy modern office. A woman sits at a computer, absorbed in her screen. The camera looks at her through a glass wall, one of many in the shot. The reflections of passersby reflected in the glass and the workspace’s dim blue light make it difficult to determine how many rooms are depicted. The camera cuts to a few different young men typing on their phones, their bodies partially concealed both by people walking between them and the camera and by the stylized modern furniture that surrounds them. The fourth shot peeks over a computer monitor at a blonde man working with headphones in. A slight zoom toward his face suggests that this is an important character, and the cut to a point-of-view shot looking at his computer screen confirms this. We later learn that this is Caleb Smith (Domhnall Gleeson), a young programmer whose perspective the film follows.

The rest of the sequence cuts between shots from Caleb’s P.O.V. and reaction shots of his face, as he receives and processes the news that he has won first prize in a staff competition. Shocked, Caleb dives for his cellphone and texts several people the news. Several people immediately respond with congratulatory messages, and after a moment the woman from the opening shot runs in to give him a hug. At this point, the other people in the room look up, smile, and start clapping, while Caleb smiles disbelievingly—perhaps even anxiously—and the camera subtly zooms in a bit closer. Throughout the entire sequence, there is no sound other than ambient electronic music that gets slightly louder and more textured as the sequence progresses. A jump cut to an aerial view of a glacial landscape ends the sequence and indicates that Caleb is very quickly transported into a very unfamiliar setting, implying that he will have difficulty adjusting to this sudden change in circumstances.

[ Ed.:  These paragraphs are mostly descriptive. They give readers the information they will need to understand the argument the piece is about to offer. While passages like this can risk becoming boring if they dwell on unimportant details, the author wisely limits herself to two paragraphs and maintains a driving pace through her prose style choices (like an almost exclusive reliance on active verbs). ]

Without any audible dialogue or traditional expository setup of the main characters, this opening sequence sets viewers up to make sense of Ex Machina ’s visual style and its exploration of the ways that technology can both enhance and limit human communication. The choice to make the dialogue inaudible suggests that in-person conversations have no significance. Human-to-human conversations are most productive in this sequence when they are mediated by technology. Caleb’s first response when he hears his good news is to text his friends rather than tell the people sitting around him, and he makes no move to take his headphones out when the in-person celebration finally breaks out. Everyone in the building is on their phones, looking at screens, or has headphones in, and the camera is looking at screens through Caleb’s viewpoint for at least half of the sequence.  

Rather than simply muting the specific conversations that Caleb has with his coworkers, the ambient soundtrack replaces all the noise that a crowded building in the middle of a workday would ordinarily have. This silence sets the uneasy tone that characterizes the rest of the film, which is as much a horror-thriller as a piece of science fiction. Viewers get the sense that all the sounds that humans make as they walk around and talk to each other are being intentionally filtered out by some presence, replaced with a quiet electronic beat that marks the pacing of the sequence, slowly building to a faster tempo. Perhaps the sound of people is irrelevant: only the visual data matters here. Silence is frequently used in the rest of the film as a source of tension, with viewers acutely aware that it could be broken at any moment. Part of the horror of the research bunker, which will soon become the film’s primary setting, is its silence, particularly during sequences of Caleb sneaking into restricted areas and being startled by a sudden noise.

The visual style of this opening sequence reinforces the eeriness of the muted humans and electronic soundtrack. Prominent use of shallow focus to depict a workspace that is constructed out of glass doors and walls makes it difficult to discern how large the space really is. The viewer is thus spatially disoriented in each new setting. This layering of glass and mirrors, doubling some images and obscuring others, is used later in the film when Caleb meets the artificial being Ava (Alicia Vikander), who is not allowed to leave her glass-walled living quarters in the research bunker. The similarity of these spaces visually reinforces the film’s late revelation that Caleb has been manipulated by Nathan Bates (Oscar Isaac), the troubled genius who creates Ava.

[ Ed.:  In these paragraphs, the author cites the information about the scene she's provided to make her argument. Because she's already teased the argument in the introduction and provided an account of her evidence, it doesn't strike us as unreasonable or far-fetched here. Instead, it appears that we've naturally arrived at the same incisive, fascinating points that she has. ]

A few other shots in the opening sequence more explicitly hint that Caleb is already under Nathan’s control before he ever arrives at the bunker. Shortly after the P.O.V shot of Caleb reading the email notification that he won the prize, we cut to a few other P.O.V. shots, this time from the perspective of cameras in Caleb’s phone and desktop computer. These cameras are not just looking at Caleb, but appear to be scanning him, as the screen flashes in different color lenses and small points appear around Caleb’s mouth, eyes, and nostrils, tracking the smallest expressions that cross his face. These small details indicate that Caleb is more a part of this digital space than he realizes, and also foreshadow the later revelation that Nathan is actively using data collected by computers and webcams to manipulate Caleb and others. The shots from the cameras’ perspectives also make use of a subtle fisheye lens, suggesting both the wide scope of Nathan’s surveillance capacities and the slightly distorted worldview that motivates this unethical activity.

[ Ed.: This paragraph uses additional details to reinforce the piece's main argument. While this move may not be as essential as the one in the preceding paragraphs, it does help create the impression that the author is noticing deliberate patterns in the film's cinematography, rather than picking out isolated coincidences to make her points. ]

Taken together, the details of Ex Machina ’s stylized opening sequence lay the groundwork for the film’s long exploration of the relationship between human communication and technology. The sequence, and the film, ultimately suggests that we need to develop and use new technologies thoughtfully, or else the thing that makes us most human—our ability to connect through language—might be destroyed by our innovations. All of the aural and visual cues in the opening sequence establish a world in which humans are utterly reliant on technology and yet totally unaware of the nefarious uses to which a brilliant but unethical person could put it.

Author's Note:  Thanks to my literature students whose in-class contributions sharpened my thinking on this scene .

[ Ed.: The piece concludes by tying the main themes of the opening sequence to those of the entire film. In doing this, the conclusion makes an argument for the essay's own relevance: we need to pay attention to the essay's points so that we can achieve a rich understanding of the movie. The piece's final sentence makes a chilling final impression by alluding to the danger that might loom if we do not understand the movie. This is the only the place in the piece where the author explicitly references how badly we might be hurt by ignorance, and it's all the more powerful for this solitary quality. A pithy, charming note follows, acknowledging that the author's work was informed by others' input (as most good writing is). Beautifully done. ]

• Subject List
• Take a Tour
• For Authors
• Subscriber Services
• Publications
• African American Studies
• African Studies
• American Literature
• Anthropology
• Architecture Planning and Preservation
• Art History
• Atlantic History
• Biblical Studies
• British and Irish Literature
• Childhood Studies
• Chinese Studies

Cinema and Media Studies

• Communication
• Criminology
• Environmental Science
• Evolutionary Biology
• International Law
• International Relations
• Islamic Studies
• Jewish Studies
• Latin American Studies
• Latino Studies
• Linguistics
• Literary and Critical Theory
• Medieval Studies
• Military History
• Political Science
• Public Health
• Renaissance and Reformation
• Social Work
• Urban Studies
• Victorian Literature
• Browse All Subjects

How to Subscribe

• Free Trials

In This Article Expand or collapse the "in this article" section Essay Film

Introduction, anthologies.

• Bibliographies
• Spectator Engagement
• Personal Documentary
• 1940s Watershed Years
• Chris Marker
• Alain Resnais
• Jean-Luc Godard
• Harun Farocki
• Latin American Cinema
• Installation and Exhibition

Related Articles Expand or collapse the "related articles" section about

About related articles close popup.

Lorem Ipsum Sit Dolor Amet

Vestibulum ante ipsum primis in faucibus orci luctus et ultrices posuere cubilia Curae; Aliquam ligula odio, euismod ut aliquam et, vestibulum nec risus. Nulla viverra, arcu et iaculis consequat, justo diam ornare tellus, semper ultrices tellus nunc eu tellus.

• Documentary Film
• Dziga Vertov
• Trinh T. Minh-ha

Other Subject Areas

Forthcoming articles expand or collapse the "forthcoming articles" section.

• Superhero Films
• Wim Wenders
• Find more forthcoming articles...
• Export Citations
• Share This Facebook LinkedIn Twitter

Essay Film by Yelizaveta Moss LAST REVIEWED: 24 March 2021 LAST MODIFIED: 24 March 2021 DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199791286-0216

The term “essay film” has become increasingly used in film criticism to describe a self-reflective and self-referential documentary cinema that blurs the lines between fiction and nonfiction. Scholars unanimously agree that the first published use of the term was by Richter in 1940. Also uncontested is that Andre Bazin, in 1958, was the first to analyze a film, which was Marker’s Letter from Siberia (1958), according to the essay form. The French New Wave created a popularization of short essay films, and German New Cinema saw a resurgence in essay films due to a broad interest in examining German history. But beyond these origins of the term, scholars deviate on what exactly constitutes an essay film and how to categorize essay films. Generally, scholars fall into two camps: those who find a literary genealogy to the essay film and those who find a documentary genealogy to the essay film. The most commonly cited essay filmmakers are French and German: Marker, Resnais, Godard, and Farocki. These filmmakers are singled out for their breadth of essay film projects, as opposed to filmmakers who have made an essay film but who specialize in other genres. Though essay films have been and are being produced outside of the West, scholarship specifically addressing essay films focuses largely on France and Germany, although Solanas and Getino’s theory of “Third Cinema” and approval of certain French essay films has produced some essay film scholarship on Latin America. But the gap in scholarship on global essay film remains, with hope of being bridged by some forthcoming work. Since the term “essay film” is used so sparingly for specific films and filmmakers, the scholarship on essay film tends to take the form of single articles or chapters in either film theory or documentary anthologies and journals. Some recent scholarship has pointed out the evolutionary quality of essay films, emphasizing their ability to change form and style as a response to conventional filmmaking practices. The most recent scholarship and conference papers on essay film have shifted from an emphasis on literary essay to an emphasis on technology, arguing that essay film has the potential in the 21st century to present technology as self-conscious and self-reflexive of its role in art.

Both anthologies dedicated entirely to essay film have been published in order to fill gaps in essay film scholarship. Biemann 2003 brings the discussion of essay film into the digital age by explicitly resisting traditional German and French film and literary theory. Papazian and Eades 2016 also resists European theory by explicitly showcasing work on postcolonial and transnational essay film.

Biemann, Ursula, ed. Stuff It: The Video Essay in the Digital Age . New York: Springer, 2003.

This anthology positions Marker’s Sans Soleil (1983) as the originator of the post-structuralist essay film. In opposition to German and French film and literary theory, Biemann discusses video essays with respect to non-linear and non-logical movement of thought and a range of new media in Internet, digital imaging, and art installation. In its resistance to the French/German theory influence on essay film, this anthology makes a concerted effort to include other theoretical influences, such as transnationalism, postcolonialism, and globalization.

Papazian, Elizabeth, and Caroline Eades, eds. The Essay Film: Dialogue, Politics, Utopia . London: Wallflower, 2016.

This forthcoming anthology bridges several gaps in 21st-century essay film scholarship: non-Western cinemas, popular cinema, and digital media.

back to top

Users without a subscription are not able to see the full content on this page. Please subscribe or login .

Oxford Bibliographies Online is available by subscription and perpetual access to institutions. For more information or to contact an Oxford Sales Representative click here .

• About Cinema and Media Studies »
• Meet the Editorial Board »
• 2001: A Space Odyssey
• À bout de souffle
• Accounting, Motion Picture
• Action Cinema
• Advertising and Promotion
• African American Cinema
• African American Stars
• African Cinema
• AIDS in Film and Television
• Akerman, Chantal
• Allen, Woody
• Almodóvar, Pedro
• Altman, Robert
• American Cinema, 1895-1915
• American Cinema, 1939-1975
• American Cinema, 1976 to Present
• American Independent Cinema
• American Independent Cinema, Producers
• American Public Broadcasting
• Anderson, Wes
• Animals in Film and Media
• Animation and the Animated Film
• Arbuckle, Roscoe
• Architecture and Cinema
• Argentine Cinema
• Aronofsky, Darren
• Arzner, Dorothy
• Asian American Cinema
• Asian Television
• Astaire, Fred and Rogers, Ginger
• Audiences and Moviegoing Cultures
• Australian Cinema
• Authorship, Television
• Avant-Garde and Experimental Film
• Bachchan, Amitabh
• Battle of Algiers, The
• Battleship Potemkin, The
• Bazin, André
• Bergman, Ingmar
• Bernstein, Elmer
• Bertolucci, Bernardo
• Bigelow, Kathryn
• Birth of a Nation, The
• Blade Runner
• Blockbusters
• Bong, Joon Ho
• Brakhage, Stan
• Brando, Marlon
• Brazilian Cinema
• Breaking Bad
• Bresson, Robert
• British Cinema
• Broadcasting, Australian
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer
• Burnett, Charles
• Buñuel, Luis
• Cameron, James
• Campion, Jane
• Canadian Cinema
• Capra, Frank
• Carpenter, John
• Cassavetes, John
• Cavell, Stanley
• Chahine, Youssef
• Chan, Jackie
• Chaplin, Charles
• Children in Film
• Chinese Cinema
• Cinecittà Studios
• Cinema and Media Industries, Creative Labor in
• Cinema and the Visual Arts
• Cinematography and Cinematographers
• Citizen Kane
• City in Film, The
• Cocteau, Jean
• Coen Brothers, The
• Colonial Educational Film
• Comedy, Film
• Comedy, Television
• Comics, Film, and Media
• Computer-Generated Imagery (CGI)
• Copland, Aaron
• Coppola, Francis Ford
• Copyright and Piracy
• Corman, Roger
• Costume and Fashion
• Cronenberg, David
• Cuban Cinema
• Cult Cinema
• Dance and Film
• de Oliveira, Manoel
• Dean, James
• Deleuze, Gilles
• Denis, Claire
• Deren, Maya
• Design, Art, Set, and Production
• Detective Films
• Dietrich, Marlene
• Digital Media and Convergence Culture
• Disney, Walt
• Downton Abbey
• Dr. Strangelove
• Dreyer, Carl Theodor
• Eastern European Television
• Eastwood, Clint
• Eisenstein, Sergei
• Elfman, Danny
• Ethnographic Film
• European Television
• Exhibition and Distribution
• Exploitation Film
• Fairbanks, Douglas
• Fan Studies
• Fellini, Federico
• Film Aesthetics
• Film and Literature
• Film Guilds and Unions
• Film, Historical
• Film Preservation and Restoration
• Film Theory and Criticism, Science Fiction
• Film Theory Before 1945
• Film Theory, Psychoanalytic
• Finance Film, The
• French Cinema
• Game of Thrones
• Gance, Abel
• Gangster Films
• Garbo, Greta
• Garland, Judy
• German Cinema
• Gilliam, Terry
• Global Television Industry
• Godard, Jean-Luc
• Godfather Trilogy, The
• Golden Girls, The
• Greek Cinema
• Griffith, D.W.
• Hammett, Dashiell
• Haneke, Michael
• Hawks, Howard
• Haynes, Todd
• Hepburn, Katharine
• Herrmann, Bernard
• Herzog, Werner
• Hindi Cinema, Popular
• Hitchcock, Alfred
• Hollywood Studios
• Holocaust Cinema
• Hong Kong Cinema
• Horror-Comedy
• Hsiao-Hsien, Hou
• Hungarian Cinema
• Icelandic Cinema
• Immigration and Cinema
• Indigenous Media
• Industrial, Educational, and Instructional Television and ...
• Invasion of the Body Snatchers
• Iranian Cinema
• Irish Cinema
• Israeli Cinema
• It Happened One Night
• Italian Americans in Cinema and Media
• Italian Cinema
• Japanese Cinema
• Jazz Singer, The
• Jews in American Cinema and Media
• Keaton, Buster
• Kitano, Takeshi
• Korean Cinema
• Kracauer, Siegfried
• Kubrick, Stanley
• Lang, Fritz
• Latina/o Americans in Film and Television
• Lee, Chang-dong
• Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) Cin...
• Lord of the Rings Trilogy, The
• Los Angeles and Cinema
• Lubitsch, Ernst
• Lumet, Sidney
• Lupino, Ida
• Lynch, David
• Marker, Chris
• Martel, Lucrecia
• Masculinity in Film
• Media, Community
• Media Ecology
• Memory and the Flashback in Cinema
• Metz, Christian
• Mexican Cinema
• Micheaux, Oscar
• Ming-liang, Tsai
• Minnelli, Vincente
• Miyazaki, Hayao
• Méliès, Georges
• Modernism and Film
• Monroe, Marilyn
• Mészáros, Márta
• Music and Cinema, Classical Hollywood
• Music and Cinema, Global Practices
• Music, Television
• Music Video
• Musicals on Television
• Native Americans
• New Media Art
• New Media Policy
• New Media Theory
• New York City and Cinema
• New Zealand Cinema
• Opera and Film
• Ophuls, Max
• Orphan Films
• Oshima, Nagisa
• Ozu, Yasujiro
• Panh, Rithy
• Pasolini, Pier Paolo
• Passion of Joan of Arc, The
• Peckinpah, Sam
• Philosophy and Film
• Photography and Cinema
• Pickford, Mary
• Planet of the Apes
• Poems, Novels, and Plays About Film
• Poitier, Sidney
• Polanski, Roman
• Polish Cinema
• Politics, Hollywood and
• Pop, Blues, and Jazz in Film
• Pornography
• Postcolonial Theory in Film
• Potter, Sally
• Prime Time Drama
• Queer Television
• Queer Theory
• Race and Cinema
• Radio and Sound Studies
• Ray, Nicholas
• Ray, Satyajit
• Reality Television
• Reenactment in Cinema and Media
• Regulation, Television
• Religion and Film
• Remakes, Sequels and Prequels
• Renoir, Jean
• Resnais, Alain
• Romanian Cinema
• Romantic Comedy, American
• Rossellini, Roberto
• Russian Cinema
• Saturday Night Live
• Scandinavian Cinema
• Scorsese, Martin
• Scott, Ridley
• Searchers, The
• Sennett, Mack
• Sesame Street
• Shakespeare on Film
• Silent Film
• Simpsons, The
• Singin' in the Rain
• Sirk, Douglas
• Soap Operas
• Social Class
• Social Media
• Social Problem Films
• Soderbergh, Steven
• Sound Design, Film
• Sound, Film
• Spanish Cinema
• Spanish-Language Television
• Spielberg, Steven
• Sports and Media
• Sports in Film
• Stand-Up Comedians
• Stop-Motion Animation
• Streaming Television
• Sturges, Preston
• Surrealism and Film
• Taiwanese Cinema
• Tarantino, Quentin
• Tarkovsky, Andrei
• Tati, Jacques
• Television Audiences
• Television Celebrity
• Television, History of
• Television Industry, American
• Theater and Film
• Theory, Cognitive Film
• Theory, Critical Media
• Theory, Feminist Film
• Theory, Film
• Theory, Trauma
• Touch of Evil
• Transnational and Diasporic Cinema
• Trinh, T. Minh-ha
• Truffaut, François
• Turkish Cinema
• Twilight Zone, The
• Varda, Agnès
• Vertov, Dziga
• Video and Computer Games
• Video Installation
• Violence and Cinema
• Virtual Reality
• Visconti, Luchino
• Von Sternberg, Josef
• Von Stroheim, Erich
• von Trier, Lars
• Warhol, The Films of Andy
• Waters, John
• Wayne, John
• Weerasethakul, Apichatpong
• Weir, Peter
• Welles, Orson
• Whedon, Joss
• Wilder, Billy
• Williams, John
• Wiseman, Frederick
• Wizard of Oz, The
• Women and Film
• Women and the Silent Screen
• Wong, Anna May
• Wong, Kar-wai
• Wood, Natalie
• Yang, Edward
• Yimou, Zhang
• Yugoslav and Post-Yugoslav Cinema
• Zinnemann, Fred
• Zombies in Cinema and Media
• Privacy Policy
• Cookie Policy
• Legal Notice
• Accessibility

Powered by:

• [195.158.225.244]
• 195.158.225.244

Film Analysis: Example, Format, and Outline + Topics & Prompts

Films are never just films. Instead, they are influential works of art that can evoke a wide range of emotions, spark meaningful conversations, and provide insightful commentary on society and culture. As a student, you may be tasked with writing a film analysis essay, which requires you to delve deeper into the characters and themes. But where do you start?

In this article, our expert team has explored strategies for writing a successful film analysis essay. From prompts for this assignment to an excellent movie analysis example, we’ll provide you with everything you need to craft an insightful film analysis paper.

• 📽️ Film Analysis Definition

📚 Types of Film Analysis

• ✍️ How to Write Film Analysis
• 🎞️ Movie Analysis Prompts
• 🎬 Top 15 Topics

📝 Film Analysis Example

• 🍿 More Examples

🔗 References

📽️ what is a film analysis essay.

A film analysis essay is a type of academic writing that critically examines a film, its themes, characters, and techniques used by the filmmaker. This essay aims to analyze the film’s meaning, message, and artistic elements and explain its cultural, social, and historical significance. It typically requires a writer to pay closer attention to aspects such as cinematography, editing, sound, and narrative structure.

Film Analysis vs Film Review

It’s common to confuse a film analysis with a film review, though these are two different types of writing. A film analysis paper focuses on the film’s narrative, sound, editing, and other elements. This essay aims to explore the film’s themes, symbolism , and underlying messages and to provide an in-depth interpretation of the film.

On the other hand, a film review is a brief evaluation of a film that provides the writer’s overall opinion of the movie. It includes the story’s short summary, a description of the acting, direction, and technical aspects, and a recommendation on whether or not the movie is worth watching.

Wondering what you should focus on when writing a movie analysis essay? Here are four main types of film analysis. Check them out!

📋 Film Analysis Format

The movie analysis format follows a typical essay structure, including a title, introduction, thesis statement, body, conclusion, and references.

The most common citation styles used for a film analysis are MLA and Chicago . However, we recommend you consult with your professor for specific guidelines. Remember to cite all dialogue and scene descriptions from the movie to support the analysis. The reference list should include the analyzed film and any external sources mentioned in the essay.

When referring to a specific movie in your paper, you should italicize the film’s name and use the title case. Don’t enclose the title of the movie in quotation marks.

📑 Film Analysis Essay Outline

A compelling film analysis outline is crucial as it helps make the writing process more focused and the content more insightful for the readers. Below, you’ll find the description of the main parts of the movie analysis essay.

Film Analysis Introduction

Many students experience writer’s block because they don’t know how to write an introduction for a film analysis. The truth is that the opening paragraph for a film analysis paper is similar to any other academic essay:

• Start with a hook to grab the reader’s attention . For example, it can be a fascinating fact or a thought-provoking question related to the film.
• Provide background information about the movie . Introduce the film, including its title, director, and release date. Follow this with a brief summary of the film’s plot and main themes.
• End the introduction with an analytical thesis statement . Present the central argument or interpretation that will be explored in the analysis.

Film Analysis Thesis

If you wonder how to write a thesis for a film analysis, we’ve got you! A thesis statement should clearly present your main idea related to the film and provide a roadmap for the rest of the essay. Your thesis should be specific, concise, and focused. In addition, it should be debatable so that others can present a contrasting point of view. Also, make sure it is supported with evidence from the film.

Let’s come up with a film analysis thesis example:

Through a feminist lens, Titanic is a story about Rose’s rebellion against traditional gender roles, showcasing her attempts to assert her autonomy and refusal to conform to societal expectations prevalent in the early 20th century.

Movie Analysis Main Body

Each body paragraph should focus on a specific aspect of the film that supports your main idea. These aspects include themes, characters, narrative devices , or cinematic techniques. You should also provide evidence from the film to support your analysis, such as quotes, scene descriptions, or specific visual or auditory elements.

Here are two things to avoid in body paragraphs:

• Film review . Your analysis should focus on specific movie aspects rather than your opinion of the film.
• Excessive plot summary . While it’s important to provide some context for the analysis, a lengthy plot summary can detract you from your main argument and analysis of the film.

Film Analysis Conclusion

In the conclusion of a movie analysis, restate the thesis statement to remind the reader of the main argument. Additionally, summarize the main points from the body to reinforce the key aspects of the film that were discussed. The conclusion should also provide a final thought or reflection on the film, tying together the analysis and presenting your perspective on its overall meaning.

✍️ How to Write a Film Analysis Essay

Writing a film analysis essay can be challenging since it requires a deep understanding of the film, its themes, and its characters. However, with the right approach, you can create a compelling analysis that offers insight into the film’s meaning and impact. To help you, we’ve prepared a small guide.

1. Understand the Prompt

When approaching a film analysis essay, it is crucial to understand the prompt provided by your professor. For example, suppose your professor asks you to analyze the film from the perspective of Marxist criticism or psychoanalytic film theory . In that case, it is essential to familiarize yourself with these approaches. This may involve studying these theories and identifying how they can be applied to the film.

If your professor did not provide specific guidelines, you will need to choose a film yourself and decide on the aspect you will explore. Whether it is the film’s themes, characters, cinematography, or social context, having a clear focus will help guide your analysis.

2. Watch the Film & Take Notes

Keep your assignment prompt in mind when watching the film for your analysis. For example, if you are analyzing the film from a feminist perspective, you should pay attention to the portrayal of female characters, power dynamics , and gender roles within the film.

As you watch the movie, take notes on key moments, dialogues, and scenes relevant to your analysis. Additionally, keeping track of the timecodes of important scenes can be beneficial, as it allows you to quickly revisit specific moments in the film for further analysis.

3. Develop a Thesis and an Outline

Next, develop a thesis statement for your movie analysis. Identify the central argument or perspective you want to convey about the film. For example, you can focus on the film’s themes, characters, plot, cinematography, or other outstanding aspects. Your thesis statement should clearly present your stance and provide a preview of the points you will discuss in your analysis.

Having created a thesis, you can move on to the outline for an analysis. Write down all the arguments that can support your thesis, logically organize them, and then look for the supporting evidence in the movie.

4. Write Your Movie Analysis

When writing a film analysis paper, try to offer fresh and original ideas on the film that go beyond surface-level observations. If you need some inspiration, have a look at these thought-provoking questions:

• How does the movie evoke emotional responses from the audience through sound, editing, character development , and camera work?
• Is the movie’s setting portrayed in a realistic or stylized manner? What atmosphere or mood does the setting convey to the audience?
• How does the lighting in the movie highlight certain aspects? How does the lighting impact the audience’s perception of the movie’s characters, spaces, or overall mood?
• What role does the music play in the movie? How does it create specific emotional effects for the audience?
• What underlying values or messages does the movie convey? How are these values communicated to the audience?

5. Revise and Proofread

To revise and proofread a film analysis essay, review the content for grammatical, spelling, and punctuation errors. Ensure the paper flows logically and each paragraph contributes to the overall analysis. Remember to double-check that you haven’t missed any in-text citations and have enough evidence and examples from the movie to support your arguments.

Consider seeking feedback from a peer or instructor to get an outside perspective on the essay. Another reader can provide valuable insights and suggestions for improvement.

🎞️ Movie Analysis: Sample Prompts

Now that we’ve covered the essential aspects of a film analysis template, it’s time to choose a topic. Here are some prompts to help you select a film for your analysis.

• Metropolis film analysis essay . When analyzing this movie, you can explore the themes of technology and society or the portrayal of class struggle. You can also focus on symbolism, visual effects, and the influence of German expressionism on the film’s aesthetic.
• The Godfather film analysis essay . An epic crime film, The Godfather , allows you to analyze the themes of power and corruption, the portrayal of family dynamics, and the influence of Italian neorealism on the film’s aesthetic. You can also examine the movie’s historical context and impact on future crime dramas.
• Psycho film analysis essay . Consider exploring the themes of identity and duality, the use of suspense and tension in storytelling, or the portrayal of mental illness. You can also explore the impact of this movie on the horror genre.
• Forrest Gump film analysis essay . If you decide to analyze the Forrest Gump movie, you can focus on the portrayal of historical events. You might also examine the use of nostalgia in storytelling, the character development of the protagonist, and the film’s impact on popular culture and American identity.
• The Great Gatsby film analysis essay . The Great Gatsby is a historical drama film that allows you to analyze the themes of the American Dream, wealth, and class. You can also explore the portrayal of the 1920s Jazz Age and the symbolism of the green light.
• Persepolis film analysis essay . In a Persepolis film analysis essay, you can uncover the themes of identity and self-discovery. You might also consider analyzing the portrayal of the Iranian Revolution and its aftermath, the use of animation as a storytelling device, and the film’s influence on the graphic novel genre.

🎬 Top 15 Film Analysis Essay Topics

• The use of color symbolism in Vertigo and its impact on the narrative.
• The moral ambiguity and human nature in No Country for Old Men .
• The portrayal of ethnicity in Gran Torino and its commentary on cultural stereotypes.
• The cinematography and visual effects in The Hunger Games and their contribution to the dystopian atmosphere.
• The use of silence and sound design in A Quiet Place to immerse the audience.
• The disillusionment and existential crisis in The Graduate and its reflection of the societal norms of the 1960s.
• The themes of sacrifice and patriotism in Casablanca and their relevance to the historical context of World War II.
• The psychological horror in The Shining and its impact on the audience’s experience of fear and tension.
• The exploration of existentialism in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind .
• Multiple perspectives and unreliable narrators in Rashomon .
• The music and soundtrack in Titanic and its contribution to the film’s emotional resonance.
• The portrayal of good versus evil in the Harry Potter film series and its impact on understanding morality.
• The incorporation of vibrant colors in The Grand Budapest Hotel as a visual motif.
• The use of editing techniques to tell a nonlinear narrative in Pulp Fiction .
• The function of music and score in enhancing the emotional impact in Schindler’s List .

Check out the Get Out film analysis essay we’ve prepared for college and high school students. We hope this movie analysis essay example will inspire you and help you understand the structure of this assignment better.

Film Analysis Essay Introduction Example

Get Out, released in 2017 and directed by Jordan Peele, is a culturally significant horror film that explores themes of racism, identity, and social commentary. The film follows Chris, a young African-American man, visiting his white girlfriend’s family for the weekend. This essay will analyze how, through its masterful storytelling, clever use of symbolism, and thought-provoking narrative, Get Out reveals the insidious nature of racism in modern America.

Film Analysis Body Paragraphs Example

Throughout the movie, Chris’s character is subject to various types of microaggression and subtle forms of discrimination. These instances highlight the insidious nature of racism, showing how it can exist even in seemingly progressive environments. For example, during Chris’s visit to his white girlfriend’s family, the parents continuously make racially insensitive comments, expressing their admiration for black physical attributes and suggesting a fascination bordering on fetishization. This sheds light on some individuals’ objectification and exotification of black bodies.

Get Out also critiques the performative allyship of white liberals who claim to be accepting and supportive of the black community. It is evident in the character of Rose’s father, who proclaims: “I would have voted for Obama for a third term if I could” (Peele, 2017). However, the film exposes how this apparent acceptance can mask hidden prejudices and manipulation.

Film Analysis Conclusion Example

In conclusion, the film Get Out provides a searing critique of racial discrimination and white supremacy through its compelling narrative, brilliant performances, and skillful direction. By exploring the themes of the insidious nature of racism, fetishization, and performative allyship, Get Out not only entertains but also challenges viewers to reflect on their own biases.

🍿 More Film Analysis Examples

• Social Psychology Theories in The Experiment
• Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader: George Lukas’s Star Wars Review
• Girl, Interrupted : Mental Illness Analysis
• Mental Disorders in the Finding Nemo Film
• One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest Film: Interpretive Psychological Analysis
• Analysis of Spielberg’s Film Lincoln
• Glory – The Drama Movie by Edward Zwick
• Inventors in The Men Who Built America Series
• Crash Movie: Racism as a Theme
• Dances with Wolves Essay – Movie Analysis
• Superbad by G. Mottola
• Ordinary People Analysis and Maslow Hierarchy of Needs
• A Review of the Movie An Inconvenient Truth by Guggenheim
• Chaplin’s Modern Times and H.G. Wells’s The Island of Dr. Moreau
• Misé-En-Scene and Camera Shots in The King’s Speech
• Children’s Sexuality in the Out in the Dark Film
• Chinese and American Women in Joy Luck Club Novel and Film
• The Film Silver Linings Playbook by Russell
• The Role of Music in the Films The Hours and The Third Man
• The Social Network : Film Analysis
• My Neighbor Totoro : Film by Hayao Miyazaki
• Marriage Story Film Directed by Noah Baumbach

❓ Film Analysis Essay: FAQ

Why is film analysis important.

Film analysis allows viewers to go beyond the surface level and delve into the deeper layers of a film’s narrative, themes, and technical aspects. It enables a critical examination that enhances appreciation and understanding of the film’s message, cultural significance, and artistic value. At the same time, writing a movie analysis essay can boost your critical thinking and ability to spot little details.

How to write a movie analysis?

• Watch the film multiple times to grasp its key elements.
• Take notes on the story, characters, and themes.
• Pay attention to the film’s cinematography, editing, sound, message, symbolism, and social context.
• Formulate a strong thesis statement that presents your main argument.
• Support your claims with evidence from the film.

How to write a critical analysis of a movie?

A critical analysis of a movie involves evaluating its elements, such as plot, themes, characters, and cinematography, and providing an informed opinion on its strengths and weaknesses. To write it, watch the movie attentively, take notes, develop a clear thesis statement, support arguments with evidence, and balance the positive and negative.

How to write a psychological analysis of a movie?

A psychological analysis of a movie examines characters’ motivations, behaviors, and emotional experiences. To write it, analyze the characters’ psychological development, their relationships, and the impact of psychological themes conveyed in the film. Support your analysis with psychological theories and evidence from the movie.

• Film Analysis | UNC Writing Center
• Psychological Analysis of Films | Steemit
• Critical Film Analysis | University of Hawaii
• Questions to Ask of Any Film | All American High School Film Festival
• Resources – How to Write a Film Analysis | Northwestern
• Film Analysis | University of Toronto
• Film Writing: Sample Analysis | Purdue Online Writing Lab
• Film Analysis Web Site 2.0 | Yale University
• Questions for Film Analysis | University of Washington
• Film & Media Studies Resources: Types of Film Analysis | Bowling Green State University
• Film & Media Studies Resources: Researching a Film | Bowling Green State University
• Motion Picture Analysis Worksheet | University of Houston
• Reviews vs Film Criticism | The University of Vermont Libraries
• Television and Film Analysis Questions | University of Michigan
• How to Write About Film: The Movie Review, the Theoretical Essay, and the Critical Essay | University of Colorado

Descriptive Essay Topics: Examples, Outline, & More

371 fun argumentative essay topics for 2024.

Text size: A A A

About the BFI

Strategy and policy

Press releases and media enquiries

Jobs and opportunities

Join and support

Become a Member

Become a Patron

Using your BFI Membership

Corporate support

Trusts and foundations

Make a donation

Watch films on BFI Player

BFI Southbank tickets

• Follow @bfi

Watch and discover

In this section

Watch at home on BFI Player

What’s on at BFI Southbank

What’s on at BFI IMAX

BFI National Archive

Explore our festivals

BFI film releases

Read features and reviews

Read film comment from Sight & Sound

I want to…

Watch films online

Browse BFI Southbank seasons

Book a film for my cinema

Find out about international touring programmes

Learning and training

BFI Film Academy: opportunities for young creatives

Get funding to progress my creative career

Find resources and events for teachers

Join events and activities for families

BFI Reuben Library

Search the BFI National Archive collections

Browse our education events

Use film and TV in my classroom

Read research data and market intelligence

Funding and industry

Get funding and support

Search for projects funded by National Lottery

Apply for British certification and tax relief

Industry data and insights

Inclusion in the film industry

Find projects backed by the BFI

Get help as a new filmmaker and find out about NETWORK

Read industry research and statistics

Find out about booking film programmes internationally

You are here

The essay film

In recent years the essay film has attained widespread recognition as a particular category of film practice, with its own history and canonical figures and texts. In tandem with a major season throughout August at London’s BFI Southbank, Sight & Sound explores the characteristics that have come to define this most elastic of forms and looks in detail at a dozen influential milestone essay films.

Andrew Tracy , Katy McGahan , Olaf Möller , Sergio Wolf , Nina Power Updated: 7 May 2019

from our August 2013 issue

Le camera stylo? Dziga Vertov’s Man with a Movie Camera (1929)

I recently had a heated argument with a cinephile filmmaking friend about Chris Marker’s Sans soleil (1983). Having recently completed her first feature, and with such matters on her mind, my friend contended that the film’s power lay in its combinations of image and sound, irrespective of Marker’s inimitable voiceover narration. “Do you think that people who can’t understand English or French will get nothing out of the film?” she said; to which I – hot under the collar – replied that they might very well get something, but that something would not be the complete work.

The Sight & Sound Deep Focus season Thought in Action: The Art of the Essay Film runs at BFI Southbank 1-28 August 2013, with a keynote lecture by Kodwo Eshun on 1 August, a talk by writer and academic Laura Rascaroli on 27 August and a closing panel debate on 28 August.

To take this film-lovers’ tiff to a more elevated plane, what it suggests is that the essentialist conception of cinema is still present in cinephilic and critical culture, as are the difficulties of containing within it works that disrupt its very fabric. Ever since Vachel Lindsay published The Art of the Moving Picture in 1915 the quest to secure the autonomy of film as both medium and art – that ever-elusive ‘pure cinema’ – has been a preoccupation of film scholars, critics, cinephiles and filmmakers alike. My friend’s implicit derogation of the irreducible literary element of Sans soleil and her neo- Godard ian invocation of ‘image and sound’ touch on that strain of this phenomenon which finds, in the technical-functional combination of those two elements, an alchemical, if not transubstantiational, result.

Mechanically created, cinema defies mechanism: it is poetic, transportive and, if not irrational, then a-rational. This mystically-minded view has a long and illustrious tradition in film history, stretching from the sense-deranging surrealists – who famously found accidental poetry in the juxtapositions created by randomly walking into and out of films; to the surrealist-influenced, scientifically trained and ontologically minded André Bazin , whose realist veneration of the long take centred on the very preternaturalness of nature as revealed by the unblinking gaze of the camera; to the trash-bin idolatry of the American underground, weaving new cinematic mythologies from Hollywood detritus; and to auteurism itself, which (in its more simplistic iterations) sees the essence of the filmmaker inscribed even upon the most compromised of works.

It isn’t going too far to claim that this tradition has constituted the foundation of cinephilic culture and helped to shape the cinematic canon itself. If Marker has now been welcomed into that canon and – thanks to the far greater availability of his work – into the mainstream of (primarily DVD-educated) cinephilia, it is rarely acknowledged how much of that work cheerfully undercuts many of the long-held assumptions and pieties upon which it is built.

In his review of Letter from Siberia (1957), Bazin placed Marker at right angles to cinema proper, describing the film’s “primary material” as intelligence – specifically a “verbal intelligence” – rather than image. He dubbed Marker’s method a “horizontal” montage, “as opposed to traditional montage that plays with the sense of duration through the relationship of shot to shot”.

Here, claimed Bazin, “a given image doesn’t refer to the one that preceded it or the one that will follow, but rather it refers laterally, in some way, to what is said.” Thus the very thing which makes Letter “extraordinary”, in Bazin’s estimation, is also what makes it not-cinema. Looking for a term to describe it, Bazin hit upon a prophetic turn of phrase, writing that Marker’s film is, “to borrow Jean Vigo’s formulation of À propos de Nice (‘a documentary point of view’), an essay documented by film. The important word is ‘essay’, understood in the same sense that it has in literature – an essay at once historical and political, written by a poet as well.”

Marker’s canonisation has proceeded apace with that of the form of which he has become the exemplar. Whether used as critical/curatorial shorthand in reviews and programme notes, employed as a model by filmmakers or examined in theoretical depth in major retrospectives (this summer’s BFI Southbank programme, for instance, follows upon Andréa Picard’s two-part series ‘The Way of the Termite’ at TIFF Cinémathèque in 2009-2010, which drew inspiration from Jean-Pierre Gorin ’s groundbreaking programme of the same title at Vienna Filmmuseum in 2007), the ‘essay film’ has attained in recent years widespread recognition as a particular, if perennially porous, mode of film practice. An appealingly simple formulation, the term has proved both taxonomically useful and remarkably elastic, allowing one to define a field of previously unassimilable objects while ranging far and wide throughout film history to claim other previously identified objects for this invented tradition.

Las Hurdes (1933)

It is crucial to note that the ‘essay film’ is not only a post-facto appellation for a kind of film practice that had not bothered to mark itself with a moniker, but also an invention and an intervention. While it has acquired its own set of canonical ‘texts’ that include the collected works of Marker, much of Godard – from the missive (the 52-minute Letter to Jane , 1972) to the massive ( Histoire(s) de cinéma , 1988-98) – Welles’s F for Fake (1973) and Thom Andersen’s Los Angeles Plays Itself (2003), it has also poached on the territory of other, ‘sovereign’ forms, expanding its purview in accordance with the whims of its missionaries.

From documentary especially, Vigo’s aforementioned À propos de Nice, Ivens’s Rain (1929), Buñuel’s sardonic Las Hurdes (1933), Resnais’s Night and Fog (1955), Rouch and Morin’s Chronicle of a Summer (1961); from the avant garde, Akerman’s Je, Tu, Il, Elle (1974), Straub/Huillet’s Trop tôt, trop tard (1982); from agitprop, Getino and Solanas’s The Hour of the Furnaces (1968), Portabella’s Informe general… (1976); and even from ‘pure’ fiction, for example Gorin’s provocative selection of Griffith’s A Corner in Wheat (1909).

Just as within itself the essay film presents, in the words of Gorin, “the meandering of an intelligence that tries to multiply the entries and the exits into the material it has elected (or by which it has been elected),” so, without, its scope expands exponentially through the industrious activity of its adherents, blithely cutting across definitional borders and – as per the Manny Farber ian concept which gave Gorin’s ‘Termite’ series its name –  creating meaning precisely by eating away at its own boundaries. In the scope of its application and its association more with an (amorphous) sensibility as opposed to fixed rules, the essay film bears similarities to the most famous of all fabricated genres: film noir, which has been located both in its natural habitat of the crime thriller as well as in such disparate climates as melodramas, westerns and science fiction.

The essay film, however, has proved even more peripatetic: where noir was formulated from the films of a determinate historical period (no matter that the temporal goalposts are continually shifted), the essay film is resolutely unfixed in time; it has its choice of forebears. And while noir, despite its occasional shadings over into semi-documentary during the 1940s, remains bound to fictional narratives, the essay film moves blithely between the realms of fiction and non-fiction, complicating the terms of both.

“Here is a form that seems to accommodate the two sides of that divide at the same time, that can navigate from documentary to fiction and back, creating other polarities in the process between which it can operate,” writes Gorin. When Orson Welles , in the closing moments of his masterful meditation on authenticity and illusion F for Fake, chortles, “I did promise that for one hour, I’d tell you only the truth. For the past 17 minutes, I’ve been lying my head off,” he is expressing both the conjuror’s pleasure in a trick well played and the artist’s delight in a self-defined mode that is cheerfully impure in both form and, perhaps, intention.

Nevertheless, as the essay film merrily traipses through celluloid history it intersects with ‘pure cinema’ at many turns and its form as such owes much to one particularly prominent variety thereof.

The montage tradition

If the mystical strain described above represents the Dionysian side of pure cinema, Soviet montage was its Apollonian opposite: randomness, revelation and sensuous response countered by construction, forceful argumentation and didactic instruction.

No less than the mystics, however, the montagists were after essences. Eisenstein , Dziga Vertov and Pudovkin , along with their transnational associates and acolytes, sought to crystallise abstract concepts in the direct and purposeful juxtaposition of forceful, hard-edged images – the general made powerfully, viscerally immediate in the particular. Here, says Eisenstein, in the umbrella-wielding harpies who set upon the revolutionaries in October (1928), is bourgeois Reaction made manifest; here, in the serried ranks of soldiers proceeding as one down the Odessa Steps in Battleship Potemkin (1925), is Oppression undisguised; here, in the condemned Potemkin sailor who wins over his imminent executioners with a cry of “Brothers!” – a moment powerfully invoked by Marker at the beginning of his magnum opus A Grin Without a Cat (1977) – is Solidarity emergent and, from it, the seeds of Revolution.

The relentlessly unidirectional focus of classical Soviet montage puts it methodologically and temperamentally at odds with the ruminative, digressive and playful qualities we associate with the essay film. So, too, the former’s fierce ideological certainty and cadre spirit contrast with that free play of the mind, the Montaigne -inspired meanderings of individual intelligence, that so characterise our image of the latter.

Beyond Marker’s personal interest in and inheritance from the Soviet masters, classical montage laid the foundations of the essay film most pertinently in its foregrounding of the presence, within the fabric of the film, of a directing intelligence. Conducting their experiments in film not through ‘pure’ abstraction but through narrative, the montagists made manifest at least two operative levels within the film: the narrative itself and the arrangement of that narrative by which the deeper structures that move it are made legible. Against the seamless, immersive illusionism of commercial cinema, montage was a key for decrypting those social forces, both overt and hidden, that govern human society.

And as such it was method rather than material that was the pathway to truth. Fidelity to the authentic – whether the accurate representation of historical events or the documentary flavouring of Eisensteinian typage – was important only insomuch as it provided the filmmaker with another tool to reach a considerably higher plane of reality.

Dziga Vertov’s Enthusiasm (1931)

Midway on their Marxian mission to change the world rather than interpret it, the montagists actively made the world even as they revealed it. In doing so they powerfully expressed the dialectic between control and chaos that would come to be not only one of the chief motors of the essay film but the crux of modernity itself.

Vertov’s Man with a Movie Camera (1929), now claimed as the most venerable and venerated ancestor of the essay film (and this despite its prototypically purist claim to realise a ‘universal’ cinematic language “based on its complete separation from the language of literature and the theatre”) is the archetypal model of this high-modernist agon. While it is the turning of the movie projector itself and the penetrating gaze of Vertov’s kino-eye that sets the whirling dynamo of the city into motion, the recorder creating that which it records, that motion is also outside its control.

At the dawn of the cinematic century, the American writer Henry Adams saw in the dynamo both the expression of human mastery over nature and a conduit to mysterious, elemental powers beyond our comprehension. So, too, the modernist ambition expressed in literature, painting, architecture and cinema to capture a subject from all angles – to exhaust its wealth of surfaces, meanings, implications, resonances – collides with awe (or fear) before a plenitude that can never be encompassed.

Remove the high-modernist sense of mission and we can see this same dynamic as animating the essay film – recall that last, parenthetical term in Gorin’s formulation of the essay film, “multiply[ing] the entries and the exits into the material it has elected (or by which it has been elected)”. The nimble movements and multi-angled perspectives of the essay film are founded on this negotiation between active choice and passive possession; on the recognition that even the keenest insight pales in the face of an ultimate unknowability.

The other key inheritance the essay film received from the classical montage tradition, perhaps inevitably, was a progressive spirit, however variously defined. While Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will (1935) and Olympia (1938) amply and chillingly demonstrated that montage, like any instrumental apparatus, has no inherent ideological nature, hers were more the exceptions that proved the rule. (Though why, apart from ideological repulsiveness, should Riefenstahl’s plentifully fabricated ‘documentaries’ not be considered as essay films in their own right?)

The overwhelming fact remains that the great majority of those who drew upon the Soviet montagists for explicitly ideological ends (as opposed to Hollywood’s opportunistic swipings) resided on the left of the spectrum – and, in the montagists’ most notable successor in the period immediately following, retained their alignment with and inextricability from the state.

Progressive vs radical

The Grierson ian documentary movement in Britain neutered the political and aesthetic radicalism of its more dynamic model in favour of paternalistic progressivism founded on conformity, class complacency and snobbery towards its own medium. But if it offered a far paler antecedent to the essay film than the Soviet montage tradition, it nevertheless represents an important stage in the evolution of the essay-film form, for reasons not unrelated to some of those rather staid qualities.

The Soviet montagists had created a vision of modernity racing into the future at pace with the social and spiritual liberation of its proletarian pilot-passenger, an aggressively public ideology of group solidarity. The Grierson school, by contrast, offered a domesticated image of an efficient, rational and productive modern industrial society based on interconnected but separate public and private spheres, as per the ideological values of middle-class liberal individualism.

The Soviet montagists had looked to forge a universal, ‘pure’ cinematic language, at least before the oppressive dictates of Stalinist socialist realism shackled them. The Grierson school, evincing a middle-class disdain for the popular and ‘low’ arts, sought instead to purify the sullied medium of cinema by importing extra-cinematic prestige: most notably Night Mail (1936), with its Auden -penned, Britten -scored ode to the magic of the mail, or Humphrey Jennings’s salute to wartime solidarity A Diary for Timothy (1945), with its mildly sententious E.M. Forster narration.

Night Mail (1936)

What this domesticated dynamism and retrograde pursuit of high-cultural bona fides achieved, however, was to mingle a newfound cinematic language (montage) with a traditionally literary one (narration); and, despite the salutes to state-oriented communality, to re-introduce the individual, idiosyncratic voice as the vehicle of meaning – as the mediating intelligence that connects the viewer to the images viewed.

In Night Mail especially there is, in the whimsy of the Auden text and the film’s synchronisation of private time and public history, an intimation of the essay film’s musing, reflective voice as the chugging rhythm of the narration timed to the speeding wheels of the train gives way to a nocturnal vision of solitary dreamers bedevilled by spectral monsters, awakening in expectation of the postman’s knock with a “quickening of the heart/for who can bear to be forgot?”

It’s a curiously disquieting conclusion: this unsettling, anxious vision of disappearance that takes on an even darker shade with the looming spectre of war – one that rhymes, five decades on, with the wistful search of Marker’s narrator in Sans soleil, seeking those fleeting images which “quicken the heart” in a world where wars both past and present have been forgotten, subsumed in a modern society built upon the systematic banishment of memory.

It is, of course, with the seminal post-war collaborations between Marker and Alain Resnais that the essay film proper emerges. In contrast to the striving culture-snobbery of the Griersonian documentary, the Resnais-Marker collaborations (and the Resnais solo documentary shorts that preceded them) inaugurate a blithe, seemingly effortless dialogue between cinema and the other arts in both their subjects (painting, sculpture) and their assorted creative personnel (writers Paul Éluard , Jean Cayrol , Raymond Queneau , composers Darius Milhaud and Hanns Eisler ). This also marks the point where the revolutionary line of the Soviets and the soft, statist liberalism of the British documentarians give way to a more free-floating but staunchly oppositional leftism, one derived as much from a spirit of humanistic inquiry as from ideological affiliation.

Related to this was the form’s problems with official patronage. Originally conceived as commissions by various French government or government-affiliated bodies, the Resnais-Marker films famously ran into trouble from French censors: Les statues meurent aussi (1953) for its condemnation of French colonialism, Night and Fog for its shots of Vichy policemen guarding deportation camps; the former film would have its second half lopped off before being cleared for screening, the latter its offending shots removed.

Night and Fog (1955)

Appropriately, it is at this moment that the emphasis of the essay film begins to shift away from tactile presence – the whirl of the city, the rhythm of the rain, the workings of industry – to felt absence. The montagists had marvelled at the workings of human creations which raced ahead irrespective of human efforts; here, the systems created by humanity to master the world write, in their very functioning, an epitaph for those things extinguished in the act of mastering them. The African masks preserved in the Musée de l’Homme in Les statues meurent aussi speak of a bloody legacy of vanquished and conquered civilisations; the labyrinthine archival complex of the Bibliothèque Nationale in the sardonically titled Toute la mémoire du monde (1956) sparks a disquisition on all that is forgotten in the act of cataloguing knowledge; the miracle of modern plastics saluted in the witty, industrially commissioned Le Chant du styrène (1958) regresses backwards to its homely beginnings; in Night and Fog an unprecedentedly enormous effort of human organisation marshals itself to actively produce a dreadful, previously unimaginable nullity.

To overstate the case, loss is the primary motor of the modern essay film: loss of belief in the image’s ability to faithfully reflect reality; loss of faith in the cinema’s ability to capture life as it is lived; loss of illusions about cinema’s ‘purity’, its autonomy from the other arts or, for that matter, the world.

“You never know what you may be filming,” notes one of Marker’s narrating surrogates in A Grin Without a Cat, as footage of the Chilean equestrian team at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics offers a glimpse of a future member of the Pinochet junta. The image and sound captured at the time of filming offer one facet of reality; it is only with this lateral move outside that reality that the future reality it conceals can speak.

What will distinguish the essay film, as Bazin noted, is not only its ability to make the image but also its ability to interrogate it, to dispel the illusion of its sovereignty and see it as part of a matrix of meaning that extends beyond the screen. No less than were the montagists, the film-essayists seek the motive forces of modern society not by crystallising eternal verities in powerful images but by investigating that ever-shifting, kaleidoscopic relationship between our regime of images and the realities it both reveals and occludes.

— Andrew Tracy

1.   À propos de Nice

Jean Vigo, 1930

Few documentaries have achieved the cult status of the 22-minute A propos de Nice, co-directed by Jean Vigo and cameraman Boris Kaufman at the beginning of their careers. The film retains a spontaneous, apparently haphazard, quality yet its careful montage combines a strong realist drive, lyrical dashes – helped by Marc Perrone’s accordion music – and a clear political agenda.

In today’s era, in which the Côte d’Azur has become a byword for hedonistic consumption, it’s refreshing to see a film that systematically undermines its glossy surface. Using images sometimes ‘stolen’ with hidden cameras, A propos de Nice moves between the city’s main sites of pleasure: the Casino, the Promenade des Anglais, the Hotel Negresco and the carnival. Occasionally the filmmakers remind us of the sea, the birds, the wind in the trees but mostly they contrast people: the rich play tennis, the poor boules; the rich have tea, the poor gamble in the (then) squalid streets of the Old Town.

As often, women bear the brunt of any critique of bourgeois consumption: a rich old woman’s head is compared to an ostrich, others grin as they gaze up at phallic factory chimneys; young women dance frenetically, their crotch to the camera. In the film’s most famous image, an elegant woman is ‘stripped’ by the camera to reveal her naked body – not quite matched by a man’s shoes vanishing to display his naked feet to the shoe-shine.

An essay film avant la lettre , A propos de Nice ends on Soviet-style workers’ faces and burning furnaces. The message is clear, even if it has not been heeded by history.

— Ginette Vincendeau

2. A Diary for Timothy

Humphrey Jennings, 1945

A Diary for Timothy takes the form of a journal addressed to the eponymous Timothy James Jenkins, born on 3 September 1944, exactly five years after Britain’s entry into World War II. The narrator, Michael Redgrave , a benevolent offscreen presence, informs young Timothy about the momentous events since his birth and later advises that, even when the war is over, there will be “everyday danger”.

The subjectivity and speculative approach maintained throughout are more akin to the essay tradition than traditional propaganda in their rejection of mere glib conveyance of information or thunderous hectoring. Instead Jennings invites us quietly to observe the nuances of everyday life as Britain enters the final chapter of the war. Against the momentous political backdrop, otherwise routine, everyday activities are ascribed new profundity as the Welsh miner Geronwy, Alan the farmer, Bill the railway engineer and Peter the convalescent fighter pilot go about their daily business.

Within the confines of the Ministry of Information’s remit – to lift the spirits of a battle-weary nation – and the loose narrative framework of Timothy’s first six months, Jennings finds ample expression for the kind of formal experiment that sets his work apart from that of other contemporary documentarians. He worked across film, painting, photography, theatrical design, journalism and poetry; in Diary his protean spirit finds expression in a manner that transgresses the conventional parameters of wartime propaganda, stretching into film poem, philosophical reflection, social document, surrealistic ethnographic observation and impressionistic symphony. Managing to keep to the right side of sentimentality, it still makes for potent viewing.

— Catherine McGahan

3. Toute la mémoire du monde

Alain Resnais, 1956

In the opening credits of Toute la mémoire du monde, alongside the director’s name and that of producer Pierre Braunberger , one reads the mysterious designation “Groupe des XXX”. This Group of Thirty was an assembly of filmmakers who mobilised in the early 1950s to defend the “style, quality and ambitious subject matter” of short films in post-war France; the signatories of its 1953 ‘Declaration’ included Resnais , Chris Marker and Agnès Varda. The success of the campaign contributed to a golden age of short filmmaking that would last a decade and form the crucible of the French essay film.

A 22-minute poetic documentary about the old French Bibliothèque Nationale, Toute la mémoire du monde is a key work in this strand of filmmaking and one which can also be seen as part of a loose ‘trilogy of memory’ in Resnais’s early documentaries. Les statues meurent aussi (co-directed with Chris Marker) explored cultural memory as embodied in African art and the depredations of colonialism; Night and Fog was a seminal reckoning with the historical memory of the Nazi death camps. While less politically controversial than these earlier works, Toute la mémoire du monde’s depiction of the Bibliothèque Nationale is still oddly suggestive of a prison, with its uniformed guards and endless corridors. In W.G. Sebald ’s 2001 novel Austerlitz, directly after a passage dedicated to Resnais’s film, the protagonist describes his uncertainty over whether, when using the library, he “was on the Islands of the Blest, or, on the contrary, in a penal colony”.

Resnais explores the workings of the library through the effective device of following a book from arrival and cataloguing to its delivery to a reader (the book itself being something of an in-joke: a mocked-up travel guide to Mars in the Petite Planète series Marker was then editing for Editions du Seuil). With Resnais’s probing, mobile camerawork and a commentary by French writer Remo Forlani, Toute la mémoire du monde transforms the library into a mysterious labyrinth, something between an edifice and an organism: part brain and part tomb.

— Chris Darke

4. The House is Black

(Khaneh siah ast) Forough Farrokhzad, 1963

Before the House of Makhmalbaf there was The House is Black. Called “the greatest of all Iranian films” by critic Jonathan Rosenbaum, who helped translate the subtitles from Farsi into English, this 20-minute black-and-white essay film by feminist poet Farrokhzad was shot in a leper colony near Tabriz in northern Iran and has been heralded as the touchstone of the Iranian New Wave.

The buildings of the Baba Baghi colony are brick and peeling whitewash but a student asked to write a sentence using the word ‘house’ offers Khaneh siah ast : the house is black. His hand, seen in close-up, is one of many in the film; rather than objects of medical curiosity, these hands – some fingerless, many distorted by the disease – are agents, always in movement, doing, making, exercising, praying. In putting white words on the blackboard, the student makes part of the film; in the next shots, the film’s credits appear, similarly handwritten on the same blackboard.

As they negotiate the camera’s gaze and provide the soundtrack by singing, stamping and wheeling a barrow, the lepers are co-authors of the film. Farrokhzad echoes their prayers, heard and seen on screen, with her voiceover, which collages religious texts, beginning with the passage from Psalm 55 famously set to music by Mendelssohn (“O for the wings of a dove”).

In the conjunctions between Farrokhzad’s poetic narration and diegetic sound, including tanbur-playing, an intense assonance arises. Its beat is provided by uniquely lyrical associative editing that would influence Abbas Kiarostami , who quotes Farrokhzad’s poem ‘The Wind Will Carry Us’ in his eponymous film . Repeated shots of familiar bodily movement, made musical, move the film insistently into the viewer’s body: it is infectious. Posing a question of aesthetics, The House Is Black uses the contagious gaze of cinema to dissolve the screen between Us and Them.

— Sophie Mayer

5. Letter to Jane: An Investigation About a Still

Jean-Luc Godard & Jean-Pierre Gorin, 1972

With its invocation of Brecht (“Uncle Bertolt”), rejection of visual pleasure (for 52 minutes we’re mostly looking at a single black-and-white still) and discussion of the role of intellectuals in “the revolution”, Letter to Jane is so much of its time as to appear untranslatable to the present except as a curio from a distant era of radical cinema. Between 1969 and 1971, Godard and Gorin made films collectively as part of the Dziga Vertov Group before they returned, in 1972, to the mainstream with Tout va bien , a big-budget film about the aftermath of May 1968 featuring leftist stars Yves Montand and  Jane Fonda . It was to the latter that Godard and Gorin directed their Letter after seeing a news photograph of her on a solidarity visit to North Vietnam in August 1972.

Intended to accompany the US release of Tout va bien, Letter to Jane is ‘a letter’ only in as much as it is fairly conversational in tone, with Godard and Gorin delivering their voiceovers in English. It’s stylistically more akin to the ‘blackboard films’ of the time, with their combination of pedagogical instruction and stern auto-critique.

It’s also an inspired semiological reading of a media image and a reckoning with the contradictions of celebrity activism. Godard and Gorin examine the image’s framing and camera angle and ask why Fonda is the ‘star’ of the photograph while the Vietnamese themselves remain faceless or out of focus? And what of her expression of compassionate concern? This “expression of an expression” they trace back, via an elaboration of the Kuleshov effect , through other famous faces – Henry Fonda , John Wayne , Lillian Gish and Falconetti – concluding that it allows for “no reverse shot” and serves only to bolster Western “good conscience”.

Letter to Jane is ultimately concerned with the same question that troubled philosophers such as Levinas and Derrida : what’s at stake ethically when one claims to speak “in place of the other”? Any contemporary critique of celebrity activism – from Bono and Geldof to Angelina Jolie – should start here, with a pair of gauchiste trolls muttering darkly beneath a press shot of ‘Hanoi Jane’.

6. F for Fake

Orson Welles, 1973

Those who insist it was all downhill for Orson Welles after Citizen Kane would do well to take a close look at this film made more than three decades later, in its own idiosyncratic way a masterpiece just as innovative as his better-known feature debut.

Perhaps the film’s comparative and undeserved critical neglect is due to its predominantly playful tone, or perhaps it’s because it is a low-budget, hard-to-categorise, deeply personal work that mixes original material with plenty of footage filmed by others – most extensively taken from a documentary by François Reichenbach about Clifford Irving and his bogus biography of his friend Elmyr de Hory , an art forger who claimed to have painted pictures attributed to famous names and hung in the world’s most prestigious galleries.

If the film had simply offered an account of the hoaxes perpetrated by that disreputable duo, it would have been entertaining enough but, by means of some extremely inventive, innovative and inspired editing, Welles broadens his study of fakery to take in his own history as a ‘charlatan’ – not merely his lifelong penchant for magician’s tricks but also the 1938 radio broadcast of his news-report adaptation of H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds – as well as observations on Howard Hughes , Pablo Picasso and the anonymous builders of Chartres cathedral. So it is that Welles contrives to conjure up, behind a colourful cloak of consistently entertaining mischief, a rueful meditation on truth and falsehood, art and authorship – a subject presumably dear to his heart following Pauline Kael ’s then recent attempts to persuade the world that Herman J. Mankiewicz had been the real creative force behind Kane.

As a riposte to that thesis (albeit never framed as such), F for Fake is subtle, robust, supremely erudite and never once bitter; the darkest moment – as Welles contemplates the serene magnificence of Chartres – is at once an uncharacteristic but touchingly heartfelt display of humility and a poignant memento mori. And it is in this delicate balancing of the autobiographical with the universal, as well as in the dazzling deployment of cinematic form to illustrate and mirror content, that the film works its once unique, now highly influential magic.

— Geoff Andrew

7. How to Live in the German Federal Republic

(Leben – BRD) Harun Farocki, 1990

Harun Farocki ’s portrait of West Germany in 32 simulations from training sessions has no commentary, just the actions themselves in all their surreal beauty, one after the other. The Bundesrepublik Deutschland is shown as a nation of people who can deal with everything because they have been prepared – taught how to react properly in every possible situation.

We know how birth works; how to behave in kindergarten; how to chat up girls, boys or whatever we fancy (for we’re liberal-minded, if only in principle); how to look for a job and maybe live without finding one; how to wiggle our arses in the hottest way possible when we pole-dance, or manage a hostage crisis without things getting (too) bloody. Whatever job we do, we know it by heart; we also know how to manage whatever kind of psychological breakdown we experience; and we are also prepared for the end, and even have an idea about how our burial will go. This is the nation: one of fearful people in dire need of control over their one chance of getting it right.

Viewed from the present, How to Live in the German Federal Republic is revealed as the archetype of many a Farocki film in the decades to follow, for example Die Umschulung (1994), Der Auftritt (1996) or Nicht ohne Risiko (2004), all of which document as dispassionately as possible different – not necessarily simulated – scenarios of social interactions related to labour and capital. For all their enlightening beauty, none of these ever came close to How to Live in the German Federal Republic which, depending on one’s mood, can play like an absurd comedy or the most gut-wrenching drama. Yet one disquieting thing is certain: How to Live in the German Federal Republic didn’t age – our lives still look the same.

— Olaf Möller

8. One Man’s War

(La Guerre d’un seul homme) Edgardo Cozarinsky , 1982

One Man’s War proves that an auteur film can be made without writing a line, recording a sound or shooting a single frame. It’s easy to point to the ‘extraordinary’ character of the film, given its combination of materials that were not made to cohabit; there couldn’t be a less plausible dialogue than the one Cozarinsky establishes between the newsreels shot during the Nazi occupation of Paris and the Parisian diaries of novelist and Nazi officer Ernst Jünger . There’s some truth to Pascal Bonitzer’s assertion in Cahiers du cinéma in 1982 that the principle of the documentary was inverted here, since it is the images that provide a commentary for the voice.

But that observation still doesn’t pin down the uniqueness of a work that forces history through a series of registers, styles and dimensions, wiping out the distance between reality and subjectivity, propaganda and literature, cinema and journalism, daily life and dream, and establishing the idea not so much of communicating vessels as of contaminating vessels.

To enquire about the essayistic dimension of One Man’s War is to submit it to a test of purity against which the film itself is rebelling. This is no ars combinatoria but systems of collision and harmony; organic in their temporal development and experimental in their procedural eagerness. It’s like a machine created to die instantly; neither Cozarinsky nor anyone else could repeat the trick, as is the case with all great avant-garde works.

By blurring the genre of his literary essays, his fictional films, his archival documentaries, his literary fictions, Cozarinsky showed he knew how to reinvent the erasure of borders. One Man’s War is not a film about the Occupation but a meditation on the different forms in which that Occupation can be represented.

—Sergio Wolf. Translated by Mar Diestro-Dópido

9. Sans soleil

Chris Marker, 1982

There are many moments to quicken the heart in Sans soleil but one in particular demonstrates the method at work in Marker’s peerless film. An unseen female narrator reads from letters sent to her by a globetrotting cameraman named Sandor Krasna (Marker’s nom de voyage), one of which muses on the 11th-century Japanese writer  Sei Shōnagon .

As we hear of Shōnagon’s “list of elegant things, distressing things, even of things not worth doing”, we watch images of a missile being launched and a hovering bomber. What’s the connection? There is none. Nothing here fixes word and image in illustrative lockstep; it’s in the space between them that Sans soleil makes room for the spectator to drift, dream and think – to inimitable effect.

Sans soleil was Marker’s return to a personal mode of filmmaking after more than a decade in militant cinema. His reprise of the epistolary form looks back to earlier films such as  Letter from Siberia  (1958) but the ‘voice’ here is both intimate and removed. The narrator’s reading of Krasna’s letters flips the first person to the third, using ‘he’ instead of ‘I’. Distance and proximity in the words mirror, multiply and magnify both the distances travelled and the time spanned in the images, especially those of the 1960s and its lost dreams of revolutionary social change.

While it’s handy to define Sans soleil as an ‘essay film’, there’s something about the dry term that doesn’t do justice to the experience of watching it. After Marker’s death last year, when writing programme notes on the film, I came up with a line that captures something of what it’s like to watch Sans soleil: “a mesmerising, lucid and lovely river of film, which, like the river of the ancients, is never the same when one steps into it a second time”.

10. Handsworth Songs

Black Audio Film Collective, 1986

Made at the time of civil unrest in Birmingham, this key example of the essay film at its most complex remains relevant both formally and thematically. Handsworth Songs is no straightforward attempt to provide answers as to why the riots happened; instead, using archive film spliced with made and found footage of the events and the media and popular reaction to them, it creates a poetic sense of context.

The film is an example of counter-media in that it slows down the demand for either immediate explanation or blanket condemnation. Its stillness allows the history of immigration and the subsequent hostility of the media and the police to the black and Asian population to be told in careful detail.

One repeated scene shows a young black man running through a group of white policemen who surround him on all sides. He manages to break free several times before being wrestled to the ground; if only for one brief, utopian moment, an entirely different history of race in the UK is opened up.

The waves of post-war immigration are charted in the stories told both by a dominant (and frequently repressive) televisual narrative and, importantly, by migrants themselves. Interviews mingle with voiceover, music accompanies the machines that the Windrush generation work at. But there are no definitive answers here, only, as the Black Audio Film Collective memorably suggests, “the ghosts of songs”.

— Nina Power

11.   Los Angeles Plays Itself

Thom Andersen, 2003

One of the attractions that drew early film pioneers out west, besides the sunlight and the industrial freedom, was the versatility of the southern Californian landscape: with sea, snowy mountains, desert, fruit groves, Spanish missions, an urban downtown and suburban boulevards all within a 100-mile radius, the Los Angeles basin quickly and famously became a kind of giant open-air film studio, available and pliant.

Of course, some people actually live there too. “Sometimes I think that gives me the right to criticise,” growls native Angeleno Andersen in his forensic three-hour prosecution of moving images of the movie city, whose mounting litany of complaints – couched in Encke King’s gravelly, near-parodically irritated voiceover, and sometimes organised, as Stuart Klawans wrote in The Nation, “in the manner of a saloon orator” – belies a sly humour leavening a radically serious intent.

Inspired in part by Mark Rappaport’s factual essay appropriations of screen fictions (Rock Hudson’s Home Movies, 1993; From the Journals of Jean Seberg , 1995), as well as Godard’s Histoire(s) de cinéma, this “city symphony in reverse” asserts public rights to our screen discourse through its magpie method as well as its argument. (Today you could rebrand it ‘Occupy Hollywood’.) Tinseltown malfeasance is evidenced across some 200 different film clips, from offences against geography and slurs against architecture to the overt historical mythologies of Chinatown (1974), Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) and L.A. Confidential (1997), in which the city’s class and cultural fault-lines are repainted “in crocodile tears” as doleful tragedies of conspiracy, promoting hopelessness in the face of injustice.

Andersen’s film by contrast spurs us to independent activism, starting with the reclamation of our gaze: “What if we watch with our voluntary attention, instead of letting the movies direct us?” he asks, peering beyond the foregrounding of character and story. And what if more movies were better and more useful, helping us see our world for what it is? Los Angeles Plays Itself grows most moving – and useful – extolling the Los Angeles neorealism Andersen has in mind: stories of “so many men unneeded, unwanted”, as he says over a scene from Billy Woodberry’s Bless Their Little Hearts (1983), “in a world in which there is so much to be done”.

— Nick Bradshaw

12.   La Morte Rouge

Víctor Erice, 2006

The famously unprolific Spanish director Víctor Erice may remain best known for his full-length fiction feature The Spirit of the Beehive (1973), but his other films are no less rewarding. Having made a brilliant foray into the fertile territory located somewhere between ‘documentary’ and ‘fiction’ with The Quince Tree Sun (1992), in this half-hour film made for the ‘Correspondences’ exhibition exploring resemblances in the oeuvres of Erice and Kiarostami , the relationship between reality and artifice becomes his very subject.

A ‘small’ work, it comprises stills, archive footage, clips from an old Sherlock Holmes movie, a few brief new scenes – mostly without actors – and music by Mompou and (for once, superbly used) Arvo Pärt . If its tone – it’s introduced as a “soliloquy” – and scale are modest, its thematic range and philosophical sophistication are considerable.

The title is the name of the Québécois village that is the setting for The Scarlet Claw (1944), a wartime Holmes mystery starring Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce which was the first movie Erice ever saw, taken by his sister to the Kursaal cinema in San Sebastian.

For the five-year-old, the experience was a revelation: unable to distinguish the ‘reality’ of the newsreel from that of the nightmare world of Roy William Neill’s film, he not only learned that death and murder existed but noted that the adults in the audience, presumably privy to some secret knowledge denied him, were unaffected by the corpses on screen. Had this something to do with war? Why was La Morte Rouge not on any map? And what did it signify that postman Potts was not, in fact, Potts but the killer – and an actor (whatever that was) to boot?

From such personal reminiscences – evoked with wondrous intimacy in the immaculate Castillian of the writer-director’s own wry narration – Erice fashions a lyrical meditation on themes that have underpinned his work from Beehive to Broken Windows (2012): time and change, memory and identity, innocence and experience, war and death. And because he understands, intellectually and emotionally, that the time-based medium he himself works in can reveal unforgettably vivid realities that belong wholly to the realm of the imaginary, La Morte Rouge is a great film not only about the power of cinema but about life itself.

Sight & Sound: the August 2013 issue

In this issue: Frances Ha’s Greta Gerwig – the most exciting actress in America? Plus Ryan Gosling in Only God Forgives, Wadjda, The Wall,...

More from this issue

DVDs and Blu Ray

Buy The Complete Humphrey Jennings Collection Volume Three: A Diary for Timothy on DVD and Blu Ray

Humphrey Jennings’s transition from wartime to peacetime filmmaking.

Buy Chronicle of a Summer on DVD and Blu Ray

Jean Rouch’s hugely influential and ground-breaking documentary.

Further reading

Video essay: The essay film – some thoughts of discontent

Kevin B. Lee

The land still lies: Handsworth Songs and the English riots

The world at sea: The Forgotten Space

What I owe to Chris Marker

Patricio Guzmán

His and her ghosts: reworking La Jetée

Melissa Bradshaw

At home (and away) with Agnès Varda

Daniel Trilling

Pere Portabella looks back

John Akomfrah’s Hauntologies

Laura Allsop

Back to the top

Commercial and licensing

BFI distribution

Archive content sales and licensing

BFI book releases and trade sales

Selling to the BFI

Terms of use

BFI Southbank purchases

Online community guidelines

Cookies and privacy

©2024 British Film Institute. All rights reserved. Registered charity 287780.

See something different

Subscribe now for exclusive offers and the best of cinema. Hand-picked.

• Screenwriting \e607
• Directing \e606
• Cinematography & Cameras \e605
• Editing & Post-Production \e602
• Documentary \e603
• Movies & TV \e60a
• Producing \e608
• Distribution & Marketing \e604
• Festivals & Events \e611
• Fundraising & Crowdfunding \e60f
• Sound & Music \e601
• Games & Transmedia \e60e
• Grants, Contests, & Awards \e60d
• Film School \e610
• Marketplace & Deals \e60b
• Off Topic \e609
• This Site \e600

How to Write Short Films (Free Template)

Want to learn about writing short films we have all the answers for you. .

Chances are you’re reading No Film School because you’re not only obsessed with Hollywood, but you want to be a part of it. But breaking in is never easy.

That’s why I think writing short films and even making them yourself has become a viable option for breaking into the business. Everyone wants to see their character arc and get their imagination on the screen. Sometimes, short screenplays are the only entry point to that world.

Of course, writing a short film is no simple task, but today I’ll take you through a few great strategies to get your short film ideas on the page, and then hopefully on the screen.

Let’s find out how to make a short movie together.

How Long Is a Short Film?

Film is a visual medium. You don't need a lot of time to tell a story. A short film is any film that isn't long enough to be considered a feature. The Sundance Film Festival allows its shorts to be 50 minutes or less. The Academy Awards sets the bar at 40 minutes. Technically this is what qualifies as a short film.

Script writing can vary, but you never want to overstay your welcome with the audience. In my opinion, the best shorts pick a single moment and extrapolate it.

Don’t get too caught up in thinking about these varying lengths. Focus on what you want to do with your short, the world, the characters, the situation, and see where you land.

One of my favorite shorts of all time clocks in at 26 minutes. It’s called Six Shooter, and was directed by Martin McDonagh. It was a very successful short film.

But writing 26 pages can feel like a daunting task.

If you’re just starting out, I’d recommend trying to see what you can achieve in five pages. I know what you’re thinking, “5 pages, that’s easy!” Head over to Channel 101 for a look at a handful of stories crafted in the 5-minute span. Channel 101 is a way filmmakers cut their teeth writing short films, and developing short film ideas.

It's where the popular animated show Rick and Morty began.

How to Write a Short Film that Connects

But writing short films that actually connect with an audience and receives acclaim is hard. Short film comedy is a common route, and you can search top short films on youtube to see what people are currently connecting with.

When you consider it, isn't an Instagram story a short film? Certainly, a skit is. Short films surround you. Which ones do you connect most with?

Start with five pages and then expand. If you expand too much, your idea may not even be right for a short film.

Here’s another one of my favorite short films that spans 60 years and is less than three minutes long.

When you’re writing a short film, there are lots of options about length.

How will you know if you’ve got the right short film ideas?

How to Brainstorm Writing Short Film Ideas!

Short films are kind of a tricky path to follow. When we sit down to write, the natural inclination is to set up a huge story with a lot of characters, and great stakes, but that’s not really what successful short films are about.

A short film needs to take us on an emotional journey, but we should never feel like the story is crammed into the allotted time.

The short film has to be able to stand alone.

In my opinion, the best short films take us on a fulfilling journey, that often happens "in the moment" so to speak.

That means, the story might play out in real-time, or close to real-time. When I’m sitting down to write a short film, I think about situations or moments that can tell a grander lesson but occur in real-time.

What are some scenarios from my own life? What are some events that happened to me that taught me lessons applicable to writing short films?

Did I ever spend an afternoon with a grandparent? Help someone change flat tire? I know I’ve been on a ton of bad Tinder dates.

This great short is about the anxiety of giving a school presentation.

Chase your own life around for a bit. Do some self-reflection.

I like to mine my own life, and then add fantastical elements to the mix. Build your story out, accentuate the characters, find the crucial moments where we learn something.

And let the idea take you where you want to go.

When I’m writing a short film I also like to think about limitations. Can I tell a story that takes place entirely in the back seat of a car?

One that’s just about a game of hide and seek?

Some of the Best Short Films are Pixar Short Films

Pixar is known for it's well-crafted features, but to unlock some of their storytelling secrets, look no farther than the shorts that lead off the Pixar film experience.

Take this short film, Piper , by Pixar Animation.

This short film takes place almost in real time. It has a simple quest, for a baby bird to get a shell. It’s a SIMPLE goal, but it’s still an enthralling watch.

It’s a simple story, but it gets the audience’s attention right away. We’re emotionally hooked to this baby bird, and along for the ride.

If you want to think about humans, take the lessons learned in Pixar’s Bao .

This is only three minutes long, but it shines a light on familial love the same way Pixar’s feature-length films do. Just on a smaller scale.

Again, these movies are all personal stories. We can identify with the characters in the moment, and we have a clear beginning, middle, and end.

No narrative cram! Pixar short films aren't just helpful at understanding how to write short films, they're a low-key storytelling masterclass.

It’s my opinion that the best short films tell a story that’s solely about one experience. I think many short films suffer from trying to do too much, or set up too big of a world.

There are tons of other great short films online too. Just look for them and figure out what's working for you, and what isn't.

Once I have a short film idea I like, I like to use this simple tool to see if my idea works

Short Film Outline

We use feature film outlines to plan out our stories, so how can we use a similar outline to plan out our short film ideas?

When I sit to write a short film, I always shoot for around twelve pages. I like to write in increments of four pages for each act, and then trim or expand as I flesh out the idea.

Sometimes this leads me to a feature film…or a TV show…or anything but a short film...

But it’s a great way to get my idea going and to expand my own understanding of the story.

Here’s a simple short film outline I use to get my stuff going….

• What’s the opening scene ?
• Who’s out character and what do they want?
• Who populates their world?
• What immediately stands in their way?
• Where are we on page three?
• What else makes it hard?
• Where are we on page five?
• What changes in our character’s mood or outlook?
• Where are we on page seven?
• What’s the worst thing that happens?
• How do they react to the worst thing?
• Where are we on page ten?
• Can the worst be fixed? How?
• Where are we on page 12?
• Where do we leave our characters?

These fifteen prompts get my mind moving. They force me to always create obstacles, introduce characters, and keep things going.

So let’s break down a short film using it!

The Last Farm, directed by Rúnar Rúnarsson . It's 17 minutes long, so this all won't be EXACT, but let’s try it anyway.

1. What’s the opening scene?

The farm doing chores, getting his farm ready for what we presume is winter.

2. Who’s out character and what do they want?

Our farmer wants him and his wife to stay in the house. His kids want them to move out.

3. Who populates their world?

They live in isolation but seem happy.

4. What immediately stands in their way?

Their kids want to put them in a home.

5. Where are we on page three?

Three to five minutes in, we know the world, the stakes, and see both sides of the argument.

6. What else makes it hard?

The conditions on the farm, the kids, the neighboring food delivery guy.

7. Where are we on page five?

We know this guy is proud and doesn’t want help. We know he’s stubborn. So we can feel the existential dread of confrontation coming our way.

8. What changes in our character’s mood or outlook?

He’s reconciled that this is a losing battle, but still works tirelessly to prove he can live here.

9. Where are we on page seven?

Life has gotten terrible, we know he’s digging a grave, and we can feel the heat as his family careens toward him. Tension!

10. What’s the worst thing that happens?

His wife is dead! He’s going to be alone in the old folks home without her.

11. How do they react to the worst thing?

He’s going to bury her at their home, but we get the sense that he HAS TO do it before his family arrives.

12. Where are we on page ten?

We’re biting our nails as he gets her funeral ready, and the car comes toward him.

13. Can the worst be fixed? How?

He can’t make her alive again, but he can bury her there.

14. Where are we on page 12?

He has her coffin in the ground, and we see him saying a prayer and saying goodbye to the idyllic home.

AND THEN HE GETS IN THE GRAVE!!!!

15. Where do we leave our characters?

As the car pulls up, we leave our man buried underground with his wife. We don’t know if they’ll be dug up or what, but we do know that his wish of spending his life with his wife has been fulfilled.

That was super powerful. And I know it can feel daunting to write after watching that masterpiece.

Still, grab that checklist and let’s brainstorm some of your short film ideas!

More Short Film Idea Brainstorming

If you’re trying to make something compelling in 5-20 minutes, I find it’s easier to brainstorm an event that only takes that long to unfold, and then dials in the consequences.

One thing I like about this short film, called Election Night , is that it shrinks its story down to cover the final ten minutes before the polls close, while still crafting compelling characters and giving us a full story.

While this short film doesn’t happen in real time, it still exudes the frenetic pace of something that can happen in a short period of time.

These are all pretty ambitious, but what if you’re making a short on a budget? Or this is your first attempt at making a short film ever?

Look no further than the Duplass brothers amazing short, This Is John, to prove that you don’t need expensive set pieces or VFX to create a compelling story.

As you can see, it’s not about the budget, it’s about what the audience takes away.

Now, outside of trying to win awards, you may think devoting time to writing short films seems fruitless, but right now, it’s one of the best ways to break into Hollywood.

So, How Can Writing Short Films Help You Break in?

A great short film is a wonderful way to get noticed as a director, but I stress GREAT. Not good, not "well shot," but great.

You have to put all the effort you can into your short film.

If you’re a screenwriter, you may be able to use a short film as a sample, but likely not. But writing a great short film can be an excellent calling card and get people interested in reading your feature films.

Still, if you’re just starting out, or trying to hone your voice on the page, writing a short film is a great way to define your voice and master screenplay formatting.

Many believe writing a great short film is harder than writing a feature. You have to be able to master economy on the page, shorthand in storytelling, and know when to start and end.

Those skills will only come in handy more when you need to trim your 120-page script to 90.

Theoretically, you’re reading this post because you want to have a short film that helps you break into Hollywood.

Let's say for argument's sake you have a GREAT short film. What then? People don't usually buy short film scripts. First thing you want to do is you want to make your short film. Maybe if you can't get a budget together you'll go the animated short film route.

Then I'd put it on Vimeo , submit it to Short Film of The Week , or find a way for a massive audience to see it.

That could mean entering it in a festival, or just getting your friends and family to post it all over the internet.

Either way, you want people to find and see the short film.

Then, if you're lucky, multiple people will see it and reach out to you.

Suddenly you might have reps. Yay!

Why Else Would You Consider Writing a Short Film?

Hollywood is making less and less movies every year. Now they want to make sure they have proven yourself and so has the material.

Writing a short film is a great way to give any exec in town an appetizer portion of your talent and your feature.

Recently, Damien Chazelle directed a short film version of Whiplash to secure funding for the feature film.

Hollywood wants to know it’s betting on someone who can control the story. Having a great short film will ease the worries of big financiers.

Most of Hollywood is now obsessed with PROOF OF CONCEPT shorts. Those can be as small as the Whiplash , one you just saw, or as large as a Neil Bloomkamp movie.

If you want the money to make District 9, you’re going to have to put a lot up front.

Or find a unique way to get your idea across.

Check out this short film meant to entice studios to pay hundreds of millions of dollars on a space adventure movie.

While it’s a little thin on story, this short film gets the general concept and scope of the feature film across.

It was big enough for Fox to bite and purchase the idea .

This is the quality people expect from things like this. Yes, they're often VERY EXPENSIVE.

When you spend that much, you better make that much.

Too much pressure can sink your short film idea.

Now, if you’re like me and poor, you should focus on making something GREAT that's cheaper and more indicative of what you’d do with a feature.

Hala , directed by Minhal Baig, was able to help her secure financing for the feature-length version of this story. It also helped her get reps in Hollywood.

She was able to crowdsource the budget and get it in front of the right people.

There are many ways in the Hollywood door.

As you can see, there are a lot of different ways shorts help, but, as I mentioned, these short films are all GREAT in their own way.

They carry their stories and are indicative of the work these people can do as directors and what you'll get if you hire them.

What's Next After Writing Short Films?

Now that we’ve gone over the process, I hope it’s clear to see that writing short films, and making them, are great ways to get started in Hollywood.

Again, the script isn’t as valuable as the finished product, but it can be an incredible way to figure out your storytelling methods and make them a reality.

Check out our other post on the question of a short film's monetary value.

What are some of your favorite short films?

Got tips for people trying to get into writing short films? Let us know in the comments.

I can’t wait to update the article with what you think are the best short films!

Hopefully, some of them are your own creations!

• 3 Essential Tips to Make Your Short Films Better ›
• This Film Was Written and Directed by AI—Here’s the How and What You Can Learn ›
• The 5 Things Filmmakers Forget When Making a Short ›

Let's Dissect the Laugh Track on TV

Does the laugh track add to shows or take away from them the answer is more complicated than you think. .

Have you ever been watching a TV show and heard laughter that wasn't in the room with you? Well, you probably have a ghost.

Just kidding. I mean, you might have one, but that's not why we're here.

I want to talk about the laughter coming over your TV speaks from the laugh track on your parent's favorite sitcom. The laugh track is a controversial subject. Some people hate them, while others like the encouragement it gives them to let loose and to be entertained.

Today, I want to expose and explain the whole story behind the laugh track, from its history to its modern implementation, to a video essay that goes in-depth on a defense of it.

As Mulan once said, let's get down to business.

How Did We Get The Laugh Track?

The laugh track, or canned laugh, has been around since the dawn of television.

As TV came to prominence, it had to fill in the gaps between people used to listening to their entertainment on the radio. Since most radio shows were taped in front of a live audience, actors had to leave pauses for the laughs. When this came to television, it translated naturally. After all, most actors had done stage performances so they knew how to play to the crowd.

As multi-camera shows became part of the cultural lexicon, so did the laugh track. Shows like The Honeymooners, I Love Lucy , and others were filmed in front of a live studio audience. People watching at home got to feel like they were right there when the audience laughed.

And those shows tested really well.

So shows like The Flinstones and The Jetsons also got laugh tracks and laugh track sound effects... even though they were animated.

DId you ever consider until now how weird it was that cartoons had laugh tracks

Soon almost every sitcom had a laugh track. For me, my early TV watching days were dominated by Seinfeld, 3rd Rock, and Everybody Loves Raymond . These were shows that still had an audience and still utilized the laugh track. Even as I got older, I appreciated the laugh track in How I Met Your Mother.

But tastes change, and when The Office came onto the scene, I didn't miss the laughs. Mostly because I was laughing so loud it didn't matter anyway.

Another reason could be that shows like The Office and Parks and Rec use the "documentary-style" device and the "confessional" to connect to the audience and give beats for laughs. A character might make eye contact with the camera, maybe when another character does something particularly odd. It's your cue to laugh on some level.

But when it comes to the modern laugh track, some of the shows with laugh tracks are filmed in front of a live studio audience. Others have their canned laughs added with a laugh track sound effect.

And when you take the laughs away... it gets creepy.

Sitcoms Without Laugh Tracks

When characters perform for a laugh track, they often space the dialogue out and react to the laughs. When you removed the canned laughs from that performance, a lot of the jokes don't work as well. Take this example from Friends. Watch as what used to be a funny set piece comes across as aggressive and annoying. Figures it's from Ross.

Laughter sets a tone and a mood. Shows with dialogue that's spaced out like Big Bang Theory survive on their quips. But if the laughter is removed, then the quips don't land. We aren't sure what's happening, and the pacing feels off.

Even the best sitcoms without laugh tracks suffer. Look at maybe the greatest sitcom ever, Seinfeld . This show usually has me howling, but when you take out the canned laughter and remove the laugh track, we're instead put in an awkward position. The lighting changes the mood, and the story doesn't feel like its coming across.

What's the Point of the Laugh Tack?

I've been in a live studio audience. I went to Man With A Plan when one of my friends wrote the episode. It was some of the most fun I've ever had in Los Angeles. When the actors come out, you usually see around three takes of every scene. This gives you time to laugh at the jokes the first time, catch what you missed the second, and gives the actors room to improv for the third take.

The point of the laugh track is to add energy and pizzazz to every story beat. It's a community experience that harkens back to people listening to the radio with their whole family around them.

The laughter in the live studio audience is usually real. They have a warm-up person putting you in a good mood, and it's genuinely hilarious to see your favorite actors performing on a stage in front of you. It's like being in the theater in New York or London.

Check out this live studio audience taping from Big Bang Theory. It feels magical.

The multi-cam sitcom felt like a stage play, and I had been raised on movies. I personally wanted my sitcoms to feel more immersive and less like I was sitting in an audience.

Recently, I was scanning YouTube and found this excellent video by Ideas at Play where they dig into the laugh track and its effect on modern television. I find it enthralling to trace how we got the laugh-track, but also to understand what it adds to comedy and to the artform.

Check it out.

Will the Modern Laugh Track Stick Around?

It's interesting to think about how modern screenwriting and its snappy dialogue almost removed the ability to include a laugh track. I can't imagine pauses within Marvelous Mrs. Maisel or even in the banter within The Good Place or Superstore . I do think that the younger generation rages against the laugh track, mostly because they were raised in a time where realness was valued more than entertainment.

I do feel like people in my generation are watching shows they think have emotional honesty. And regurgitating laughter seems like a white lie told to make someone feel better.

Still, there has to be a happy medium. I think How I M et Your Mother made huge strides by being both complex and audience-pleasing. So maybe mash-ups are applicable in the future.

The laugh track will live on because it has already shown its ability to help punctuate multi-cam shows. In fact, when shows are tested without laugh tracks, they consistently score lower than TV shows that include canned laughter. No matter which artists hate it, there's a large sector of society that loves laugh tracks.

What Shows still have Laugh Tracks?

The laugh track has been around since the dawn of television, and while its influence is waning, it's still around. Ranker released a list of the funniest current shows that have a laugh track . Among them were:

• The Big Bang Theory
• Man With A Plan
• The Conners
• Fuller House

It's interesting to note that Fuller House and The Ranch are on Netflix. Both of which are filmed in front of a live studio audience. So Netflix is keeping the tradition alive.

Current shows like The Big Bang Theory, Mom, Mike and Molly, The Odd Couple, 2 Broke Girls, and Hot in Cleveland are all taped in front of live studio audiences. Shows from the 70's, 80's and 90's, such as Friends, Seinfeld, Frasier, Black Adder, The Golden Girls, Everybody Loves Raymond, The King of Queens, The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, 3rd Rock From the Sun, Cheers, That 70's Show, Rosanne, The Nanny, Married with Children, The Cosby Show, Taxi and many more were all also taped in front of live studio audiences.

Those audiences brought an energy to the show that has to be manufactured by television that doesn't have laugh tracks or canned laughter.

Will The Laugh Track Always Be Around?

One thing I keep thinking about is how comforting the laugh track must be if you're watching alone. The cinematic experience is communal. When you're in a theater you get to laugh with the people around you. If you're on your couch at home, it might just be you. The laugh track gives a false sense of community. If you look at the shows they mentioned which use it, like The Conners , they generally have older demographics. I do think there's some psychology that comes into play here as well.

In an article for NBC news , a psychology professor at Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H named Bill Kelley said,

"We're much more likely to laugh at something funny in the presence of other people,"

Hearing others laugh -- even if it's prerecorded -- can encourage us to enjoy ourselves more. In fact, a 1974 study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology showed that people were more likely to laugh at jokes that were followed by canned laughter.

So... maybe these TV networks and showrunners know what they're doing?

Regardless, it's hard to see it sticking around much longer. We're used to the "live audience" in talk shows, but as people age out of laugh track television, I think it will become a thing of the past. Even though I believe there will always be multi-cam shows, I do feel like people are asking for from their half-hours. they want them to feel more cinematic and to feel more real to life. Or at least stylized in other ways, like the way VFX are used in The Good Place .

What's your opinion on the laugh track?

Do you think it adds or subtracts from the viewing experience?

Will the laugh track continue to last on television and streaming, or will we eventually see the day when its part of the history books?

Let us know in the comments!

The Ending of 'Shutter Island' Explained

The 'longlegs' ending explained, what are the best mystery movies of all time, turn your smartphone into an ai-powered micro-four-thirds camera, blackmagic camera for android 1.1 adds support for more phones, what is the history of zombies, what is a short story, what is story development, creative screenwriting exercises, character, and dialogue prompts, is james gandolfini as tony soprano the greatest acting achievement of all time.

Film Analysis

What this handout is about.

This handout introduces film analysis and and offers strategies and resources for approaching film analysis assignments.

Writing the film analysis essay

Writing a film analysis requires you to consider the composition of the film—the individual parts and choices made that come together to create the finished piece. Film analysis goes beyond the analysis of the film as literature to include camera angles, lighting, set design, sound elements, costume choices, editing, etc. in making an argument. The first step to analyzing the film is to watch it with a plan.

Watching the film

First it’s important to watch the film carefully with a critical eye. Consider why you’ve been assigned to watch a film and write an analysis. How does this activity fit into the course? Why have you been assigned this particular film? What are you looking for in connection to the course content? Let’s practice with this clip from Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo (1958). Here are some tips on how to watch the clip critically, just as you would an entire film:

• Give the clip your undivided attention at least once. Pay close attention to details and make observations that might start leading to bigger questions.
• Watch the clip a second time. For this viewing, you will want to focus specifically on those elements of film analysis that your class has focused on, so review your course notes. For example, from whose perspective is this clip shot? What choices help convey that perspective? What is the overall tone, theme, or effect of this clip?
• Take notes while you watch for the second time. Notes will help you keep track of what you noticed and when, if you include timestamps in your notes. Timestamps are vital for citing scenes from a film!

For more information on watching a film, check out the Learning Center’s handout on watching film analytically . For more resources on researching film, including glossaries of film terms, see UNC Library’s research guide on film & cinema .

Brainstorming ideas

Once you’ve watched the film twice, it’s time to brainstorm some ideas based on your notes. Brainstorming is a major step that helps develop and explore ideas. As you brainstorm, you may want to cluster your ideas around central topics or themes that emerge as you review your notes. Did you ask several questions about color? Were you curious about repeated images? Perhaps these are directions you can pursue.

If you’re writing an argumentative essay, you can use the connections that you develop while brainstorming to draft a thesis statement . Consider the assignment and prompt when formulating a thesis, as well as what kind of evidence you will present to support your claims. Your evidence could be dialogue, sound edits, cinematography decisions, etc. Much of how you make these decisions will depend on the type of film analysis you are conducting, an important decision covered in the next section.

After brainstorming, you can draft an outline of your film analysis using the same strategies that you would for other writing assignments. Here are a few more tips to keep in mind as you prepare for this stage of the assignment:

• Make sure you understand the prompt and what you are being asked to do. Remember that this is ultimately an assignment, so your thesis should answer what the prompt asks. Check with your professor if you are unsure.
• In most cases, the director’s name is used to talk about the film as a whole, for instance, “Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo .” However, some writers may want to include the names of other persons who helped to create the film, including the actors, the cinematographer, and the sound editor, among others.
• When describing a sequence in a film, use the literary present. An example could be, “In Vertigo , Hitchcock employs techniques of observation to dramatize the act of detection.”
• Finding a screenplay/script of the movie may be helpful and save you time when compiling citations. But keep in mind that there may be differences between the screenplay and the actual product (and these differences might be a topic of discussion!).
• Go beyond describing basic film elements by articulating the significance of these elements in support of your particular position. For example, you may have an interpretation of the striking color green in Vertigo , but you would only mention this if it was relevant to your argument. For more help on using evidence effectively, see the section on “using evidence” in our evidence handout .

Also be sure to avoid confusing the terms shot, scene, and sequence. Remember, a shot ends every time the camera cuts; a scene can be composed of several related shots; and a sequence is a set of related scenes.

Different types of film analysis

As you consider your notes, outline, and general thesis about a film, the majority of your assignment will depend on what type of film analysis you are conducting. This section explores some of the different types of film analyses you may have been assigned to write.

Semiotic analysis

Semiotic analysis is the interpretation of signs and symbols, typically involving metaphors and analogies to both inanimate objects and characters within a film. Because symbols have several meanings, writers often need to determine what a particular symbol means in the film and in a broader cultural or historical context.

For instance, a writer could explore the symbolism of the flowers in Vertigo by connecting the images of them falling apart to the vulnerability of the heroine.

Here are a few other questions to consider for this type of analysis:

• What objects or images are repeated throughout the film?
• How does the director associate a character with small signs, such as certain colors, clothing, food, or language use?
• How does a symbol or object relate to other symbols and objects, that is, what is the relationship between the film’s signs?

Many films are rich with symbolism, and it can be easy to get lost in the details. Remember to bring a semiotic analysis back around to answering the question “So what?” in your thesis.

Narrative analysis

Narrative analysis is an examination of the story elements, including narrative structure, character, and plot. This type of analysis considers the entirety of the film and the story it seeks to tell.

For example, you could take the same object from the previous example—the flowers—which meant one thing in a semiotic analysis, and ask instead about their narrative role. That is, you might analyze how Hitchcock introduces the flowers at the beginning of the film in order to return to them later to draw out the completion of the heroine’s character arc.

To create this type of analysis, you could consider questions like:

• How does the film correspond to the Three-Act Structure: Act One: Setup; Act Two: Confrontation; and Act Three: Resolution?
• What is the plot of the film? How does this plot differ from the narrative, that is, how the story is told? For example, are events presented out of order and to what effect?
• Does the plot revolve around one character? Does the plot revolve around multiple characters? How do these characters develop across the film?

When writing a narrative analysis, take care not to spend too time on summarizing at the expense of your argument. See our handout on summarizing for more tips on making summary serve analysis.

Cultural/historical analysis

One of the most common types of analysis is the examination of a film’s relationship to its broader cultural, historical, or theoretical contexts. Whether films intentionally comment on their context or not, they are always a product of the culture or period in which they were created. By placing the film in a particular context, this type of analysis asks how the film models, challenges, or subverts different types of relations, whether historical, social, or even theoretical.

For example, the clip from Vertigo depicts a man observing a woman without her knowing it. You could examine how this aspect of the film addresses a midcentury social concern about observation, such as the sexual policing of women, or a political one, such as Cold War-era McCarthyism.

A few of the many questions you could ask in this vein include:

• How does the film comment on, reinforce, or even critique social and political issues at the time it was released, including questions of race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality?
• How might a biographical understanding of the film’s creators and their historical moment affect the way you view the film?
• How might a specific film theory, such as Queer Theory, Structuralist Theory, or Marxist Film Theory, provide a language or set of terms for articulating the attributes of the film?

Take advantage of class resources to explore possible approaches to cultural/historical film analyses, and find out whether you will be expected to do additional research into the film’s context.

Mise-en-scène analysis

A mise-en-scène analysis attends to how the filmmakers have arranged compositional elements in a film and specifically within a scene or even a single shot. This type of analysis organizes the individual elements of a scene to explore how they come together to produce meaning. You may focus on anything that adds meaning to the formal effect produced by a given scene, including: blocking, lighting, design, color, costume, as well as how these attributes work in conjunction with decisions related to sound, cinematography, and editing. For example, in the clip from Vertigo , a mise-en-scène analysis might ask how numerous elements, from lighting to camera angles, work together to present the viewer with the perspective of Jimmy Stewart’s character.

To conduct this type of analysis, you could ask:

• What effects are created in a scene, and what is their purpose?
• How does this scene represent the theme of the movie?
• How does a scene work to express a broader point to the film’s plot?

This detailed approach to analyzing the formal elements of film can help you come up with concrete evidence for more general film analysis assignments.

Reviewing your draft

Once you have a draft, it’s helpful to get feedback on what you’ve written to see if your analysis holds together and you’ve conveyed your point. You may not necessarily need to find someone who has seen the film! Ask a writing coach, roommate, or family member to read over your draft and share key takeaways from what you have written so far.

Works consulted

We consulted these works while writing this handout. This is not a comprehensive list of resources on the handout’s topic, and we encourage you to do your own research to find additional publications. Please do not use this list as a model for the format of your own reference list, as it may not match the citation style you are using. For guidance on formatting citations, please see the UNC Libraries citation tutorial . We revise these tips periodically and welcome feedback.

Aumont, Jacques, and Michel Marie. 1988. L’analyse Des Films . Paris: Nathan.

Media & Design Center. n.d. “Film and Cinema Research.” UNC University Libraries. Last updated February 10, 2021. https://guides.lib.unc.edu/filmresearch .

Oxford Royale Academy. n.d. “7 Ways to Watch Film.” Oxford Royale Academy. Accessed April 2021. https://www.oxford-royale.com/articles/7-ways-watch-films-critically/ .

You may reproduce it for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout and attribute the source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Make a Gift

• Latest Films
• By Duration
• Submit a Film

A flamingo lands on an aircraft carrier. To keep the runway clear, the military...

2m22 / Comedy , Fantasy / United Kingdom / 2008

by Olly Williams , Philip Sansom

Aesthetic:   Desaturated Colors , Live Action

Subjects:   greed , loss of control , office , photocopies , supernatural

Recent Comments

• myra v on Omelette
• Jane on Alike
• Stan on One Revolution Per Minute
• davros on One Revolution Per Minute
• JB on The Black Hole

Latest Shorts

A soldier and his superior have conflicting views on...

Clinging to his motorcycle, Michael prepares to launch...

In a Parisian café an uptight businessman discovers...

Making Of / VFX / CG reels

Ingenuity Studios, the visual effects comp...

Epic Games has published a number of video...

We had the pleasure of talking to Alex Roman about the...

The Black Hole

"A sleep-deprived office worker accidentally makes a discovery."

The Black Hole is a short film directed by Olly Williams and Phil Sansom that offers a portrait of temptation and greed from a humorous point of view.

The film is staged in an office environment and features one character with an external conflict. An unexpected plot point gives the directors a great setup to test and play with the behavior of an office worker (performed by Napoleon Ryan) while he is left alone and unobserved.

The Black Hole uses desaturated colors to transmit the emotional state of the office worker and his dull, repetitive job, as does his initial performance and characterization. The excitement brought by the discovery of the supernatural element leads the main character to become more energetic and expressive.

Visual rhythm in the short is handled mostly through fast cutting and motion within the frame. When the office worker enters the room where the safe is located, visual rhythm increases, with more frequent use of camera moves, in line with the character’s excitement as he steals the money from the safe. Medium shots and close-ups are employed frequently to transmit the expressions and emotional changes of the character. Sound plays an important role, it is used for expressive effect and to help create a supernatural element in the perception of the audience out of common daily office items.

An external conflict shows up towards the end of the film, as the main character ends up imprisoned in the safe.

What makes it work so well? Surprise, humor, supernatural elements, a creative script and a great portrait of how human beings can lose control in the face of temptation.

The Black Hole is a good example of how a great film can be made with a few elements and little resources when there is creativity.

 Official website 

philsansom.com

(Most recent first)

Cancel reply

Email * (will not be published)

I enjoyed the film very much. It’s a mind blowing film. Congratulations to the Director and artiste.

Related Films

• About / Contact Us

• Film Theory

The 49 Best Short Films of All Time That Every Filmmaker Can Learn From

• How to Make a Short Film
• How to Write a Short Without Dialogue
• Short Film Schedule Tips
• Write a Short That Gets Noticed
• Making a Short Film
• How to Storyboard a Short Film
• Phases of Short Film Pre-Production
• Ari Aster Short Films
• How Whiplash Went From a Short to a Feature
• Best Short Films of All Time
• Best Short Film Ideas
• Brainstorm Short Film Ideas
• Social Media for Short Films
• Crowdfunding Movies
• Fiscal Responsibility on a Short
• The Ultimate Film Grants List
• Top Film Festivals

T he best short films have a few key things in common: concise storytelling, great performances, an original concept, and stunning visuals. You can learn from each, but which are the best to watch?

Right now, we’ll give you our list of the best short films of all time. We’ll also break down these short movies to show you how to make your next project one of the best short films of all time. Commence learning.

Best Drama Short Films

Run time under 45 minutes, best drama shorts, short films have the best narratives.

The best short films are just like any great film - it all start on the page. If you're planning to create your own short film, you will want a professional script.

Need FREE screenwriting software to write your short film?

Our professional screenwriting software helps you format along the way, and you can access your screenplay from any computer, anywhere in the world.

Check out the sample script below:

Sample Screenplay | Made in StudioBinder

Take a look below for some of the most exceptional movies.

Best Drama Shorts The top narrative short movies

The red balloon, the phone call, session man, hotel chevalier, small deaths, glory at sea, lick the star, 1.1  best drama short film.

Albert Lamorisse directs this short film about the experiences of a young boy and his balloon in Paris. 

It’s one of the greatest survival and friendship stories ever told. The imagery lends itself to suspense, and it makes me think of Cast Away .

1.2  BEST DRAMA SHORT FILM

Mat Kirkby directs this short film about a volunteer at a crisis center who receives a phone call from a man slowly poisoning himself to death.

The film has a great ticking clock that somehow seems both urgent while also relaxed enough for character development.

1.3  BEST DRAMA SHORT FILM

Seth Winston directs this Oscar winning short film about a session guitarist hired to help a famous rock band finish up their latest album.

Session man

This is a perfect example of a miniaturized story that works great as a short film that may not have worked as a feature.

1.4  BEST DRAMA SHORT FILM

Wes Anderson directs this short film about two past lovers who reunite in a hotel room in Paris, and is a prologue to The Darjeeling Limited.

Hotel Chevalier 

The film works so well because the logline is also the synopsis. The film is about past lovers, and how we view them.

1.5  BEST DRAMA SHORT FILM

This is a great film by director Lynne Ramsay that works really well as a short because it shows us three moments in a girls life where she learns something about the world. Often this can be less than pleasant.

There is something very focused and yet hands off about this film. Anytime you can say that, I think you’ve got a winner.

1.6  BEST DRAMA SHORT FILM

Director Ben Zeitlin used this clever idea to catapult his name into the ranks of serious directors, and went on to helm Beasts of the Southern Wild which earned him Academy Award nominations for directing, writing, and best picture.

This film is great and it plays with reality and death in such a unique way it’s no wonder this is one of the best ever.

1.7  BEST DRAMA SHORT FILM

The full display of Stephen Daldry’s directing ability is evident in this short film that launched his career. The promise of his future work such as Billy Elliot , The Hours , and The Reader , is definitely evident in Eight.  

The writing is concise and focused. Those with an especially good eye can notice some of the director’s style in his later offerings. Incredibly Loud and Extremely Close to his first film. From stunning tracking shots to close-ups, Daldry seems to say I know film theory and can put it to use.

1.8  BEST DRAMA SHORT FILM

Director Sofia Coppola uses this short film to talk about celebrity, teen angst, and suicide. The whole thing is done with such an objective point of view, and the realistic tone mixed with the dramatic imagery works well.

Lick the Star

The film also features Peter Bogdanovich and Zoe Cassavetes.

1.9  BEST DRAMA SHORT FILM

If you have yet to see a Gaspar Noe film, this may be the perfect bite size snack for you. He makes films that are not easy to watch, but they’re good enough to make you wonder why that is, and to challenge yourself.

The films aren’t ugly, but they aren’t easy to digest.

1.10  BEST DRAMA SHORT FILM

This short film is a recent arrival to the festival circuit, having screened at least thirty festivals such as the Academy Awards qualifying Hollyshorts, and was screened by the Screen Actors Guild Foundation.

Writer/director Marvin Nuecklaus creates stunning photography, with a keen use of visual color palette for time delineation.

Best Comedy Short Films

Best comedy short films the top narrative short movies, a dog’s life, six shooter, the music box, bottle rocket, it’s always sunny on tv, frankenweenie, thunder road, greener grass, 2.1  best comedy short film.

Charlie Chaplin was one of the first directors to realize what a gold mine Dogs and Children would be on film, or maybe he is to blame. The film shows how an out of work man, harassed woman, and stray dog all have their vulnerabilities and reasons for living.

Nothing Chaplin ever did was completely comedy, and while there are plenty of laughs in this film, the message still works today, and forever.

2.2  BEST COMEDY SHORT FILM

Martin McDonagh was already a celebrated playwright at the time that he  made this short film, but he then went on to write and direct In Bruges , Seven Psychopaths , and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.

The film has a great cast, and is simple enough to work as a short film.

2.3  BEST COMEDY SHORT FILM

James Parrot directs this short film that takes cues from the greek story of Sisyphus, who was cursed for eternity to push a rock up a hill that would never make it to the top.

They swap the rock for a piano, and the tragedy for some serious laughs.

2.4  BEST COMEDY SHORT FILM

Director Wes Anderson took this film to Sundance where it got very little attention, but those who saw it loved it. This short film about boredom, crime, adolescence, and masculinity launched the careers of the Wilson Brothers, and of course Anderson himself.

Much like THX, this is a must watch for that reason alone.

2.5  BEST COMEDY SHORT FILM

A small story about a bunch of vain actors. This short film paved the way for It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia to become one of the greatest comedy shows of all time, and it started with a conversation about cancer.

The performances and writing made this idea work.

2.6  BEST COMEDY SHORT FILM

This short film, directed by Tim Burton and funded then scrapped by Disney, this darkly humorous film about a dog brought back to life.

The film shows where Burton was headed, and gained him even more attention as a filmmakers beyond just a visual artist.

2.7  BEST COMEDY SHORT FILM

Jim Cummings writes and directs the Sundance Film Festival award-winning Thunder Road . The film was adapted into a long-form feature film and was a giant hit in France.

Director Jim Cummings turned a substantial profit from this short film and gave the world a very signature calling card.

2.8  BEST COMEDY SHORT FILM

This short film directed by Paul Briganti makes fun of materialism and social competition in a way that doesn't hold back. It has irony, a smart theme, a bite size premise, and is filmed pretty well.

The film was accepted by the SXSW film festival.

Best Horror Short Films

Best horror short films the top narrative short movies, the big shave, the smiling man, cutting moments, 3.1  best horror short film.

Martin Scorsese may be synonymous with mob films and Leo DiCaprio, but before all the glitz and glamour he made a film about a guy shaving.

What could be so terrifying about a guy shaving? Haven’t you already answered that question with your own question?

3.2  BEST HORROR SHORT FILM

This short film from director A.J. Briones grabs the terror bull by the horns, and places a little girl all alone in a face to face with pure evil.

Again, this is a short film and the filmmakers understand that simplicity is often your best friend. Show off your skills.

3.3  BEST HORROR SHORT FILM

This short film directed by Ben Franklin and Anthony Melton deals with the topic of bullying, and a young man who summons an ancient spirit in an effort to seek revenge.

I actually quite like Birch trees.

3.4  BEST HORROR SHORT FILM

David F. Sandberg made this film and it is another one that takes some of the great horror tropes of all time, and relies on nothing else. It is sort of like eating a buttermilk donut, sometimes that plan taste is the best to have.

This short went on to become a feature length film.

3.5  BEST HORROR SHORT FILM

This short film is truly disturbing, and instead of relying on some distant or supernatural evil, this film shows our own need to please and to be loved as the ultimate horror.

I don’t want to give any huge details away, but if you love horror but are tired of jump scares and raspy trailer voice, check out this short film.

3.6  BEST HORROR SHORT FILM

This short film directed by Andrés Borghi shows a woman with the desire to keep the memories of her loved ones alive and the unintended consequences that follow.

Horror films are as much about filmmaking as they are about dread. Check this film out to see both.

RELATED POSTS

• FREE: TV Writing & Development Master Class →
• FREE: Screenplay Examples: Pulp Fiction Script →
• FREE: How to Write a Script Outline [Free Template] →

Best Sci-Fi Short Films

Best sci-fi short films the top sci-fi shorts, alive in joburg, electronic labyrinth: thx 1138 4eb, trip to the moon, the nostalgist, 4.1  best sci-fi short film, alive in joburg.

Neill Blomkamp proved his abilities to none other than legendary director Peter Jackson with this  short film that inspired the hit film District 9.

Peter Jackson said Blomkamp “needed to be making films”, and hired him to his visual effects studio in New Zealand.

4.2  BEST SCI-FI SHORT FILM

This film by George Lucas paved the way for some of the greatest films of all time like Star Wars and Indiana Jones.

Electronic Labyrinth: THX 1138 4EB 

They also made a feature length version with Robert Duvall, and while the pacing is a little slow there is a ton of insights for any filmmaker.

4.3  BEST SCI-FI SHORT FILM

This fantastic short film by Spike Jonze also happens to be a bit of a corporate advert for Absolut Vodka, but the quality, thoughtfulness, and execution of the film sort of erases any ill will that may generate.

This short film, based on the book The Giving Tree , is a film about sacrifice, love, and existentialism all rolled into a nice looking package with Andrew Garfield playing the lead.

4.4  BEST SCI-FI SHORT FILM

The influence of this film from director and actor George Melies cannot be overstated. Out of the hundreds of film this Godfather of cinema completed, this is the one that has stood the test of time.

The story follows a group of astronomers who voyage to the moon. They explore the surface, come to blows with the natives, before returning to earth with a captive.

This short film has cutting-edge special effects… for the time. In 1902, seeing Trip to the Moon must have been like seeing Titanic for the first time. The writing is great even without a word of audible dialogue.

The enduring theme of the exploration of man was cleverly realized in this short film. The film was heavily pirated in its’ day even though it was financially very successful.

4.5  BEST SCI-FI SHORT FILM

This film by Giacomo Cimini takes place both in a virtual world and the real world, and uses a father and son relationship to illustrate an already tenuous relationship with society and the outside world.

If you’ve ever felt like you were born outside of your intended time era, give this film a watch.

4.6  BEST SCI-FI SHORT FILM

This film directed by David Sandberg can be found on Netflix, and I highly recommend it for several different reasons. It’s funny, has some corny but great special effects, and seems completely uncompromised.

This film was crowdfunded, and received something close to $300,000 from kickstarter during its heyday.

Best Animated Short Films

Best animated short films the top documentary shorts, what’s opera doc, geri's game, imaginary flying machines, world of tomorrow, the man who planted trees, sanjay's super team, 5.1  best animated short film, what’s opera, doc.

This short film by Chuck Jones is his best. I’ve never turned this short film off, or looked away. That is the true sign of any great piece of entertainment, and on top of that this short film makes me laugh, cry (in the right mood), think, and sing.

What a fantastic short film.

5.2  BEST ANIMATED SHORT FILM

Geri’s game.

The concept:  An old man plays chess with himself in the park.  Simple enough. How did Pixar tell this story? By having the man assume the multiple characters in the chess match.

The combination of concept, storytelling and, yes performance, even if it is computer generated imagery, works to make this academy award-winning short film one of the best. 

5.3  BEST ANIMATED SHORT FILM

This film was produced by Studio Ghibli and features the legendary Hayao Miyazaki as a talking pig who narrates the film all about the human power of flight, and a bunch of different machines used to achieve it. This short film isn't available online so here's a video essay on Miyazaki's Airships instead. Enjoy!

Flight in Miyazaki Films

Great animation, great story, great short film.

5.4  BEST ANIMATED SHORT FILM

The World of Tomorrow is an Academy Award winning film that takes is anything but conventional. Animation give a lot of latitude, and director Don Hertzfeldt understands that very well.

5.5  BEST ANIMATED SHORT FILM

This short film directed by Frédéric Back and based off the book by Jean Giono. Christopher Plummer narrates and plays the hero who recalls his experience of being saved by a shepherd who plants trees in a barren valley eventually creating a place similar to the Garden of Eden.

This film is not only about man and nature, but about the healing powers we both can provide. It’s a two way street.

5.6  BEST ANIMATED SHORT FILM

Human behavior.

This is the only music video you will find on this list and it definitely deserves to be on any list of groundbreaking short films. This short film is “ever so satisfying”

When pop-rock superstar Bjork enlisted Michel Gondry to make a video the chances were high that they would make something unique.

5.7  BEST ANIMATED SHORT FILM

Sanjay’s super team.

Every filmmaker should see this Pixar short film for the amazing combination of original concept, strong storytelling, and stunning visuals.

Director Sanjay Patel based the story on his own childhood. Taking the familiar story of a clash of interest between two generations, Patel used the Hindu deities and the superhero storyline to create a magical short movie. It is truly a delight for all ages.

Best Experimental Short Films

Best experimental short films the top documentary shorts, un chien andalou, an occurrence at owl creek bridge, scorpio rising, from the drain, 6.1  best experimental short films.

Spanish director Luis Buñuel and artist Salvador Dalí wrote a script based on the concept of suppressed human emotions. Then they went and filmed it, without any apparent compromise.

To watch any of these experimental films is to understand that you are no longer in the realm of conventional cinema, but that doesn’t mean cinematic language and thematic expression are abnormal, in this film or any other film for that matter.

6.2  BEST EXPERIMENTAL SHORT FILMS

A post-apocalyptic, cautionary tale and a masterpiece of writing, this short film is one of the best of all times. Twenty-eight minutes long and entirely in black and white, La Jetee is ahead of its’ time.

The themes are as relevant today as they were sixty years ago. Importantly, it pays homage to the French New Wave movement.

6.3  BEST EXPERIMENTAL SHORT FILMS

An occurrence at owl creek bridge .

The short film seventy years later was specially presented on an episode of The Twilight Zone. Adapted for the screen and directed by Roberto Enrico, the story is simple, but the telling is what makes it jarring and original.

It was a winner at the Cannes Film Festival. In addition,  An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge  received both the BAFTA and the Academy Award for the best Live Action Short film.

6.4  BEST EXPERIMENTAL SHORT FILMS

This film from Kenneth Anger caused the Nazis to become upset at him for misrepresenting their flag. A censorship advocacy group called the police, had the theatre manager arrested and the print seized before the whole case went to the California supreme court.

Scorpio Rising 

This film set precedent for legal censorship cases across the country, and in some ways dismantled the shard censorship laws that remained from the McCarthy era. Oh, and the film is pretty great too.

6.5  BEST EXPERIMENTAL SHORT FILMS

This film from David Cronenberg shows two men in a mental institution bathtub talking about what is in the drain. It led to films like Eastern Promises , History of Violence , and Existenz , so it is totally worth watching.

Also, it is interesting to watch a lot of the interviews Cronenberg gave during the period of creating this film, so if you have time watch those too. 

6.6  BEST EXPERIMENTAL SHORT FILMS

The grandmother.

David Lynch has made a few experimental short films, but The Grandmother is his best. The reason it is his best is because it has more cinematic technique to analyze than other short films from David Lynch.

Often his films are shot in such a simple manner that you ponder the art and meaning rather than the cinematic techniques.

• FREE: Script Breakdown Online →
• FREE: How Internal & External Conflict Energize Your Story →
• READ: How to Copyright a Script and Protect Your Screenplay →

Best Documentary Short Films

Best documentary short films the top documentary shorts, night and fog, the mushroom club, god sleeps in rwanda, the death of kevin carter, knife skills, 7.1  best documentary short films, night and fog.

Writer-director Alain Resnais used writing and structure as well as a compilation of archival footage from all over Europe to bring this short film to life.

Using motion pictures and stills, there is no fancy Hollywood razzle-dazzle in this no-nonsense look at the horrors of the Holocaust.

What makes this film truly extraordinary is not the subject matter.

This was not the first film to detail the atrocities of the Second World War.

It is the structure of the film that makes this short film stand the test of time as one of the best short documentary films of all time.

Resnais tells a complete story with a gripping subject matter but structures the story in an essay form.

A beautiful telling of a nightmarish story

The events are told chronologically with the footage from Resnais’ present day, in color, and the archival footage edited seamlessly.

The tracking shots lead to the Nazis marching in step.  The overgrown fields of the 1950’s blend into the ghastly scenes of genocide.

The writing here is unsentimental and unapologetic.  It makes Night and Fog one of the best short films, documentary or otherwise, of all time.

7.2  BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT FILMS

This powerful Academy Award-nominated short film from director Steve Okazaki revisits the story of the first use of the atomic bomb by the United States against Japan.

The real story in this 34min film is the effects on the lives of those who experienced it. In response to the lackluster coverage of the fiftieth anniversary of the dropping of the bomb, the filmmaker collected these stories of survivors in the short tragic anthology.

The director presents questions that no one wants to ask. The answers provide a harrowing portrait of “victory” from the point of view of those who lived in the aftermath of the bombing.

The survivors or hibakusha get to tell their story. The structure is less important as are the filmmaking skills.  The stories come together to make one unforgettable film.

7.3  BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT FILMS

The best documentary short films all seem to tackle the darkest and most tragic reaches of the human experience. This is no exception.

Director Kimberlee Acquaro received a Pew Fellowship and later an Academy Award nomination for her film.

Once again, the story’s subject matter is the leading player. But the writing in this short film is essential to the telling of such heavy themes as genocide and human depravity.

Narrated by Rosario Dawson, the writing here doesn’t overwhelm the stories of the five women who rebuild their lives and redefine women's roles in Rwanda. This short film is a story of hope.

7.4  BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT FILMS

Director Dan Krauss paints a tragic portrait of the life of a journalist in this superb short film. The short film comes in at a sparse 27 minutes but packs a punch of any feature-length film.

The film sheds light on the suicide of journalist Kevin Carter a few months after winning the Pulitzer Prize and the death of a close friend. The familiarity of Kevin Carter’s work makes the viewer an accomplice

The film is thorough in the examination of Carter’s life and the events leading to his death.  The amount of research that goes into the documentary short is staggering and worthy of its’ Oscar nomination.

7.5  BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT FILMS

This Oscar-nominated short film of 2017 is one of the few documentary short films that delivers a message of hope and redemption.

This short film is the story of a restaurateur looking to open the best French restaurant in America.  

The catch? The restaurant is staffed with ex-convicts looking to change their lives.  They have a few weeks to learn the kitchen skills.

Ex-convicts serve a dose of humanity with their skills. The structure of the story is where filmmakers can really learn a thing or two.

Starting the film on the opening night as an amuse bouche and then serving up the entrèe as the staff is initiated into a brand new world of traditional French cuisine.

It is funny as a fish out of water stories, frustrating to witness how lives can take a sudden bad turn and a pleasure to watch as men and women are redeemed in a kitchen.

How to Write a Short Film That Gets You Noticed

Now you know about 30 great short films. You could literally watch any of these films and know that you saw something worth a watch. Now it’s time for you to develop your own short film idea.  

Check out How to Write a Short Film That Gets You Noticed . This is a fantastic resource that will keep you on track, and help organize your idea.

Up Next: How to Write a Short Film That Gets You Noticed →

Write and produce your scripts all in one place..

Write and collaborate on your scripts FREE . Create script breakdowns, sides, schedules, storyboards, call sheets and more.

• Pricing & Plans
• Product Updates
• Featured On
• StudioBinder Partners
• Ultimate Guide to Call Sheets
• How to Break Down a Script (with FREE Script Breakdown Sheet)
• The Only Shot List Template You Need — with Free Download
• Managing Your Film Budget Cashflow & PO Log (Free Template)
• A Better Film Crew List Template Booking Sheet
• Best Storyboard Softwares (with free Storyboard Templates)
• Movie Magic Scheduling
• Gorilla Software
• Storyboard That

A visual medium requires visual methods. Master the art of visual storytelling with our FREE video series on directing and filmmaking techniques.

We’re in a golden age of TV writing and development. More and more people are flocking to the small screen to find daily entertainment. So how can you break put from the pack and get your idea onto the small screen? We’re here to help.

• Making It: From Pre-Production to Screen
• What is Method Acting — 3 Different Types Explained
• How to Make a Mood Board — A Step-by-Step Guide
• What is a Mood Board — Definition, Examples & How They Work
• How to Make a Better Shooting Schedule with a Stripboard
• Ultimate Guide to Sound Recording: Audio Gear and Techniques
• 7.9K Facebook
• 58 Pinterest
• 198 LinkedIn

How should I style the title of a short film?

Treat a short film as a self-contained work and italicize its title in your citation and in your prose.

DiGiGoods and Printables ELA

Teaching Narrative Writing With Pixar Short Films

WORKSHOP BUNDLE AVAILABLE ON TPT (Also sold separately)

It is impossible for me to properly express how using Pixar animated short films to teach narrative writing, and nearly all ELA concepts, has changed the game in my classroom. I began using them for plot studies, then quickly realized they have so many uses for language arts.

Here’s why: Short films are a microcosm of literary elements that are skillfully used and blended to create stories that students absolutely love. These short flicks allow students of most all levels to learn without getting lost in a long or even “short” novel.

Here’s How I Use Short Films To Teach Narrative Writing

Watch and enjoy.

1-Students watch the film while taking free notes. This means they are free to mark down anything they find interesting or significant about the film. This allows them to build background knowledge without the dreaded obligation of learning. (But, they are secretly learning. Sshhh.)

ANALYZE WITH GUIDED ACTIVITIES

Next, amp up the expectations gradually by having students analyze the plot structure and the key literary elements using a scaffolded workshop. Note: Different short films emphasize different literary elements. So, the more exposure to short film workshops they get, the more tools they will pack into their toolbox and the better their narrative writing will become!

SMALL GROUP DISCUSSION

After students have finished analyzing the plot and literary elements, allow them to assemble in small groups (if possible) to discuss their elements. Ask them to note the similarities and differences between their answers and their peers’ answers.

WHOLE CLASS DISCUSSION

Use prepared mentor sample answers to lead a whole class discussion about the plot structure and key literary elements.

Now that students have seen, firsthand, how professional writers structure a plot and use literary elements, they can use the same scaffolding to confidently create their own narrative stories!

DIGITAL NARRATIVE WORSKHOP WITH SHORT FILM: GLUED

PRINTABLE SHORT FILM WORKSHOP WITH SHORT FILM: GLUED

PRINTABLE AND DIGITAL VERSION! Perfect for meeting all learners’ needs.

JOIN THE LIST

get free goodies straight to your inbox

Reader Interactions

Leave a reply cancel reply.

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed .

Find It Fast

Latest from blog.

Let’s Connect

Looking for something.