watching films essay

Why We Watch Movies

The ritual of cinema adds to its appeal..

Posted June 21, 2021 | Reviewed by Davia Sills

It is illuminating to consider how religion and belief have been transformed into seemingly secular activities in the modern world. One way to approach this is to identify our rituals, to think about what people do at night, in the darkness beyond the demands of labor and domestic life. We are thus led to the spaces we set aside for communal behaviors that are unique from prosaic life. These sacred spaces are separate from the everyday, the profane. As Émile Durkheim wrote over a hundred years ago, sacred spaces are those in which powerful, transformative events take place for individuals as part of a collective.

Rituals, like a sacrifice, occur in the enclosed space of the ritual arena. In these spaces, different rules apply. They bring about different ways of relating to the community, to ancestors, time, and fundamental notions of meaning and significance. In this essay, I claim cinema is such a sacred space and discuss how and why it works so effectively.

Movies and the power of ritual

Myth and ritual are central to how every society collates, creates, and perpetuates the core of its significances, values, aspirations, origins, goals , and ethical lineaments. Over the last 80 years, cinema has become a reliable, effective medium for telling stories. In other words, cinema is a preeminent mode for the generation of participation in the myths of our times. The emotional intensity of the ritual, of contact with mythology, is what draws belief, salience, and importance into the encounter.

In movies , the scale of human action takes on mythic proportions. Not only in size but also in terms of the importance of gesture, storyline, character, emotions, settings, and scenes. Archetypal characters bring to life finely-wrought scripts wherein storylines illustrate moral reflections, aspirational narratives, and the dramatization of historical events. The finely selected dialogue in movies is so crucial that it resembles the manifest content of dialogue in dreams . Freud of course claimed that every word uttered in a dream is of utmost importance since the medium of dreams is visual, and thus any words that sneak through the censor must be vital.

The art of filmmaking is extremely difficult; one look at the credits tells you hundreds of people and hundreds of thousands of dollars have gone into any given movie. The layers of censors from investors to editors to distribution companies (and so many more) make every scene highly improbable. Relative to the stories of all the people in the theater and the people who made the film, the production necessary to make a film demonstrates that it functions at a higher level of proportionality. Granted, not all movies are effective and worthy of the treatment I describe here, but many are—those are the movies to which I apply these reflections.

It is also the atmosphere of cinema that creates a form of ritual space. The movie theater, a room with no windows suffused with darkness but for the light burning through translucent celluloid. We sit among strangers with whom we share emotional reactions to shared events. By sharing reactions, we share and reinforce a cultural lens.

The communal setting of the ritual arena of theater itself elevates the event. It confirms us as a community and builds our shared history and interpretation of reality out further and further. Light flickers on the screen, which is 45 to 65 feet wide and as tall as 30 feet. Cinema is larger than life; that is how it can represent life to us in a mimetic ritual of drama . We understand something about ourselves by becoming other, by being taken in by the story and coming out the other end in a slightly different form.

Then there is the narrative, the aesthetic charm poured into the dramatic form. That distillation of life into moments, sieved into distinct tales of definite memorability. The overwhelmingly melodramatic format of the journey, the love triangle, the conflict, etc., pushes us to identify with the characters. We are brought into an empathetic mood. Some movies bring us into the community of the characters such that plot development resembles nothing so much as gossip.

Time is transformed in the cinematic state; for us, it is an escape , a vacation, a portal out of the world and the uncontrollable nature of time. The liminality of being out of time in a dark room doing nothing allows for separation from so much that binds us. We are freed from speaking, from the dense maze of active interactions that make up public life. Here we are voyeurs who participate emotionally even when nothing is asked of us. The filmmaker does it all: through montage, a story comes together; through casting, we are directed to recognize characters; through lighting and sound, we are immersed in environments. All we have to do is keep our eyes and ears open. If we give our attention , the screen creates the illusion of four dimensions. It offers them to us; it takes them all up and drags us in its wake.

After the liminal space of the ritual of cinema, we walk out of the room discombobulated, sensitive to light and motion. We reaggregate ourselves after having become part of a different reality. We reflect upon what we saw and heard, in groups or in internal dialogue. The movie becomes part of our memory ; sometimes we get confused about whether the stories we remember come from cinema or stories we’ve heard about people. We take the movie in through the sacred space of the theater and leave with its messages.

When the ritual is over, when the crow and the raven are silent, we return to each other with stories and characters, memories of events that never happened. We want to share them further; we recommend movies, talk about their virtues and failures, and interleave them into our memories of all the other movies and stories we have lived through. The myth has been received, the experience has become a part of us.

Durkheim, Émile, 1915. The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, a Study in Religious Sociology. London : New York :G. Allen & Unwin; Macmillan.

Turner, V. W. 1969. The ritual process: Structure and anti-structure. Chicago: Aldine Publishing Company.

Rami Gabriel, Ph.D. , is Associate Professor of Psychology at Columbia College Chicago, where he is a founding Fellow of the Research Group in Mind, Science and Culture.

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Watching Movies in Cinemas and at Home

Which one is better: watching movie in theatre or at home? Both options have their pros and cons. Read this “watching a movie at home vs. theater” essay to learn more!

Introduction

Differences between watching movie in theater and at home, similarities between watching movie at home vs cinema, comparison between watching a movie at home and in theatres.

It does not matter whether a person likes action, drama, comedy, or another genre of films and movies. Almost everyone loves watching video materials. There are many reasons for people’s desire to watch video films and movies.

While most people watch videos to release stress or for recreation, others watch films for bonding and socializing. Movies can be watched either at home or in the available theaters. Therefore, one has to choose whether to stream movies alone at home or go to a movie theater with friends and family. Both types of places have differences and similarities that are tabulated below.

The activity is fun and compelling regardless of where one watches a movie. Both venues provide the stimulation and excitement that comes along with watching a movie. Many people tend to use the moment as the time for developing bonds with their relatives and friends.

It is achieved regardless of the venue chosen for watching the movie. Many people also like taking a snack like popcorn while watching movies. These items can be bought at the theaters. Similarly, one has the freedom to eat some snacks at home.

There are many differences between watching a movie at home and in theatres. The cost, for instance, is different. First, watching a film at a theatre requires a person to drive and pay for the ticket and any other facility or accompaniment. On the other hand, no cost is incurred when watching a film at home.

The quality of the video and sound is also a major aspect that shows significant differences between the two scenarios. Theatres have installed perfect sound systems and high-quality screens that create a perfect customer experience.

At home, one may have a good sound system, but it rarely matches those in theatres. Theater owners are aware that they are competing with affordable home theaters. Therefore, they include visual upgrades like IMAX and Real 3D. They increase the quality of experience at these facilities compared to the home-based systems.

One can sit on a couch, on the carpet, or watch a movie in any position to achieve comfort. Therefore, the comfort level when watching a movie at home is higher than in a theater. In fact, one needs to be aware of strangers sitting next to him or her. At home, there is a high degree of freedom of posture, style, music, and other aspects.

Convenience is also a significant aspect. For instance, people going to the theater are required to wait until their film choices are aired. In addition, they are required to make plans on how to get there. If one viewer wishes to leave the place for a moment due to any reason, an important scene is likely to be missed. These kinds of inconveniences are not experienced at home.

At home, a person can pause, rewind, or forward when necessary. In addition, one could watch a movie halfway, stop it and look for another if they do not like it. In theaters, viewers could leave the place for a while but miss some sections.

This means that watching movies at home is convenient. However, in theaters, one does not have to deal with commercial breaks between the movies, but a television telecast of the same movie is always full of frequent advertisements.

The issue of privacy is also a major aspect of this case. Noteworthy, theaters are shared facilities, while homes are privately owned properties. In particular, movies like “Titanic,” which invokes human emotions, are better watched at home. Few people like to show their emotions in public.

Another essential difference involves the desire to keep updated with the film market. For instance, watching a movie in theaters enables one to watch recent materials and movies in the industry. When watching them at home, one has to wait until they are released in a DVD format or aired on a television channel.

The environment in the two places is different. In theaters, viewers must adhere to the rules of the facility. For instance, one is not supposed to shout, but at home, one is free to shout.

On the other hand, watching some terrifying films is more exciting when a group is involved than when a viewer is alone. Thus, theaters are the best places to watch such films.

There are several differences between watching a movie at home and in a theater. The choice is based on personal tastes and preferences. Therefore, some people love watching movies in groups and choose theaters, while others like watching them alone and prefer watching the material at home.

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StudyCorgi. (2020, January 6). Watching Movies in Cinemas and at Home. https://studycorgi.com/watching-movies-in-cinemas-and-at-home/

"Watching Movies in Cinemas and at Home." StudyCorgi , 6 Jan. 2020, studycorgi.com/watching-movies-in-cinemas-and-at-home/.

StudyCorgi . (2020) 'Watching Movies in Cinemas and at Home'. 6 January.

1. StudyCorgi . "Watching Movies in Cinemas and at Home." January 6, 2020. https://studycorgi.com/watching-movies-in-cinemas-and-at-home/.

Bibliography

StudyCorgi . "Watching Movies in Cinemas and at Home." January 6, 2020. https://studycorgi.com/watching-movies-in-cinemas-and-at-home/.

StudyCorgi . 2020. "Watching Movies in Cinemas and at Home." January 6, 2020. https://studycorgi.com/watching-movies-in-cinemas-and-at-home/.

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How Can I Write an Essay About a Movie?

By Film Threat Staff | May 23, 2023

Watching movies for a long time has been a major past-time for most individuals. The people expect to sit in front of their screens and get thrilled into a world of adventure, mystery, and wonder.

But how can you gauge your appreciation and understanding of filmmaking? Writing an essay about a movie is one way of showing your grasp of the content.

Movie analysis is a common assignment for most college students. It is an intricate task where every detail matters while tied together to form a part of the story.

A part of the assignment involves watching a particular movie and writing an essay about your overall impression of the movie.

Essay writing services such as WriteMyEssay show that more than rewatching a movie several times is needed to make up for a solid movie analysis essay. Here is a step-by-step guide on how to write your movie analysis:

What Is a Movie Essay?

The world of literature is multifaceted while testing different attributes of students. A movie analysis essay, at its core, seeks to uncover the hidden layers of meaning within the cinema world.

A movie analysis essay is much more than a movie review that seeks to delve into the artistry behind filmmaking. Thus, it seeks to test a student’s prowess in understanding various elements that come together to form a meaningful cinematic experience.

The main purpose of movie analysis essays is to dissect different components employed by a film in making a unique and impactful storyline.

Students can appreciate the filmmaking process’s complexities by analyzing these different elements. Also, students can develop a keen eye for the nuances that elevate a movie from entertainment to a work of art.

Here are top tips by experts when writing an essay about a particular movie during your assignments:

1. Watch the Movie

The first obvious standpoint for writing an essay about any movie is watching the film. Watching the movie builds an important foundation for the writing exercise. Composing an insightful, compelling, and well-thought movie essay requires you to experience it.

Therefore, select an appropriate environment to watch the movie free from distractions. Moreover, immerse yourself in the full movie experience to absorb all the intricate details. Some critical elements to note down include:

• Characterization
• Cinematography

We recommend watching the movie several times in case the time element allows. Rewatching the film deepens your understanding of the movie while uncovering unnoticed details on the first take.

2. Write an Introduction

The introductory paragraph to your movie essay should contain essential details of the movie, such as:

• Release date
• Name of the director
• Main actors

Moreover, start with a captivating hook to entice readers to keep reading. You can start with a memorable quote from one of the characters.

For example, released in 1976 and Directed by Martin Scorsese, ‘The Taxi Driver’ starring Robert De Niro as the eccentric taxi driver.’

After writing an enticing introduction, it is time to summarize what you watched. A summary provides readers with a clear understanding of the movie’s plot and main events. Hence, your readers can have a foundation for the rest of your movie essay.

Writing a summary need to be concise. The entire movie essay should be brief and straight to the point. Ensure to capture the main arguments within the movie’s plot. However, avoid going into too many details. Just focus on giving concise information about the movie.

4. Start Writing

The next vital part is forming the analysis part. This is where the analysis delves deeply into the movie’s themes, cinematography, characters, and other related elements.

First, start by organizing your analysis clearly and logically. Each section or paragraph should concentrate on a particular aspect of the film. Ensure to incorporate important elements such as cinematography, character development, and symbolism.

In addition, analyze different techniques employed by filmmakers. Take note of stylistic choices, including editing, sound, cinematography, imagery, and allegory. This helps contribute to the overall impact and meaning.

Lastly, connect your analysis to the thesis statement. Ensure all arguments captured in your analysis tie together to the main argument. It should maintain a straight focus throughout your essay.

Remember to re-state your thesis while summarizing previously mentioned arguments innovatively and creatively when finishing up your movie essay. Lastly, you can recommend your reader to watch the movie.

Final Takeaway

The writing process should be a fun, demanding, and engaging assignment. Try these tips from experts in structuring and logically organizing your essay.

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The Art of Watching Films Essay

Films are an essential part of our life. We watch different films for different purposes. There are a lot of factors which influence our taste and according to this, we form our point of view whether we like it or not. Different people use different criteria in evaluating films and the points of view about films always appear to be different. There are some films that are recognized to be perfect by all, and these films are recognized as masterpieces of cinematography and nobody wants to oppose this point of view.

While watching the film we use different criteria in evaluating the film quality. Some people watch on the cast and the number of special effects, flashes or others point which they think are very important. We tend to think that watching films is a passive activity. Let me disagree with this. When we watch films we “catch clues and cues, anticipate events, react to characters and notice things and meanings” (Murray and Moore, 2003, p. 160).

As for me, my points of view about evaluating film quality have changed. Now I watch not only on the cast and special effects, which are also important, but I watch on technical achievement, personality cult, auteur, humanistic genre, political gender, psychoanalytical, and eclectic. It is going to be explained how these different approaches can influence our opinion about the film.

People who are lucky to understand the technical side of the film can evaluate it deeper. The modern world has come into the phase of technological achievements and these achievements have touched the film industry. People began to notice how the film was made and these technical characteristics influence our opinion about film greatly.

The cast is also a very important part of the film. Knowing who is in the film we may say whether this film is worth seeing or not, especially if our primary interest is in the actors (Boggs and Petrie, 2006). People usually use personality cult in evaluating film quality as the main, as actors who soot in the films give their salt in film.

“An auteur is a complete filmmaker” (Boggs and Petrie, 2006). The idea of the film, the script, and the concept in the film are the main factors that make the film a masterpiece. Considering the auteur approach people “focus on the style, technique, and philosophy of the film’s dominant creative personality of the director” (Boggs and Petrie, 2006). The humanistic approach is closely related to the auteur approach. The film is the creation of the person so the human factor is predominant there. The Director’s views, opinions, and visions of life are seen in the film and it is not a surprise it must be so. When we know the director of the film we understand the direction in which the film is shot.

The modern world pays much attention to politics and in many films, we may see the symbols of political features. The political topics in the film may be very important for other people but not for me. Political gender is not the main in my evaluation of the film. The psychoanalytical approach is very important in film evaluation. According to the approach the attention is paid to the mind, to the expression of feelings and emotions. (Boggs and Petrie, 2006) This is what should be taken for the basis while film consideration.

To consider the film from an electrical point of view means “to analyze every film from the narrow critical framework” (Boggs and Petrie, 2006, p. 383). While watching the film some actions, aspects are noticed and considered very attentive and in detail.

So, my evaluating of film quality has changed greatly after this course. Now, my attention is paid not only to cast but also to technical achievement, personality cult, auteur, humanistic genre, psychoanalytical and eclectic approaches.

Reference List

Boggs, J.M. & Petrie, D.W. (2006). The Art of Watching Films . McGraw-Hill Higher Education.

Murray, M.D. & Moore R.L. (2003). Mass communication education . Wiley-Blackwell.

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IvyPanda. (2021, November 4). The Art of Watching Films. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-art-of-watching-films/

"The Art of Watching Films." IvyPanda , 4 Nov. 2021, ivypanda.com/essays/the-art-of-watching-films/.

IvyPanda . (2021) 'The Art of Watching Films'. 4 November.

IvyPanda . 2021. "The Art of Watching Films." November 4, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-art-of-watching-films/.

1. IvyPanda . "The Art of Watching Films." November 4, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-art-of-watching-films/.

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IvyPanda . "The Art of Watching Films." November 4, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-art-of-watching-films/.

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Watching Films at Home Or in Other Places

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Essay on Impact of Cinema in Life for Students and Children

500 words essay on impact of cinema in life.

Cinema has been a part of the entertainment industry for a long time. It creates a massive impact on people all over the world. In other words, it helps them give a break from monotony. It has evolved greatly in recent years too. Cinema is a great escape from real life.

Furthermore, it helps in rejuvenating the mind of a person. It surely is beneficial in many ways, however, it is also creating a negative impact on people and society. We need to be able to identify the right from wrong and make decisions accordingly.

Advantages of Cinema

Cinema has a lot of advantages if we look at the positive side. It is said to be a reflection of the society only. So, it helps us come face to face with the actuality of what’s happening in our society. It portrays things as they are and helps in opening our eyes to issues we may have well ignored in the past.

Similarly, it helps people socialize better. It connects people and helps break the ice. People often discuss cinema to start a conversation or more. Moreover, it is also very interesting to talk about rather than politics and sports which is often divided.

Above all, it also enhances the imagination powers of people. Cinema is a way of showing the world from the perspective of the director, thus it inspires other people too to broaden their thinking and imagination.

Most importantly, cinema brings to us different cultures of the world. It introduces us to various art forms and helps us in gaining knowledge about how different people lead their lives.

In a way, it brings us closer and makes us more accepting of different art forms and cultures. Cinema also teaches us a thing or two about practical life. Incidents are shown in movies of emergencies like robbery, fire, kidnapping and more help us learn things which we can apply in real life to save ourselves. Thus, it makes us more aware and teaches us to improvise.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Disadvantages of Cinema

While cinema may be beneficial in many ways, it is also very damaging in various areas. Firstly, it stereotypes a lot of things including gender roles, religious practices, communities and more. This creates a false notion and a negative impact against that certain group of people.

People also consider it to be a waste of time and money as most of the movies nowadays are not showing or teaching anything valuable. It is just trash content with objectification and lies. Moreover, it also makes people addicts because you must have seen movie buffs flocking to the theatre every weekend to just watch the latest movie for the sake of it.

Most importantly, cinema shows pretty violent and sexual content. It contributes to the vulgarity and eve-teasing present in our society today. Thus, it harms the young minds of the world very gravely.

Q.1 How does cinema benefit us?

A.1 Cinema has a positive impact on society as it helps us in connecting to people of other cultures. It reflects the issues of society and makes us familiar with them. Moreover, it also makes us more aware and helps to improvise in emergency situations.

Q.2 What are the disadvantages of cinema?

A.2 Often cinema stereotypes various things and creates false notions of people and communities. It is also considered to be a waste of time and money as some movies are pure trash and don’t teach something valuable. Most importantly, it also demonstrates sexual and violent content which has a bad impact on young minds.

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Essays About Cinema: Top 5 Examples and 10 Prompts

Are you writing an essay on cinema? Check out our round-up of great examples of essays about cinema and creative prompts to stir up your thoughts on this art form.

Cinema is primarily referred to as films. With the power to transport people to different worlds and cultures, cinema can be an evocative medium to tell stories, shape beliefs, and seed new ideas. Cinema can also refer to the production process of films or even film theaters.

If you’re writing an essay about cinema, our inspiring essay examples and prompts below can help you find the best way to express your thoughts on this art form:  

Best 5 Essay Examples

1. french cinema is more than just entertainment by jonathan romney, 2. “nope” is one of the greatest movies about moviemaking by richard brody, 3. the wolf of wall street and the new cinema of excesses by izzy black, 4. how spirited away changed animation forever by kat moon, 5. from script to screen: what role for intellectual property by cathy jewell, 1. the history of cinema, 2. analysis of my favorite movie, 3. the impact of cinema on life, 4. the technological evolution of cinema, 5. cinema and piracy, 6. how to make a short film, 7. movies vs. film vs. cinema, 8. movie theaters during the pandemic, 9. film festivals, 10. the effect of music on mood.

“In France, cinema is taken seriously, traditionally considered an art rather than merely a form of entertainment or an industrial product. In that spirit, and in the name of ‘cultural exception,’ the French state has long supported home-grown cinema as both art and business.”

The culture of creating and consuming cinema is at the heart of French culture. The essay gives an overview of how the French give premium to cinema as a tool for economic and cultural progress, inspiring other countries to learn from the French in maintaining and elevating the global prestige of their film industry.

“‘Nope’ is one of the great movies about moviemaking, about the moral and spiritual implications of cinematic representation itself—especially the representation of people at the center of American society who are treated as its outsiders.”

The essay summarizes “Nope,” a sci-fi horror released in 2022. It closely inspects its action, technology play, and dramatic point-of-view shots while carefully avoiding spoilers. But beyond the cinematic technicalities, the movie also captures Black Americans’ experience of exploitation in the movie’s set period. 

“These films opt to imaginatively present the psychology of ideology rather than funnel in a more deceptive ideology through moralizing. The hope, then, perhaps, that indulging in the sin that we might better come to terms with the animal of capitalism and learn something of value from it. Which is to say, there is a moral end to at all.” 

This essay zooms into various movies of excess in recent times and compares them against those in the ‘60s when the style in the cinema first rose. She finds that current films of excess do not punish their undiscerning heroes in the end. While this has been interpreted as glorifying the excess, Black sees this as our way to learn.

Check out these essays about heroes and essays about college .

“Spirited Away shattered preconceived notions about the art form and also proved that, as a film created in Japanese with elements of Japanese folklore central to its core, it could resonate deeply with audiences around the world.”

Spirited Away is a hand-drawn animation that not only put Japanese cinema on the map but also changed the animation landscape forever. The film bent norms that allowed it to break beyond its target demographics and redefine animation’s aesthetic impact. The Times essay looks back on the film’s historic journey toward sweeping nominations and awards on a global stage long dominated by Western cinema. 

“[IP rights] help producers attract the funds needed to get a film project off the ground; enable directors, screenwriters and actors, as well as the many artists and technicians who work behind the scenes, to earn a living; and spur the technological innovations that push the boundaries of creativity and make the seemingly impossible, possible.”

Protecting intellectual property rights in cinema has a significant but often overlooked role in helping make or break the success of a film. In this essay, the author identifies the film-making stages where contracts on intellectual property terms are created and offers best practices to preserve ownership over creative works throughout the film-making process.

10 Exciting Writing Prompts

See below our writing prompts to encourage great ideas for your essay:

In this essay, you can write about the beginnings of cinema or pick a certain period in the evolution of film. Then, look into the defining styles that made them have an indelible mark in cinema history. But to create more than just an informational essay, try to incorporate your reflections by comparing the experience of watching movies today to your chosen cinema period.

Pick your favorite movie and analyze its theme and main ideas. First, provide a one-paragraph summary. Then, pick out the best scenes and symbolisms that you think poignantly relayed the movie’s theme and message. To inspire your critical thinking and analysis of movies, you may turn to the essays of renowned film critics such as André Bazin and Roger Ebert . 

Talk about the advantages and disadvantages of cinema. You can cite research and real-life events that show the benefits and risks of consuming or producing certain types of films. For example, cinematic works such as documentaries on the environment can inspire action to protect Mother Nature. Meanwhile, film violence can be dangerous, especially when exposed to children without parental guidance.

Walk down memory lane of the 100 years of cinema and reflect on each defining era. Like any field, the transformation of cinema is also inextricably linked to the emergence of groundbreaking innovations, such as the kinetoscope that paved the way for short silent movies and the technicolor process that allowed the transition from black and white to colored films. Finally, you can add the future innovations anticipated to revolutionize cinema. 

Content piracy is the illegal streaming, uploading, and selling of copyrighted content. First, research on what technologies are propelling piracy and what are piracy’s implications to the film industry, the larger creative community, and the economy. Then, cite existing anti-piracy efforts of your government and several film organizations such as the Motion Picture Association . Finally, offer your take on piracy, whether you are for or against it, and explain. 

A short film is a great work and a starting point for budding and aspiring movie directors to venture into cinema. First, plot the critical stages a film director will undertake to produce a short film, such as writing the plot, choosing a cast, marketing the film, and so on. Then, gather essential tips from interviews with directors of award-winning short films, especially on budgeting, given the limited resource of short film projects. 

Beyond their linguistic differences, could the terms movie, film, and cinema have differences as jargon in the film-making world? Elaborate on the differences between these three terms and what movie experts think. For example, Martin Scorsese doesn’t consider the film franchise Avengers as cinema. Explain what such differentiation means. 

Theaters were among the first and worst hit during the outbreak of COVID-19 as they were forced to shut down. In your essay, dig deeper into the challenges that followed their closure, such as movie consumers’ exodus to streaming services that threatened to end cinemas. Then, write about new strategies movie theater operators had to take to survive the pandemic. Finally, write an outlook on the possible fate of movie theaters by using research studies and personally weighing the pros and cons of watching movies at home.

Film Festivals greatly support the film industry, expand national wealth, and strengthen cultural pride. For this prompt, write about how film festivals encouraged the rise of specific genres and enabled the discovery of unique films and a fresh set of filmmakers to usher in a new trend in cinema.

First, elaborate on how music can intensify the mood in movies. Then, use case examples of how music, especially distinct ones, can bring greater value to a film. For example, superhero and fantasy movies’ intro music allows more excellent recall. 

For help with your essays, check out our round-up of the best essay checkers . 

If you’re still stuck, check out our general resource of essay writing topics .

Yna Lim is a communications specialist currently focused on policy advocacy. In her eight years of writing, she has been exposed to a variety of topics, including cryptocurrency, web hosting, agriculture, marketing, intellectual property, data privacy and international trade. A former journalist in one of the top business papers in the Philippines, Yna is currently pursuing her master's degree in economics and business.

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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
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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

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How I Learned English from Watching Movies (and How You Can Too)

I grew up in the suburbs of Rabat, Morocco and learned English predominantly from watching movies. I would watch three or four movies in a day, and after a few years, I realized I could speak the language. It shocked everyone, including me.

My goal is to help you do the same, in a much faster time. In this article, I’ll show you how to learn English from watching movies and give you ways to structure your learning process.

Follow your (film) interests

I learned English as a byproduct of my interest in American culture and cinema. More specifically, I enjoyed real-life stories and indie dramas that didn’t have a lot of plot but realistically portrayed how people live. One of my favorite such movies is Your Sister’s Sister with Emily Blunt.

Letting yourself get carried away by your interests is key to learning English from movies. Don’t ask “how can I learn English?” (yet), ask “what English-language movies would I be interested in?” Some people like horror, others documentaries; some people prefer British comedy to American, etc. It depends on each person. Answering this question is key to your English learning journey.

Turn on the (right) subtitles

It goes without saying that you need to turn on subtitles in your mother tongue to learn from movies at the beginning. What is key here is making sure you enjoy movie watching, and for this you need to understand said movies.

Many people assume that to learn English you need to watch English movies with English subtitles. In my experience, this takes away the fun from watching the film as each new word you don’t understand will look like a giant obstacle in front of you.

Repeat your favorite expressions

I would always find myself mumbling DeNiro’s “You talkin’ to me?” or Jack Nicholson’s “Here’s Johnny!” to myself. The reason I did this was because these expressions were fun to say, but in the way I was improving my pronunciation and speaking skills.

Try to repeat expressions in movies you think sound cool. Whether it is Matthew McConaughey’s “Alright, alright, alright” or any other, repeat it to yourself for a while. You will find that your accent will improve.

Review movies online

Go on online film forums like Letterboxd or IMDb and review. Review, review, review. Write anything but make sure it’s in English. This will help you get started on your writing.

Make sure you review movies you either loved or hated, as that will push you to express yourself better in writing.

Organize your time to watch more movies

I’ve always been a big proponent of watching at the very least one movie a week (Sunday is my personal movie night). It’s simple, the more movies you watch, the more you’ll learn.

Start with a weekly movie night. If you don’t have a big TV to watch movies, no problem. Watch on your phone, computer or laptop and just enjoy the film. If you develop a passion for film, you will find yourself watching more. The key is to watch consistently.

Every once in a while, watch a movie with a native English-speaker (if you can)

If you have a native English-speaker friend or colleague, watch a movie together and discuss it afterwards. It’s a fun exercise to test your understanding of the language and have a chat with someone in English.

In Morocco I made English-speaking friends by enrolling in a journalism class. If you don’t have English-speaking friends, it doesn’t mean you can’t make new ones!

And bonus: in my case, those people I met in Morocco are now some of my best friends.

Watch the same movies more than once

Try watching a movie twice or more. I’ve always found that doing this helped me understand the movie better and improve my listening skills.

Most of the movies I watched were through a channel called “MBC2”, which played American movies 24/7. I couldn’t choose which movies to watch (and they didn’t have a lot of money to license new movies), so I ended up watching some movies many times over.

You probably have access to a much more practical way to watch movies. Pick your favorite actors, directors or writers and let yourself become obsessed with their work. Usually, movies you want to watch more than once are good movies. And good movies make learning English fun.

Use new apps

There are so many  apps out there that can help you learn English , and some of them harness the power of movies.  Language Reactor  is a completely free one that I recommend to anyone who wants to learn English. The app works by employing the same technique I’ve been explaining throughout this article: movies with subtitles in your native language, which you pause on every new word so that you can practice it.  Lingopie  is another app that prides itself as being the “Netflix of language learning” but they currently don’t offer English. Maybe one day.

That’s all for how to learn English through movies. I hope you found this article useful and interesting, and that it will make your English learning (or teaching) journey more fun.

Speaking of fun, I made this database of words that are unique to each language. Here is the list for  English words that don’t translate . Words like “catch-22”, “gun-shy”, or “kitty-corner”.

Movies Vocabulary

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• Fun Apologising Activities
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52 comments

I like the line about the movie reviews on different platforms. It will help us improve our writing skills and what we understand from the movie.

Hello! We are an English Conversational group and we’d like to invite you to chat about movies, music or interesting topics in order to improve our English skills.

feel free to join us: +52 729-100-15-91

hi I like your advice that we should watch the movie with mother tongue subtitle at the start of this learning journey

Hello, thank for the ideas. The advice that i liked the most was “ Watch the same movies more than once . I think you can learn easily the language without studying much . I will follow this instruction.

Hello I usually don’t see a lot a movies because i don’t have much patience, but i listen to a lot of music reading the lyrics to sing it and i think it works too. The advice was really great I will try to discover films that i like so i can watch it to try improving my English. Thank you

Hello and thanks for the advice I personally like the 2nd, 3rd and 5th. I think that these are the most fun and effective ways of learning english by watching movies/series. In my opinion watching english youtube videos or talking with native english speakers are awesome ways to improve on the language. Thanks for this publication!

Hello and thanks for advices. I think that teenagers should read and listen to more things in English on a daily basis because having a good vocabulary and understanding everything that is said is important for our future, that’s why movies in English, blogs like this one are a good option to learn. Congratulations for the excellent work.

hi I really like your blog because it helps me a lot to learn English to watch movies .I liked the part where you say that watching movies in general helps us .continue with your good work.

hello, thank you for the advice. The topics that i think that are more useful was watch films more than once, organize your time to watch more movies and review movies, i will try to use them as mutch as i can.

Hi thanks for the advices I like the ideia of whatching movies a por of times

Hello, thanks for all the information, I liked the part about organizing the time to see more movies, normally I only watch it once a week because I don’t have time but I’m definitely going to see more now.

Says: Hello, thank you for the advice, I liked the part that talks about watching movies in English to learn better English in general

Thank you for all the information, that is very helpful for people who don’t know how to speak english properly, watching movies once or twice a week could help very much improving english skills. I do it since i was 6.

Thank you for this ideas. The idea that I use the most is to watch the movie more than once and without subtitles to try to understand, I will continue to practice.

thank you for these ideas. My favourite topics are watch the same movies more than once.

The topics that i think that are more useful was 1-Organize your time to watch more movies; 2-Follow your (film) interests; 3-Use new apps. Because I think they are the most easy and could really help us improve our English.

Thank you for this ideias,

Hello and thanks for this ideas. The one that I liked the most was the first point wich talks about watching movies,that really help me learning english. Thank you, I’ll improve my english.

Hello and thanks for advices. They’re all pretty good, I really like the 6th one, watching a movie more then once or when you better understand English, you might learn some new words our understand more of the movie it self and not only movie but games can help to, I have learned a lot more of English from games they make you read and understand words in different contexts.

Hello,thank you for this ideas,in my opinion all of these advises can help you to improve your english, but the ones that I think can help you even more are: every once in a while, watch a movie with a native English-speaker;use new apps to learn more and repeat your favorites expressions to get your speaking skills better.

Hello,thank you so much for this blog! I agree with all of your advice,but the one that I liked the most is in the third point because I do that wacthing Harry Potter and that helped me a lot. Repeating lines from the movie like “Don´t touch anything, Draco” improved my accent because of the actor´s accent. I´m going to follow another ideas thanks to your publication and further improve my english.

Thank you for this publication, especially for the second and last topic. I usually turn on the subtitles, so i can learn new words and what they mean. Using new apps helps me to improve my vocabulary.

Thank you, by this blog it’s very insteresting for those who are learning English. My favourite topics are review movies online and follow your film interests. Thank you, I’ll practice.

Thank you for this published mainly for the last two topics watch the same movies more than once and Use new apps because i think they are the most easy topics.

Thank you for this published mainly for the last two topics because watching a movie twice and use new apps made me improve my vocabulary.

The best topics I think the best is Turn on the subtitles because is going to Help absorbing some expresssions because with the subtitles we can associate some words or see a movie more than One time because we can try to say the lines Thanks for the Tips

Thank you Bilal Zou for helping me to improve my English. the topics that interest me the most are organizing my time to watch more movies, doing that I can watch more films. Turn on the right subtitles, it helps me to understand the meaning of the words and Follow my interest, it can help me not to get bored watching films.

Thank you for this published mainly for the first two topics, because they were very usefull to improve my vocabulary and my fluency.

The topics that i think that are more useful was was watch the same film more than once, repeat the expressions that i like more and follow your film interests because in my opinion are the easier ones. Thank you for share your point of view.

Thank you for the advices, I think that they are very useful, specially that we should watch the movies with subtitles on our language and then watch with the subtitles in English. I will try to use that information as much as I can.

I think the most important tips are that, if you want to learn english watching movies, you should watch movies that interest you, and that you should turn on the right subtitles, because it’s useless to watch a movie in english with english subtitles if you dont understand english.

The topics I liked the most were: 1-Organize your time to watch more movies; 2-Follow your (film) interests; 3-Use new apps. because the more films we see the more culture we gain. thank you Bilal Zou!!

I agree with you, that we should watch the movies with subtitles on our native language and then try to watched with English subtitles. I also agree that we should watch the same film more than once to learn more and more vocabulary. Thank you for your advices!

for me the most important topics are: use new apps, organize your time to see more movies and review movies online because i think they are the best tips to make us improve our english.

thank you Bilal Zou 🙂

Thank you for all of the advices,I will try to use them as much as I can.

Thank you for the advice, I will try to use this methods, I hope they are effective.

The topics I find the most interesting and useful are “Review movies online” ; “Watch the same movies more than once” ; “Use new apps” . Because I think they are the most easy and could really help us improve our English.

Thank you Bilal Zou.

I Need English sow if you can help me I have appreciate you so thank

I like this article and I want to be good English speaker. I love English and interest the English movies, thanks for this useful information.

It is interesting to learn English

Hola buenas noches,deseo aprender inglés,para buscar nuevas oportunidades de empleo

All the suggestion are right.indeed to speak need movie watching participated to forum.and other case for a non native pronunciation has been a big challenge.

Thank you for sharing it with us,

Your article is useful to me as I am literally a filmaholic. Thank you so much for the advice.

I totally agree with Ms. Zou that practicing is the only key to improve your skill for any language. She found that watching movies and indie dramas helped her learning better. We may give it a try.

I think Mr. Akbar (commented here) is also right, we should practice in different ways and keep working on our mistakes and weak points more.

Thanks to the author, the given suggestions will be helpful to learn English with fun.

This is very much effective for learning English.

I completely agree with Miss Zou. I’ve always been studying English for a long time and I think that one of the best ways to improve your skills in a new language is to watch a movie at least once a week. My children are proof of this. When we had to move to the USA, both of them had done this and I could see how much they improved and became a native speaker!

This is a personal idea of learning from movies, and learning through movies is a completely different experience and it depends on lots of factors, but the most important one is having interaction, and being active. I know lots of people who have been watching, listening to English movies, podcasts, and news for many years, but they can’t express one correct sentence in English.

I would like to register hoping that it is really free.Thank you.

I checked those information, I registered for films (free) I hope it is true(free movies on my computer).

I will come back to check the titles that will interest me.

Good night!

Leave a comment

Email * (not published)

787 Words Essay on Watching Films (free to read)

Watching a film is one of the easiest means of transcending the limit tins of one’s mean existence and participating vicariously in lives of char caters who are larger than life.

Living in one part of the city and limited in one’s action by scarcity of money and finances, most of us lead a life of constant struggle to keep our body and soul together. Added to that, the societal norms hardly leave us any scope to indulge the fancies of our mind – be it an urge for a romantic relationship or an adventure in the hills or the sensuous pleasures of eating or drink­ing in luxury hotels. While we are watching a movie, we forget the grim realities and drudgeries of the work-a-day world and are transposed into a romantic world where heroes and heroines are bestowed with extraordinary energy and mental powers to enable them to live according to the dictates of their fancy.

While in real life, we find ourselves handicapped to change even petty things in our environment like a strict teacher or a disagreeable driver of the school bus, we find the characters in the films shifting from city to city as easily as we change our dress. As the film progresses, our identification with some characters become deeper and deeper and we forget our actual selves and the real world we live in. We partake in the make-believe world of the heroes of the film, sing and dance with him and also suffer the pangs of unre­quited love or torture at the hands of heartless villains.

There is a lot of truth in the statement that a film transports us from a world of grim reality to an enchanting world of beauty and glamour. It is equally true that many a film makes us laugh and tickle our sense of humour.

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But there are other kinds of movies which artistically depict the agonies of unfor­tunate lovers, trials and tribulations of old and lonely parents and the misunderstand­ing between bosom friends. Such movies have always had more lasting effect on me than thrillers. The lovers in “Quay mat Se Quay mat Take” who were dreaming of a life of eternal bliss fall victims to the ferocious hatred of their respective parents nursing family enmity for two generations. It shows that children do suffer for the sins com­mitted by their parents.

The few moments of idyllic love stolen by the lovers from th inexorable time leading them to a tragic finale are pregnant with breathless excite mint. Our moral feelings get relieved when we see the enemity of the feuding fami lies being buried with the death of their young children. ‘Sparsh’ is a masterpiece o Hindi cinema depicting with stark realism the dreary’ life of old parents who are pass ing each moment of their old life waiting for some good news from their child. Tht agony which we bear with the old characters is a significant emotional experience one never remains the same after an experience of a great work of art. It enriches ou emotional repertory. It sensitises us so that we respond more sympathetically to olc people in our real life.

Characters in a film exercise a more lasting effect on one’s mind if the growth or development of a character is unfolded by the director with psychological insight. “Gandhi” of Attenborough impressed me much more thoroughly than even the Gandhi of Autobiography. Verisimilitude with which Attenborough has depicted the times and a situation of Gadhi’s charisma makes tremendous impact on the spectators. After seeing the film, I was emotionally convinced of the moral powers of Gandhiji on the masses whom he could dissuade from violence by undertaking a fast unto death. Mehboob’s great classic “Mother India” is a powerful portrayal of the bad world satu­rated with the evil genius of a money lender. But it also shows in bold relief the nobility and perseverance of mother who is unbending even in the worst circum­stances while personally undergoing all imaginable torture and hardship.

A film is, thus, not only an escape from reality; it is also an ordering of reality. The maker of film selects only those episodes of the life of a character which are purposive and significant, which impart authenticity to his character and are essential to the plot and movement of the story. A successfully portrayed character fires our imagination, inspires us and emboldens us to strive for a better life. Our own experience of life is very limited and circumscribed. Through films, we can make others’ experience our own. We can vicariously participate in their joys and struggle, their trials and tribula­tions and their fun and excitement. Films unfold multiple dimensions of human exist­ence.

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Critic’s Pick

‘Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga’ Review: A Lonely Avenger

The fifth installment of George Miller’s series delivers an origin story of Furiosa, the hard-bitten driver played here by Anya Taylor-Joy.

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By Manohla Dargis

Dystopia has rarely looked as grim and felt as exhilarating as it has in George Miller’s “Mad Max” cycle. For decades, Miller has been wowing viewers with hallucinatory images of a ravaged, violent world that looks enough like ours to generate shivers of recognition. Yet however familiar his alternative universe can seem — feel — his filmmaking creates such a strong contact high that it’s always been easy to simply bliss out on the sheer spectacle of it all. Apocalypse? Cool!

The thing is, it has started to feel less cool just because in the years since the original “Mad Max” opened in 1979, the distance between Miller’s scorched earth and ours has narrowed. Set “a few years from now,” the first film tracks Max Rockatansky (Mel Gibson), a highway patrol cop who has a semblance of a normal life with a wife and kid. That things are about to go to hell for Max is obvious in the opening shot of a sign for the Hall of Justice, an entry that evokes the gate at Auschwitz (“Work Sets You Free”). You may have flinched if you made that association, but whatever qualms you had were soon swept away by the ensuing chases and crashes, the gunning engines and mad laughter.

Miller’s latest and fifth movie in the cycle, “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga,” is primarily an origin story that recounts the life and brutal, dehumanizing times of the young Furiosa (Anya Taylor-Joy), the hard-bitten rig driver played by Charlize Theron in the last film, “ Mad Max: Fury Road ” (2015). Miller’s magnum opus, “Fury Road” is at once the apotheosis of his cinematic genius — it’s one of the great movies of the last decade — and a departure narratively and tonally from the previous films. In “Fury,” Max still serves as the nominal headliner (with Tom Hardy taking over for Gibson), but the movie’s dramatic and emotional weight rests on Furiosa, her quest and her hopes.

As befits a creation story, “Furiosa” tracks Furiosa from childhood to young adulthood, a downward spiral that takes her from freedom to captivity and, in time, circumscribed sovereignty. It opens with the 10-year-old Furiosa (Alyla Browne) foraging in a forest close to a paradisiacal outpost called the Green Place of Many Mothers. Just as she’s reaching for an amusingly, metaphorically ripe peach, her idyll is cut short by a gang of snaggletooth, hygiene-challenged bikers. They’re soon rocketing across the desert with Furiosa tied up on one of their bikes, with her mother (Charlee Fraser) and another woman in pursuit on horseback, a chase that presages the fight for power and bodies which follows.

The chase grows exponentially tenser as Miller begins shifting between close-ups and expansive long shots, the raucous noise and energy of the kidnappers on their hell machines working contrapuntally against the desert’s stillness. While the scene’s arid landscape conjures up past “Mad Max” adventures, the buttes and the galloping horse evoke the classic westerns from which this series has drawn some of its mythopoetic force. Max has often seemed like a Hollywood gunslinger (or samurai) transplanted into Miller’s feverish imagination with some notes from Joseph Campbell. The minute Furiosa starts gnawing on her captor’s fuel line, though, Miller makes it clear that this wee captive is no damsel in distress.

Furiosa’s odyssey takes a turn for the more ominous when she’s delivered to the bikers’ ruler, Warlord Dementus (a vamping Chris Hemsworth), a voluble show-boater who oversees a gaggle of largely male nomads. Wearing a billowing white cape, Dementus travels in a chariot drawn by motorcycles and keeps a scholar by his side. He’s a ridiculous figure, and Miller and Hemsworth lean into the character’s absurdity with a physical presentation that is as outlandish as Dementus’s pomposity and (prosthetic) nose. It’s hard not to wonder if Miller drew inspiration for the character from both Charlton Heston’s heroic champion and the Arab sheikh in the 1959 epic “Ben-Hur,” a very different desert saga.

The power of the “Mad Max” movies partly derives from how Miller supercharges the kinds of stories that are passed from family to family, tribe to tribe, culture to culture, the ones that are embedded in our heads and chart our paths, whether we know it or not. Yet while Miller is a modern mythmaker, he remains tethered to the world — the machinations and conflagrations in the movies at times queasily mirror our own — and it’s worth noting that he’s also a physician. (He was the set doctor on some “Max” movies.) His background helps explain, I think, his attention to the human body, most obviously in the flamboyant stunt work that has become a series trademark, and his delight in showing the whirring parts of bodies, machines and ecosystems — how they work .

Furiosa’s own body is very much at the center of this movie, which shifts directions when, after some power plays and narrative busywork, she lands in the Citadel, the heavily guarded fortress the character fled in “Fury Road.” There, she is herded with some cloistered young women, handmaidens whose sole function is to bear children for Immortan Joe (Lachy Hulme), the Citadel’s leader. It’s also there that Furiosa, still a child (and still played by Browne), catches the eye of one of Immortan Joe’s spawn, a hulking predator whose designs on her jolt the story into a different, unsettling register. Miller, smartly, doesn’t overplay this section — and Furiosa evades this creep — but it’s still a shock to the system.

The shock lingers, and darkens the story precipitously. To survive, Furiosa escapes her would-be molester by obscuring her identity and joining the ranks of the Citadel’s chattel workers. She melts into the crowd, and years pass as the scenes blend together and a determined, sympathetic Taylor-Joy steps into the role. There’s more, lots and lots: Furiosa shaves her head and finds a mentor in a driver, Praetorian Jack (Tom Burke, the louche heartbreaker in Joanna Hogg’s “The Souvenir”). Together they and armies of minions journey to hot spots like the Bullet Farm, where Miller dazzles you with his customary pyrotechnics as he finesses the pieces — Immortan Joe and Dementus included — into place.

It takes a while to get used to Taylor-Joy as Furiosa, partly because Theron originated the character with such a distinct mixture of raw anger and deep-boned melancholy. Theron also looked like she could kick everyone’s butt in “Fury Road”; she more or less kicked Max’s, at least metaphorically by becoming the series’ new totem. Taylor-Joy doesn’t (yet) have her predecessor’s physical expressiveness, but like Theron, she trained as a ballet dancer and moves beautifully, with the kind of unforced gracefulness that suggests she can easily slip out of any difficulty. Taylor-Joy’s Furiosa may look too physically slight to handle the Armageddon, but that sense of vulnerability of course serves the story.

My guess is that Miller chose Taylor-Joy as his new Furiosa in part because of the actress’s large, wide-set eyes. They’re enormous; they’re also mesmerizing. They lock your own gaze down, commanding your attention, never more so than when the actress is looking up with her head bowed. It’s an angle that accentuates the whites of her eyes, which shine especially bright in the Citadel’s sepulchral lighting. (Jack Nicholson perfected this menacing technique in “The Shining,” which is why it’s called the Kubrick Stare.) The effect can be greatly destabilizing, creating uncertainty about the character and what kind of hero she’ll prove to be.

Furiosa’s reticence is strategic, as well as a trait she shares with Mad Max himself, the model for her taciturn avenger. While Furiosa is hiding in plain sight in the Citadel, her circumspection protects her, but it also accentuates her existential plight. She’s alone, spiritually and in every other respect, at least before meeting Praetorian Jack (not that they’re chatty). Hers is a lonely burden and, as the story and the fighting continue, it gives “Furiosa” a surprising emotional heaviness which can make this exciting, kinetic movie feel terribly sad.

Scene for scene, “Furiosa” is very much a complement to “Fury Road,” yet the new movie never fully pops the way the earlier one does. As it turns out, it is one thing to watch a movie about warriors high-tailing it out of Dodge on the road to nowhere. It’s something else entirely to watch a woman struggle to survive a world that eats its young and everyone else, too. Miller is such a wildly inventive filmmaker that it’s been easy to forget that he keeps making movies about the end of life as we know it. It’s a blast watching his characters fight over oil, water and women, yet while I’ve long thought of him as a great filmmaker it’s only with “Furiosa” that I now understand he’s also one kick-ass prophet of doom.

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga Rated R for dystopian violence and intimations of child predation. Running time: 2 hours 28 minutes. In theaters.

Manohla Dargis is the chief film critic for The Times. More about Manohla Dargis

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The best sci-fi movies to watch on Netflix this May

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We’re smack-dab in the middle of May and, if the reviews of Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga are any indication, moviegoers are in for a hell of a show when it releases in theaters next week. If you’re looking for a fantastic film to tide you over until then, you’ve come to the right place, as we’ve once again dug into Netflix’s catalog to bring you the best sci-fi movies to stream on the platform this month.

We’ve got a brutal and hilarious cyberpunk revenge thriller starring Logan Marshall-Green ( Prometheus ) as a vengeful mechanic being controlled by a malevolent A.I., Ang Lee’s underappreciated Marvel movie, and a chilling sci-fi thriller about the horrors of suburbia and parenthood.

Let’s see what this month has to offer!

Editor’s pick: Upgrade

Director: Leigh Whannell Cast: Logan Marshall-Green, Betty Gabriel, Harrison Gilbertson

Leigh Whannell’s cyberpunk action thriller feels like the type of movie destined for reappraisal and appreciation; a brutal, bare-knuckle tech nightmare about a borderline luddite whose body is hijacked by an amoral A.I. in a dystopian future.

After witnessing the murder of his wife and suffering a near-fatal gunshot, Grey (Logan Marshall-Green) is seemingly given a second chance at life when he’s implanted with an experimental chip that allows him to walk again. Determined to hunt down his wife’s killers, Grey’s mission is complicated by the fact that the chip, known as STEM, isn’t just an ideal passenger, but a fully sentient entity that takes sadistic satisfaction in the pain of others. Whannell’s film is a fantastic, violent revenge drama that imagines a world where A.I. assistants are the devil on your shoulder, preying a person’s grief and anger to further their own inscrutable schemes. Come for the brutality, stay for the inventive cinematography and gorgeous production design. —Toussaint Egan

Director: Ang Lee Cast: Eric Bana, Jennifer Connelly, Sam Elliott

Quickly following Spider-Man , X-Men , and Blade II as a part of the turn-of-the-century superhero movie boom, Ang Lee’s Hulk is largely left out of the conversation of the best of that era. But it deserves to be there as a highly-stylized comic book adaptation that doesn’t shy away from the visual influences of the source material.

You know the Hulk story – Bruce David Banner is a mild-mannered scientist who is exposed to a lot of gamma radiation (this movie earns its spot this list as a far more sci-fi superhero story than most), and then you won’t like it when he gets angry. This time, Banner is Eric Bana, assisted by a game supporting cast including Sam Elliott, Nick Nolte, Jennifer Connelly, and Josh Lucas.

While some of the CG hasn’t aged well, Ang Lee’s commitment to comic book visuals certainly has, standing out in a genre that has lost some of that visual luster. (This was his follow up to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon !) With split screens set up like comic book panels, edit transitions that look and feel like turning the page, and an appropriate combination of goofiness and epic stakes, Lee absolutely nailed it. A planned sequel was turned into the significantly less effective The Incredible Hulk starring Edward Norton, which in turn led to Mark Ruffalo being the Hulk in The Avengers . While there are certainly a few highlights from Ruffalo’s run as the character, Ang Lee’s Hulk will always be the pinnacle of Hulk silver screen goodness to me. — Pete Volk

Director: Lorcan Finnegan Cast: Imogen Poots, Jesse Eisenberg, Jonathan Aris

The sci-fi horror movie Vivarium lacks the sense of polish or the sense of relatability that might land it among the sci-fi greats, but it sure doesn’t lack for unnerving chills. Jesse Eisenberg and Imogen Poots star as a young couple trying to come to grips with the commitment of buying a house together. When they agree to tour an eerily homogenous new housing development, they fall into a surreal, nightmarish world that’s better experienced one beat at a time than described — but expect plenty of leaning on the creepy-kid arena of horror .

A little bit Twilight Zone and a little bit Donnie Darko , Vivarium is one of those “the suburbs are hell” movies that push back against all the American stereotypes about 2.5-kids-and-a-dog domesticity as the ultimate in comfort and pleasure — but it pushes back with a shrill, violent edge that’s genuinely fascinating, unsettling, and likely to turn up in your dreams somewhere down the line. —Tasha Robinson

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