us movie analysis essay

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Us Movie Ending Explained: Symbolism, Themes & Easter Eggs

J ordan Peele followed up his Oscar-winning horror film Get Out with another horror flick that dealt heavily in social commentary: Us . The movie follows a suburban family who goes on vacation only to discover a group of doppelgangers are out to get them. They soon learn there’s an entire world of doppelgangers hiding within an elaborate tunnel system beneath the surface, and it all leads to a shocking finale. If you haven’t been able to stop thinking about the movie since it came out in 2019, don’t worry. We have all your answers right here. Here’s the Us movie ending explained as well as everything else you may have missed.

And of course, spoilers ahead for Us 2019.

THE ENDING OF US EXPLAINED

Can you explain the ending of us .

The Us film follows Adelaide (Lupita Nyong’o), a wife and mother to two children who is haunted by an event in her childhood where she found a doppelganger of herself inside a House of Mirrors. As an adult, she travels with her husband Gabe (Winston Duke), daughter Zora (Shahadi Wright Joseph), and son Jason (Evan Alex) to their family’s summer home. On the first night, they find four individuals standing in their driveway. The outsiders eventually make their way into the house, revealing themselves to be the family’s doppelgangers.

They refer to themselves as the Tethered. They’ve spent years living under society’s surface and have risen to “untether” themselves from their hosts. Plenty of spooky moments (as well as some pretty hilarious events) occur until we get the big reveal at the end.

The woman we know as Adelaide was actually tethered. She swapped places with the real Adelaide all those years ago.

Us Movie Ending Explained  •  The Final Scene

Adelaide was really Red all along. She shares a glance with her son with him seemingly understanding who his mother actually is. After all, he saw the brutal, tether-like behavior she displayed underground. But he doesn’t say anything. He just puts his mask on… just like his mother has worn a mask for all these years.

We pull back and see tethered have fulfilled their goal of creating their own “Hands Across America.” But as is the case with any good twist ending , there were clues hidden all throughout the film.

For starters, Red is the only tethered who can speak albeit in a raspy, damaged voice. This is due to the fact she’s the original Adelaide who was born and raised in normal society.

Lupita Nyong’o’s Voice in Us  •  Variety

Next, you have the flashback scene with Adelaide’s parents speaking with a doctor. They’re concerned because their daughter isn’t speaking anymore. Initially, you assume this is simply due to the trauma she experienced. But with the twist, we realize it’s due to the fact she’s the doppelganger and didn’t know how to speak.

This is again hinted at during the beach scene when the Wilsons are with the Tylers. Adelaide explains to Kitty (Elisabeth Moss) that she’s not much of a talker. Again, the audience assumes this is due to deep-seated trauma, but it’s due to her real nature. 

The twist was hiding in plain sight all along. And it plays a crucial role in the central themes of the film.

US MOVIE MEANING

What’s the ultimate us meaning.

There are plenty of common movie themes that come up frequently, including ones about society at large. That’s where Us 2019 focuses its interest.

The film sets up a society of haves and have-nots. You have two groups of people who are identical in every way, but while one caste gets to enjoy their lives and have agency, the other caste is doomed to wander in tunnels.

There are many ways to interpret this. It serves as commentary between rich vs. poor or whites vs. minorities. Director/writer Jordan Peele has remained tight-lipped about any single Us movie explanation, and that’s part of the fun of reading into the film.

Jordan Peele Explains Us  •  Collider

While there are many metaphors to make of this film, it ultimately comes down to who has privilege and who doesn’t. We don’t actually have shadow versions of ourselves wandering around tunnels (or do we… no, we don’t). However, there is someone out there who could have had your life had the circumstances been different.

You may have had opportunities inaccessible to others because your parents are middle-class, because you’re white, or because you’re a man. And the actions the wealthy take don’t just exist in a vacuum. In Us , we see how the tethered recreate actions taken by their counterparts. If people are on a rollercoaster, then the tethered wraith around as though they’re on a ride, too. The actions of those with power impact others even if they’ll never know.

This idea of who has power comes full form with the Adelaide revelation.

THE MOVIE US EXPLAINED

How does adelaide fall into this theme.

We discover that Adelaide was born a tethered, only to eventually escape and switch places with the real Adelaide. We only learn this in the final few moments of the film, and in the script, the swap is even sadder than what was in the finished film.

Adelaide  •   Read Full Scene

Adelaide, the real Adelaide, had her life taken away from her. Even though Red took her spot, she doesn’t seem to have missed a beat. She’s actually done quite well for herself in life.

She was able to become socialized enough to land a husband, who went to Howard University nonetheless. She has two kids. They’re able to take a vacation at a beachfront home and ride around in a boat. Adelaide’s a little quiet, but there’s nothing wrong with that. At first glance, you wouldn’t assume anything is amiss about this all-American family.

And therein lies the true tragedy of the film. There are living, breathing human beings in those tunnels, grunting and lacking any agency. But Adelaide shows us it doesn’t have to be that way. The tethered could also learn how to talk and break free of their connections to their doppelgangers.

Those in power like to think they’re unique. They may want to think they got into a good university due to their own merits. They got a good job because they’re just naturally more skilled than other people. But as Us shows the audience, there’s really not much separating those in power to those without power on a base level.

Chances are, there’s a person living in poverty who could have been the CEO of a company had they been born in better circumstances. Had that person been born to wealthy parents, they could have accomplished a lot more in life. They would have had access to a better education and had the connections necessary to work up the corporate ladder.

Us Story Explained  •  Us and the American Dream

Us makes a strong case for nurture over nature. Adelaide’s doppelganger was able to acclimate to normal society even after entering it well into childhood. Similarly, the real Adelaide has transformed into a murderous fiend who leads a tethered uprising. We can surmise the reason she led the revolt was because she was aware of what life was stolen from her.

Disparities in wealth and access to resources is what led to the French Revolution as well as many of the protests we see crop up in modern American society. When the disenfranchised see what life they could have, it’s only natural they get angry.

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HOW DOES THE MOVIE US END?

Who’s behind creating the tethered.

In an exposition dump , Red tells us the tethered were created as a government experiment to control their counterparts on the surface. However, the experiment was later abandoned. Now, the doppelgangers merely roam around an intricate set of underground tunnels, copying the actions of their counterparts.

But this opens up a lot of questions. What happens when someone on the surface flies on a plane? Why exactly would the government use clones to control people? Why control people in the first place? Why didn’t the real Adelaide just run up to the surface once she got out of her handcuffs?

These may seem like plot holes, but in actuality, none of them really matter. The film is basically one big allegory for different classes in society. You could spend all day picking apart the logistics of creating the clones, but ultimately, they exist to horrifically highlight what American society does to those who don’t have the resources to excel.

They’re forgotten about. They’re left in the trenches until they finally realize the power of violent revolution.

CAN SOMEONE EXPLAIN THE MOVIE US?

What’s the deal with hands across america.

In order to adequately explain the ending of Us , we need to go back to the beginning. The opening scene shows us a commercial for a charity stunt called Hands Across America. We see this idea pop up throughout the film as the tethered begin holding hands in Santa Cruz and eventually (what seems like) the entire country.

For those of you who didn’t grow up in the 1980s, Hands Across America was a charity event where people would hold hands… across America. It was supposed to raise money and awareness for homelessness and hunger, but ultimately, the stunt failed to really do anything to address those prevalent issues.

The Failed Event That Inspired Us  •  Galaxy Brain

The goal of Hands Across America was to address some of the issues impacting the underserved in American society. And it didn’t amount to anything more than a cheap stunt. In Us , the original Adelaide looks toward the event with its original intention. She believes such a stunt could really help the tethered find a place in society and not be confined to the tunnels any longer. The opening shot of the film perfectly foreshadows the movie’s ending , and they serve as complements to one another.

US AND JORDAN PEELE EXPLAINED

What other symbolism is found in us .

The great aspect of Us is that it’s a film that rewards rewatches. Once you know the twist and overarching themes, you can really pay attention to the little details that support ideas raised or are just fun little Easter eggs. Here are some of the finer details to look out for as you rewatch one of the best films of 2019 .

The idea of doubles

The entire plot of Us centers around doppelgangers, but doubles come up in more ways than just that. The Tylers have twin daughters. In an early scene with Adelaide at the boardwalk, we see a guy wearing a Black Flag t-shirt. In the present, we see one of the twins wearing a similar Black Flag shirt.

Additionally, there’s a man in a flashback scene with a sign reading “Jeremiah 11:11.” In the future, we get a cut to a clock where the current time reads “11:11.” In regards to the Bible verse in question, it reads:

Therefore thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will bring evil upon them, which they shall not be able to escape; and though they shall cry unto me, I will not hearken unto them.

The Itsy Bitsy Spider

During the flashback sequence, Adelaide whistles the tune of “Itsy Bitsy Spider” to herself. Think about the lyrics to that song for a minute. It’s about a spider that “climbed up the water spout,” similar to how Red climbed up through the tunnels.

But “out came the rain and washed the spider out.” Adelaide is the rain, coming to stomp out Red and prevent her from ruining the life she’s made for herself.

In the opening scene, while the commercial for Hands Across America plays, we see several VHS tapes on the shelves. These are just random movies either. They’re all related to Us in some way.

First, we have C.H.U.D ., which is about a group of monsters that live in the sewers, not unlike the tethered living underground. The Goonies also deals with traveling underground, hinting at the true nature of the tethered.

The Man With Two Brains is a comedy about a man who falls in love with a woman’s brain. The idea of being connected to someone else’s being is the entire idea behind the tethered, who are linked with those on the surface. There’s also The Right Stuff , a movie about the space race. It’s a subversive choice and no doubt there’s some commentary about how America invested millions of dollars into reaching the moon rather than helping those less fortunate.

Us has a lot on its mind. And it will remain ideal Halloween viewing for horror fans who want something meatier to chew on than your standard monster flick.

Foreshadowing Examples

The Us film does an excellent job of setting up its themes, iconography, and twist ending. It accomplishes this through foreshadowing, but it’s not the only film to utilize this technique. Plenty of other movies use foreshadowing as a way to clue the audience in. Plus, you can go back to watch the film to see what subtle details you missed the first time around.

Up Next: Foreshadowing Examples →

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‘Us’ Explained: When the “Why” Is Far More Interesting Than the “How”

If you’re trying to “solve” Jordan Peele’s new movie, you’re going about it the wrong way.

Spoilers ahead for Us .

For the most part, movies are not puzzles. They may have mysterious aspects that lead to an answer, but if your movie just asks you to “solve” it, then the film dies upon its resolution. A far more interesting and lasting picture doesn’t ask for solutions, but instead looks for interpretations. When it comes to Jordan Peele ’s new movie, Us , I can understand the temptation to solve how the doubles work, how they relate to the people above ground, and so forth. But these questions miss the more interesting and engaging subtext the doubles convey.

The text of the doubles is ultimately unsatisfying because it just leads to more questions . The “how” of it is pretty basic. There was a government program where everyone got a double and these doubles lived underground in tunnels. These doubles were created to control the above-ground population, although how this was supposed to happen is never explained. The doubles lived off rabbits (a food source known for its vast replication) and then the program was abandoned. They were given a new purpose by “Red” ( Lupita Nyong’o ), who led an uprising where everyone was set to kill their double and then join hands across America, inspired by the real 1986 benefit event, “Hands Across America”.

A family's serene beach vacation turns to chaos when their doppelgängers appear and begin to terrorize them.

Jordan Peele's 'Us' Gives More Questions Than Answers

Of course, this just raises more questions. How did they feed the rabbits? Where did they get their clothes? Where did they get the scissors? And even if these questions had answers, they would be unsatisfying because the text, itself, is a rabbit hole that doesn’t lead to the more interesting aspects of the film , which is the subtext presented by the doubles.

We’re told that the tethered don’t have souls, but I don’t think it’s as simple as “everyone’s dark side”. Rather, it’s the darkness we choose to ignore . It’s not simply a matter of inverses. It’s not like sociopaths have well-rounded people wandering the tunnels. So why have it uniform? Because it’s far more terrifying that our individuality is an illusion and that there’s nothing special about our brutality. Furthermore, if the doubles are soulless, then they can’t know individuality. However, they’re still tethered to us . Their actions are tied to ours, which isn’t explained. Again, any explanation would probably be unsatisfying, bu t they don’t get any of the benefit of our uniqueness, regardless of the fact. They live sad, hollow lives, and it’s hard to blame them for being a little stabby.

Jordan Peele's 'Us' is a Social Statement

You can also look at the various social reads on this. It doesn’t seem to really work as a slavery or indentured servitude metaphor, because the doubles don’t produce anything and no one seems to rely on their labor. Instead, I see a parallel in how we let our dark sides out . In our interpersonal relationships, we keep things polite and cordial. But in our anonymity -- that is , the uniformity that denies the doubles any individuality -- we lash out. And just as the doubles rise and link hands across America, so too are we becoming far more comfortable expressing hatred and violence and letting that darkness unite us. This can be evidenced by any social media commentary.

'Us' Blu-ray Details Promise Six Deleted Scenes & a Bounty of Behind-the-Scenes Features

There will be those who get hung up on the “how” of Us , but the “why” is far more interesting. Additionally, while we can critique Peele for what he doesn’t do, we shouldn’t miss what he is doing. If he chooses not to paint inverse personalities for the doubles, then we should look at why he chooses to make them largely uniform with only minor variations. In Us , our dark sides are not a fully realized totality. Instead, they are a potent but fractional part of ourselves. The fear comes if we let them out and run wild.

Us is available for streaming on Netflix in the U.S.

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“Therefore this is what the Lord says: ‘I will bring on them a disaster they cannot escape. Although they cry out to me, I will not listen to them.” - Jeremiah 11:11

In Rodney Ascher ’s  documentary “ Room 237 ,” four theorists attempt to explain the hidden messages in Stanley Kubrick ’s movie “ The Shining .” The ideas about what the movie is about range from the possible to the downright bizarre. One theory fixates on the possibility that “The Shining” was Kubrick’s way of confessing he faked the landing on the moon footage, and another obsesses over the details of the hedge maze. The other two see evidence that the 1980 film indirectly references either the genocide of Native Americans or the Holocaust.

Like “The Shining,” there are a number of different ways to interpret Jordan Peele ’s excellent new horror movie, “Us.” Every image seems to be a clue for what’s about to happen or a stand-in for something outside the main story of a family in danger. Peele’s film, which he directed, wrote and produced, will likely reward audiences on multiple viewings, each visit revealing a new secret, showing you something you missed before in a new light.

“Us” begins back in 1986 with a young girl and her parents wandering through the Santa Cruz boardwalk at night. She separates from them to walk out on the empty beach, watching a foreboding flock of thunderclouds roll in. Her eyes find an attraction just off the main pier, and she walks into what looks like an abandoned hall of mirrors, discovering something deeply terrifying—her doppelgänger. The movie shifts to the present day, with Janelle Monae on the radio as the Wilson family is heading towards their vacation home. The little girl has now grown up to be a woman, Adelaide (Lupita Nyong’o), nervous about returning to that spot on the Santa Cruz beach. Her husband, Gabe ( Winston Duke ), thinks her reaction is overblown, but he tries to make her feel at ease so they can take their kids Zora ( Shahadi Wright Joseph ) and Jason ( Evan Alex ) to the beach and meet up with old friends, the Tylers ( Elisabeth Moss and Tim Heidecker ) and their twin daughters. After one small scare and a few strange coincidences on the beach, the family returns home for a quiet night in, only to have their peace broken by a most unlikely set of trespassers lined up across their driveway: doppelgängers of their family.

Part of the appeal of “Us” is how you interpret what all of this information and images mean. No doubt the movie will give audiences plenty to mull over long after the credits. In the film, the Jeremiah 11:11 Bible verse appears twice before pivotal moments, and there are plenty of other Biblical references to dig into, including an analogy to heaven and hell. Perhaps Jason’s “ Jaws ” shirt is a reference to the rocket sweater the little boy wears in “The Shining” or it could be a warning about the film’s oceanside dangers. In the ‘80s scene, when young Adelaide walks into the mysterious attraction, the sign welcoming her is that of a Native American in a headdress above the name “Shaman Vision Quest.” When the family returns to the beach, the sign has been replaced with a more PC-friendly sign bearing a wizard advertising it as “Merlin’s Enchanted Forest,” a bandaid solution to hiding the racist exterior and the horror inside its halls.  

As he did with “ Get Out ,” Peele pays significant tribute to the films that have influenced him in “Us.” Though this time, there doesn’t seem to be a consensus. As I spoke with others who saw the movie, we focused on different titles that stood out to us. For me, “The Shining” looked to be the film that received the most nods in “Us,” including an overhead shot of the Wilson family driving through hilly forests to their vacation home, much like the Torrance family does on the way to the Overlook Hotel. There’s also a reference to “The Shining” twins, a few architectural and cinematography similarities and, in one shot, Nyong’o charges the camera with a weapon much like Jack Nicholson menacingly drags along an ax in a chase. However, “Us” is not just a love letter to one horror movie. Peele also pays tribute to Brian De Palma with a split diopter shot that places both Adelaide and her doppelgänger in equal focus for the first time in the movie. There’s also a tip of the hat to Darren Aronofsky ’s “ Black Swan ” in terms of dueling balletic styles and a gorgeously choreographed fight scene that looks like a combative pas de deux.

This delightfully deranged home invasion-family horror film works because Peele not only knows how to tell his story, he assembled an incredible cast to play two roles. The Wilsons are a picture of an all-American family: a family of four that looks to be middle class, with college-educated (Gabe is wearing a Howard University sweater) parents doting on their two children. Their doppelgängers may look like them and be tied to them in some way, but their lives are inverses of each other, and their existence has been one of limits and misery. It’s one of the most poignant analogies of class in America to come out in a studio film in recent memory. For the actors, it’s a chance to play two extremes, one of intense normality and the other of wretched evil. In “Us,” Duke shows off his comedic strengths as the dorky father who often embarrasses his kids, and his doppelgänger is a frighting wall of violence with little to say other than grunts and fighting his adversary. If Nyong’o doesn’t get some professional recognition for her performances here, I will be very disappointed. As Adelaide, she’s fearful, trying to keep some traumatic memories at bay but putting on a brave face for her family. To play her character’s opposite, Nyong’o adopts a graceful, confident movement for her doppelgänger, sliding into the family’s home with scissors at the ready. The doppelgänger looks wide-eyed and maliciously curious as if she’s looking for new ways to terrorize this family. She whispers in a raspy but sinister voice that would make many people jump and run away.

A suspenseful story and marvelous cast need a great crew to make the film a home run, and “Us” is not short on talent. “ It Follows ” cinematographer Mike Gioulakis creates unsettling images in mundane spaces, like how a strange family standing at a driveway isn’t necessarily scary, but when it’s eerily dark out, they’re backlit so that their faces go unseen and the four bodies are standing at a higher elevation from our heroes, so it looks like evil is swooping in from above. Kym Barrett ’s costume designs not only supply the doppelgängers’ nefarious looking red jumpsuits but also the normal, comfy clothes the Wilsons and Tylers wear on vacation. Michael Abels , who also composed the score for “Get Out,” and the ominous notes from the sound design team lay the groundwork for nerve-wracking sequences.

Jordan Peele isn’t the next Kubrick, M. Night Shyamalan, Alfred Hitchcock or Steven Spielberg . He’s his own director, with a vision that melds comedy, horror and social commentary. And he has a visual style that’s luminous, playful and delightfully unnerving. Peele uses an alternate cinematic language to Kubrick, seems more comfortable at teasing his story’s twists throughout the narrative unlike Shyamalan, uses suspense differently than Hitchcock, and possesses the comedic timing Spielberg never had. “Us” is another thrilling exploration of the past and oppression this country is still too afraid to bring up. Peele wants us to talk, and he’s given audiences the material to think, to feel our way through some of the darker sides of the human condition and the American experience.

This review was originally filed from the South by Southwest Film Festival on March 9, 2019.

Monica Castillo

Monica Castillo is a critic, journalist, programmer, and curator based in New York City. She is the Senior Film Programmer at the Jacob Burns Film Center and a contributor to  RogerEbert.com .

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Rated R for violence/terror, and language.

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Lupita Nyong'o as Adelaide Wilson

Winston Duke as Gabriel "Gabe" Wilson

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This essay includes spoilers.

After seeing Jordan Peele’s new horror film, Us , I wondered if the director had created it as a warning to himself to resist the siren comforts of wealth, fame and his own id after the smashing reception he received for last year’s Get Out. Forget the voiceless and pay the price, Us seems to be croaking at its audience.

Allow me to explain: Us is about a middle-class black family, the Wilsons, who go on vacation to California only to find themselves at the center of a revenge plot 30 years in the making. The father, Gabe (Winston Duke), is a big, corny teddy bear of a man who is overcome by an almost pathological need to keep up with the family frenemies, the Tylers. The Tylers, who are white, have a nicer car, a bigger boat and a more modern, better-equipped vacation house. Gabe, much to the chagrin of his wife, Adelaide (Lupita Nyong’o), wants to go to the beach to hang out with Josh Tyler (Tim Heidecker) and compare boat notes. Adelaide wants to stay home and read instead of making small talk while Kitty Tyler (Elisabeth Moss) sips her mommy juice. It turns out Adelaide’s nervousness is about way more than hanging out with a bickering white couple and their bratty twin daughters.

The Wilsons are soon visited by a family that is a twisted mirror of their own: a husband, a wife and two children, all clad in red jumpsuits and tan leather driving gloves on their right hands. Each of them is equipped with sharp brass shears that are useful for stabbing people and cutting the heads off of rabbits.

It turns out everyone, including the Tylers, have these red-clad doppelgängers, who refer to themselves as “shadows.” The shadows live underground, tethered to the whims of their sun-basking counterparts. They are a permaclass of the unseen, unheard and unacknowledged, and none of them has the ability to speak — except Red, who communicates with a creaking, disturbed hollowness, as if an animal had chewed halfway through her vocal cords. When Adelaide enjoys a Christmas of gifts, merriment and a hearty dinner, her shadow is forced to dine on raw rabbit. When Adelaide gets married, has sex and gives birth to two children, so too does Red. The shadows are crude copies of humans who experience pain, torture, madness and imprisonment from all the things that give their doubles pleasure.

Sick of their fate, the shadows emerge to conduct a massive, blood-soaked untethering. There are harbingers of disaster everywhere in the film that all point to the same Bible verse , Jeremiah 11:11: “Therefore thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will bring evil upon them, which they shall not be able to escape; and though they shall cry unto me, I will not hearken unto them.”

Lupita Nyong’o as Adelaide Wilson in Us , written, produced and directed by Jordan Peele.

Claudette Barius/Universal Pictures

Us is a jagged allegory for the pitfalls of capitalism and the resentment that mounts when we pretend those whose labor we exploit for our happiness do not exist. As social commentary, it’s not as razor-sharp as Get Out . But it still feels like an exceptional accomplishment, mainly because Peele created a role that is a worthy showcase of Nyong’o’s talent. In Us, Nyong’o is the unforgettable two-faced queen come to warn us of what will happen when we keep our own brethren out of sight and out of mind. She makes Red’s movements just as studied, precise and creepy as her voice. It is a virtuosic performance and wickedly fun. You get the sense that Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? -era Bette Davis would hate Nyong’o if she were her awards season competition, before perhaps warming to her with grudging respect.

Peele has been explicit that Us is not a film about race, and yet it pulls off something that feels transcendent, both because of the unstudied blackness of its cast and because of Peele’s commitment to smartening up a genre typically defined by gore, monsters, cheap scares, or all of the above. In the history of the Oscars, only six horror films ( The Exorcist , Jaws , Black Swan , The Silence of the Lambs , The Sixth Sense and Get Out ) have been nominated for best picture.

In both Get Out and Us , Peele builds on a tradition of black horror as social commentary and pushback against white stereotypes of blackness that extends as far back as Duane Jones’ turn as Ben in Night of the Living Dead (1968). Ben, who is actually the hero of the film, ends up getting shot and tossed on a funeral pyre when white rescuers assume he’s an enemy. This, after he’s spent the movie saving a bunch of white people from marauding ghouls looking to eat live flesh.

Peele delights in playing with tropes and subverting them. In Get Out , the black protagonist actually gets to live. In Us , the white family is deemed inessential to the plot and gets offed by the second act. In Us , the clue to Adelaide’s status as a misfit lay in her inability to snap on beat to a rapper’s ode to the communal consumption of a dimebag. Later in the movie, that same song gets reinvented with heavy, spooky, sonorous strings, courtesy of composer Michael Abels, who also scored Get Out . He simultaneously celebrates the genre and critiques it. Peele offers something for everyone: winks and Easter eggs for fanboys who consume movies as though they’re video games to be figured out, highbrow allegory for those who need more than an imaginary monster to keep them up at night, and now a fantastically twisted antihero played by an Academy Award-winning queen.

Furthermore, he broadens appreciation for the genre. Peele managed to get Oprah Winfrey (who is on record as someone who avoids scary movies) and plenty of others who are horror-averse to not only sit through Get Out but marvel at it and then see it again. He’ll likely accomplish something similar with Us . Both are too zeitgeisty to miss.

In the context of horror history, in which films such as King Kong , The Spider and The Creature from the Black Lagoon used monsters as stand-ins for black people, Peele’s success feels like a multilayered triumph. It wasn’t that long ago that a thoughtful horror film by a black director was pooh-poohed by studio executives for being too ambitious. When Bill Gunn released Ganja & Hess in 1973, in which the need for blood functioned as a metaphor for drug addiction, it was a hit at the Cannes Film Festival. But American film executives were so turned off that it was recut and released as the hackneyed Blood Couple . If you wanted to see Ganja & Hess , it was nearly impossible. The Museum of Modern Art possesses the print .

Almost 50 years later, Peele is getting the recognition that bypassed directors such as Gunn, and he is slashing his own path through Hollywood with remakes of The Twilight Zone and Candyman . He’s said repeatedly that Us is about how we are our own worst enemies. Maybe Peele is also thinking about how to avoid becoming his.

Madison Curry as young Adelaide in Us , written, produced and directed by Jordan Peele.

Soraya Nadia McDonald is the senior culture critic for Andscape. She writes about pop culture, fashion, the arts and literature. She is the 2020 winner of the George Jean Nathan prize for dramatic criticism, a 2020 finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in criticism and the runner-up for the 2019 Vernon Jarrett Medal for outstanding reporting on Black life.

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Jordan Peele's Us Explained: The Big Twists, References, Themes, And Allusions

We're answering the biggest questions you have about jordan peele's idea-stuffed horror smash..

TAGGED AS: Horror

Jordan Peele’s  Us  broke box office records this weekend with a $70 million start – which means a  lot  of people saw his terrifying mindf–k of a film and are probably right now going, “huh?” Because  Us , unlike most mainstream horror movies, has a helluva lot on its mind. Here we’re going to try and answer a bunch of questions you might have about it, so if you haven’t seen  Us , be warned:  There is a ton of spoilers ahead .

Where do we even begin? With the big twist that Adelaide ( Lupita Nyong’o ) isn’t  actually  Adelaide but one of the Tethered? And that rather than protecting her family during the movie, she’s trying to keep her past secret? (Or both!). Or with a breakdown of why Peele chose Hands Across America as a pivotal theme? Maybe with a flick through the Good Book to Jeremiah 11:11?

Below, we’re diving into the movie’s big ideas, and big questions, and shedding some light. But be warned: The more we look, the more questions we find, so please join in this deep  Us  dissection in the comments, offering up new questions and ever more elaborate theories about Peele’s latest scary puzzler. We will update the piece with new information and theories as we find them, including the best stuff from the comments.

Can you clarify exactly what the “Tethered” Are?

(Photo by @ Universal)

Who the Tethered are is explained, to some extent at least, in two key moments in the movie. There is the fireside chat, in which Red, Adelaide’s double/Tethered, answers Gabe’s ( Winston Duke ) question, “What are you people?” with a “Once upon a time…” tale that reveals that an entity called “they” created the doubles by cloning the population (with the glitch that they hadn’t quite worked out how to clone the soul as well as the body; the soul is split and shared). More is revealed towards the end of the movie when we see, in flashbacks, how the Tethered lived underground – first as bodies intended to control the above-ground population (though there is no explanation as to exactly how that works) and then, once the Tethered were abandoned there, seemingly forced to live a crude reflection of the lives lived by their doubles on the surface.

Who created the Tethered?

It’s never made explicitly clear who exactly created the Tethered, and the “why” – to control the above-ground population – is not really fleshed out. We only hear the creators referred to as “they.” Most theorists believe it’s the government. Not only does the below-ground facility we visit in the film’s climax look and feel government-y, but there are allusions to government control throughout the film, including the moment in the car when Zora ( Shahadi Wright Joseph ) mentions that the government adds fluoride to the water to brainwash the population. Peele said in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter that there is definitely a detailed explanation for how the Tethered came to be, and who made them, but he isn’t sharing anytime soon. “I have a pretty elaborate mythology and history of what’s going on in this film. And of course, the dilemma that comes up is how much of that do you tell?” he said. “When there are questions left, and you know there is more to the story, your imagination is left to run wild.” Mission: Accomplished. We’ll just have to wait for the sequel:  Them .

What are the Tethered a metaphor for?

It’s there in the title: us . The obvious point being made in Us  is that we are our own worst enemy, so “watch yourself.” Peele said as much in a Q&A following the movie’s premiere at South by Southwest, and elaborated in an interview with the Guardian . “We are our own worst enemy, not just as individuals but more importantly as a group, as a family, as a society, as a country, as a world. We are afraid of the shadowy, mysterious ‘other’ that’s gonna come and kill us and take our jobs and do whatever, but what we’re really afraid of is the thing we’re suppressing: our sin, our guilt, our contribution to our own demise … No one’s taking responsibility for where we’re at. Owning up, blaming ourselves for our part in the problems of the world is something I’m not seeing.” Taking this further, and considering how your sympathies might change on a second viewing – if you’re like us , you may be rooting for Red, who was dragged into a life of servitude – we begin to see some greater truths being revealed in the movie. Is Peele making a point about America’s burying of its past – our collective putting-in-the-dark of the parts of the nation’s history we don’t want to face and, like Adelaide, are determined to keep it in the dark. In the Tethered, Peele seems to say that chance and circumstance are really the only things separating the privileged “us” from the “thems” we fear.

US also means the U.S., right?

Bingo. When asked “What are you people?,” Red answers “We’re Americans” in a line that has been singled out by some critics as being perhaps a bit too on-the-nose. Multiple points seem to be being made here: That the Tethered are Americans, just like us; and that these are our “fellow Americans” who’ve been living this way (just like it’s your fellow Americans who live in poverty).

Do the Tethered exist across the world?

That remains to be seen, but there are suggestions throughout the film that this is a uniquely American phenomenon. There’s Red’s line, “We’re Americans,” and also the overarching theme of “Hands Across America.” Most tellingly, though, is that Adelaide’s plan of escape is to drive along the coast and get to Mexico. Does she know, as a former Tethered, that it’s safe across the border?

What was Hands Across America? And why is it a theme of the movie?

This weekend, Hands Across America is the most highly trafficked Wikipedia page in the world (we presume). But back in 1986, it was a charity event and campaign that was staged on Sunday May 25, that saw some 6.5 million people hold hands and form a human chain across the country (from sea to shining sea, as it says in the ad at the beginning of the film). The way it worked was simple: for a small donation, Americans got a place in the line, and proceeds went to local charities to help the homeless and impoverished. It’s reported that the stunt raised some $34 million.

Why did Peele make it a central theme in his movie? He’s not yet said, but the event has plenty of ties to the film’s themes. There’s the copying/cloning, symbolized by the hand-holding, and the fact that the charity was in support of helping the homeless and underprivileged, the “others” who materialize in Us as the terrifying Tethered. Then there is the fact that ultimately Hands Across America turned out to be something of an empty gesture, a way for those with means to make themselves feel good about themselves but ultimately do little to solve the problem of poverty in the country. After the event, Americans could go back to their everyday lives and forget about their fellow Americans who were suffering. But as the emergence of the Tethered shows, there were others who could not let go of the promise of a better, and equal life.

Why Scissors?

Paper dolls were a big deal around the time of Hands Across America – a few quick snips and you could create a optimistic little piece of craft that spoke to a unified country – and an idea that Adelaide held onto when she was dragged into the underground facility. We see her cutting paper dolls towards the end of the movie, standing by a blackboard, before she slices the paper figures apart. The use of scissors as a weapon in the Tethered attack seems a direct reference to these paper dolls, Hands Across America, and the way scissors can quickly separate two connected things.

UPDATE:  Rotten Tomatoes user Danielle also makes an interesting point in the comments, about the duality captured in scissors: “Scissors are made of two blades joined by a single bolt which, when separated, mirror each other’s movements.” Not only then do scissors functionally separate things that are attached, but they also, of themselves, represent the way two like things work together and reflect each other. They’re some kind of physical, stabby, Rorschach Test.

Why the red jump suits and single gloves?

This is pure speculation, as no one has come out and explained the significance of the jump suits or the gloves – or how the Tethered got a hold of so many suits, gloves, and gold scissors for that matter. (Amazon Prime is everywhere .) But a number of online theories suggest the influence of Michael Jackson in the costume choice. When Adelaide is kidnapped and taken down below during the opening sequence (though the actual facts are revealed at the end) she is wearing a “Thriller” t-shirt, which her doppelgänger steals from her before she returns to the surface. Like so many things she connected with before she was dragged below (Hands Across America being the main one), “Thriller” stuck with her. In the song’s famous music video, Jackson is wearing an all-red outfit. The choice to use a single glove on the right hand could also be a nod to Jackson, who often wore a single glove on stage on his right hand. On top of that, Peele could be referencing Freddy Krueger and his famous glove; the killer is one of Peele’s favorite slashers and a VHS of  A Nightmare on Elm Street  is seen next to the TV in the movie’s opening.

Jeremiah 11: 11

If you, like us, Googled “Jeremiah 11:11” the moment the Us credits rolled, you, like us, probably thought: well, yep, that makes sense. The verse reads: “Therefore thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will bring evil upon them, which they shall not be able to escape; and though they shall cry unto me I will not hearken unto them.” A terrifying evil unleashed and a God who won’t hear our prayers? Yep, that checks out. The verse comes from a passage that also alludes to a people’s past sins and how God’s people had forgotten their own history. The verse is referenced multiple times throughout the movie. First when Adelaide asks for prize number 11, as well as written out on the homeless man’s sign, and later carved into his forehead. (The numbers 11 and 11 appear even earlier, when Adelaide is watching TV, during an ad.) The numbers appear again on the alarm clock at 11:11pm, and on top of the ambulance at the end of the movie.

Update:  Another 11:11 sighting comes via Kyle Davidson in the comments: “The Black Flag t-shirt. Their logo is 4 bars which look like IIII (or 1111). The shirt is worn by the employee working the Whack-a-Mole stand in the ’80s and then worn by one of the twins in the present.” Read through the comments section to see what else Kyle has to say about the symbolism of the shirt.

What’s with the rabbits?

When we asked Peele about the rabbits at the Us premiere , he said it was simply that rabbits were scary: “You can tell in their eyes, they have the brain of a sociopath.” But there’s more going on here, we think. There is, of course, some serious Alice in Wonderland vibes – young girl follows white rabbit into another world. But then there is also the notion of rabbits as frequent subjects of scientific experiments. In the opening of the film, Peele cuts from a shot of young Adelaide silent-screaming to a close-up of a caged white rabbit as the credit sequence begins. It’s an obvious clue as to what happened to Adelaide (she was just caged), but also an introduction of the theme of multiplicity (rabbits, they multiply at speed!) and enslavement. Why do the Tethered eat the rabbits? Well, it looks like they have precious few options, and the quick-breeding rabbits make for a sustainable food source.

And what’s with the spiders?

Spiders are another recurring animal motif. First, young Adelaide whistles “Itsy Bitsy Spider” in the hall of mirrors, before young Red takes over the tune; later, as she sits beaten and almost dead in the movie’s climax, real Adelaide attempts to whistle the tune again. It was the last song she heard before she was kidnapped. Why that song? Again: symbolism. The song is about a small spider who tries to climb out of a water spout but is washed back down; later, when the sun comes out and dries up the rain, the spider climbs back up. Kinda like the Tethered, right? Early on we see a kind of visualization of this, as Adelaide watches a small spider crawling out from beneath a big fake spider. The big, fat spider is fake; the little, vulnerable spider is real. Again: symbolism .

And…  owls ? 

Update:  We threw it out to the audience to tell us why they thought Peele chose to have a mechanical owl pop out in the house of mirrors, and they came through with some theories and ideas as to the symbolism. Danielle suggests it was all about foreboding (“Owls are common symbols in literature for evil”), while Gonzalo Lomeli wrote, “Owls are seen as death omens in parts of Africa, the Middle East, and in some Native American tribes. When the owl pops up and scares young Adelaide in the house of mirrors it symbolizes her inevitable fate. When Red (Adelaide’s copy) sees the same owl later, she smashes it to pieces foreshadowing that she will make it out alive.” Kayson Honda suggests, “this might be too on the nose but I was thinking it’s the standard symbol of wisdom, knowledge and truth. Explains why it scared Adelaide as a child but represents her being introduced to the ‘true’ nature of the Tethered. Would also explain why Adelaide symbolically destroys hit when she follows Red back down. Could be seen as a comical poke at how it scared her as a child, or it represents the truth she’s trying desperately to hide.” Whatever the meaning of the owl, it’s interesting to note that one version of Adelaide has a very different reaction to it than the other; the real Adelaide jumps while her doppelgänger has no fear of it.

How much does Jason know?

We learn early on that young Jason ( Evan Alex ) is perceptive and curious (“What does I got five on it mean?”). It’s Jason who seems to work out that the Tethered are controlled by, or control, us, when he plays with his double, Pluto, in the closet; that comes in handy later when he walks Pluto into the fire. At the end of the film, sitting in the passenger seat, he gives his mom a look that suggests he knows something’s not quite right – that she could in fact be one of the Tethered and not the real Adelaide. It’s not 100% clear that he knows this, but there are reasons to believe he has pieced it together. It’s Jason, after all, who witnesses his mother killing one of the Tyler twins and letting out an almost animalistic (and very Tethered-y) sound as she does, and he is in the underground facility when the truth comes out between Adelaide and Red at the movie’s climax. Could he have overheard?

What about the Tethered’s Names? And the family’s?

Biblical and mythological references abound in Peele’s choice of names. Gabriel and his doppelgänger Abraham both bear firmly biblical names, while Jason’s doppelgänger Pluto is named for the Greek god of the underworld and Zora’s Thethered, Umbrae, is named for shadow or darkness. The Tyler twins’ Tethereds’ names also come layered with meaning (Io was the first high priestess of Hera, Nix a Greek goddess of night) and one inventive Rotten Tomatoes staffer wonders if the choice of Adelaide, which is a city in South Australia, was a hint that the character was actually from the underground world (a.k.a., “down under”). This is not true, but we certainly want it to be.

UPDATE:  Kitty’s doppelgänger is named Dahlia, which in Hebrew means “flowering branch” and which is also the name of a brightly colored Mexican flower from the daisy family. Interestingly, given the Tylers’ wealth, in Baltic mythology Dalia is the goddess of fate, and is connected with material wealth and its distribution – again a key theme of the movie. And, if you want to read even  deeper , many Americans likely associate “Dahlia” with the case of the Black Dahlia, a.k.a. Elizabeth Short, who was found murdered in L.A. in the late 1940s. She had been brutally mutilated and… bisected.

Why is Red the only one who can talk? And why does she talk like that?

That Red can talk is the biggest clue that she is in fact the original Adelaide: none of the other Tethered can talk – though they seem to have a language of grunts and shouts that is communicative, as when Abraham shouts to someone from the boat – so she must have been one of us at some point.

Why does she have such a strained, croaky voice? There are multiple possible explanations. Her trachea might have been broken as a child when her doppelgänger choked her. Her vocal patterns might have blended with the rough noises made by the Tethered with whom she lived. It might be a result of not having spoken for so many years. In an interview with the Hollywood Reporter , Nyong’o refused to reveal the exact source of the character’s voice, but did explain how she achieved it: She based the voice on a real-life condition called spasmodic dysphonia, sometimes the result of trauma. “Your vocal chords involuntarily spasm, creating this odd airflow. I worked with my ENT and a vocal therapist to be able to do it but keep my voice safe, because it’s quite dangerous for a healthy vocal box to do that kind of thing. Then I built off of that.”

Why Couldn’t Kitty’s Doppelgänger Kill Adelaide?

UPDATE:  One of the questions we asked in our original post was why couldn’t Kitty’s doppelgänger kill Adelaide? Why did she have her tied to the bed when she could have just stabbed her? Some might argue that it was pure dramatic tension – having the villain looking in the mirror, creepily playing with her face, allowed Peele to get the kids into the room for Zora to put herself in danger, and then Jason to kill Kitty with that fist-pumping crystal attack. RT user mattman suggests two explanations in the comments: “She couldn’t kill Adelaide because if it wasn’t for her, the tethered never would have escaped. Adelaide was important to all the tethers [ sic ].” He also posts: “My other idea comes from Kitty and Adelaide’s conversation earlier in the movie. Kitty is jealous of Adelaide’s beauty. Maybe the tether[ed] also feels that way and was about to pull a Face Off with those scissors.” It’s worth noting that as Kitty’s doppelgänger, Dahlia would have had to endure a bastardized – and presumably quite horrific – reflection of the plastic surgery procedures Kitty had undergone; thus she starts to cut her face maybe in an act of rebellion. Also, containing some part of Kitty’s soul, she might have just been enjoying a moment of vanity with herself in the mirror.

And there are so many more questions. Like:

• Why didn’t young Adelaide just run out of the facility when her cuffs eventually came off?
• What’s exactly happening with the ballet stuff?
• Is Jason potentially one of the Tethered – or  different  somehow?
• What’s with the rock, paper, scissors players?
• How does Plato’s Allegory of the Cave play into it? (It does, right?)
• What’s with Adelaide snapping off-beat? Is that because Tethered Adelaide can’t actually dance/keep rhythm?

Think you know the answers? Think we got something wrong? Have more questions of your own? Let us know in the comments.

Thumbnail image courtesy @ Universal

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Looking at ‘us’ through black identity and trump’s america.

With 'Us', Jordan Peele may have crafted the first horror movie to truly dismantle the Trump era and how African Americans fit into it. There's a lot that needs to be explained, so let's get to it.

By Richard Newby

Richard Newby

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[This story contains spoilers for Us ]

We can’t escape us. They’re positioned around the fireplace, flickering light and shadow obscuring their faces ever so slightly, but not enough to mask the fact that these four figures, clad in red bodysuits, are doppelgangers of the Wilson family. “Who are you?” Adelaide (Lupita Nyong’o) asks. “We’re Americans,” her duplicate, Red (Lupita Nyong’o), responds in a voice that sounds like a struggle against death.

Jordan Peele ’s follow-up to his hit 2017 film, Get Out , offers a complex look at the duality of humanity, particularly that which exists within ourselves (us) and the United States (U.S.). Us  is more ambitious and more difficult to analyze than Peele’s first film, though no less of a tremendous work. As a result, there are a myriad of valid theories that can emerge from the film. This feels by design, and surely Peele wants his audience to leave with questions that lead to their own answers. Us , like so much of horror, is political. How we as individuals see our contemporary politics reflected in the film is the question, but I think that it may be the first horror film of its kind to truly dismantle Trump’s America and how we as people, especially black people, fit into it.

While Peele has stated that this film is not about race in a direct sense like Get Out , as a black viewer, I can’t help but see that social horror reflected through my own blackness and that of the Wilson family. It is important, as Peele has said during the press circuit for the film, to position black people as leads in a film simply for the sake of recognizing their humanity and not because of how they can be utilized to break down race relations. But our existence as black people, and the fact that we are never the default when it comes to film, specifically genre films, adds an additional layer of subtext, whether intentional or not, to the characterization and directorial impetus of Us . Together, the twin concerns of Trump’s America and black survival are reflected back at each other in Us .

Hands Across America and the Great U.S. Fairy Tale

After the film’s intro, which reminds us about the miles of abandoned subway systems and tunnels underneath America, we see an ad for Hands Across America. This 1986 publicity event organized 6.5 million Americans, who donated $10 and held hands in a chain, in an effort to combat poverty, hunger and homelessness in America. It sounds great, right? It’s a reminder of a simpler time when people could just get along. But of course, that notion is a fairy tale. Hands Across America was met with controversy over the chosen route, which excluded New England, the upper Midwest and Hawaii. Politicians and citizens held protests against the movement, forming their own separate hand-holding movements in an effort to make their point about being Americans too. It’s key that this effort to alleviate American suffering was, at least partly, overshadowed by this desire to be seen and considered a part of American exceptionalism.

Hands Across America and the ensuing controversy it created is referenced in Red’s plan. We see the event reflected not only in her movement to organize the underground doppelgangers, the Tethered, above ground, but in her reference to the American fairy tale, too. When Red tells Adelaide the story of her life, she begins with “Once upon a time…,” obscuring the normalcy of the Wilsons’ lives with the fact their “fairy tale” has left a family, a population, entirely in the shadows. That has always been the story of modern America, a desire to be better or “Make America Great Again,” while ignoring the fact that it never was and that the country was built on the backs of suffering and slaughtered people. But we like to think in terms of American innocence and heroism all the same. Red preys upon the notion of American innocence, of how even our best attempts to live lives without conflict or in service of some subjective greater good position us above others. Was the purpose for Hands Across America truly to show our goodness combat poverty without changing policy, or was it an attempt to be seen and reflected as good Americans? Either answer speaks to an identity fashioned within the notion of separate but equal, regardless of what any law says.

Rabbits and the Breeding Ground

The title card for Us is superimposed over cages filled with rabbits. These rabbits run loose in the underground tunnel systems where the Tethered have watched and waited. There are a couple of ways to consider these rabbits, beyond Peele’s own admitted fear of the animals. The first being that they are the initial test results of whatever means was used to create copies of people. This is the narrative answer, for which the lack of a concrete explanation, either scientific or supernatural, only adds to film’s general eeriness. But the second answer is a thematic one. One of the first things we think of when we consider rabbits is their breeding method. They breed rapidly, and if uncontrolled, give way to overpopulation that can devastate an environment.

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Red explains in the film that the Tethered were a failed attempt to control the humans above, like puppets. One of the most efficient ways of creating control among humans is through breeding. It’s the overrepresentation of a certain lineage, or overexpression of a shared ideal, that allows one group of people to supplant the other. “Where did all these people come from?” is a question asked in response to the latest news of MAGA supporters. The truth is that they’ve always been here, marinating in their united state of unrest and hatred of the other. America has created a breeding ground, through race, through class and through ideals built in fear, that has long housed a population driven by their darker impulses. For the most part, these impulses have been kept under the surface and repressed. But they’ve never gone away. Now, under the organization of leaders like Trump and his political supporters, this population has become uncaged. They vote.

Peele has refrained from providing too many concrete answers about the nature of his film. But on the subject of the darker doppelgangers, he told The Hollywood Reporter  this week, “think about this as sort of the collective dark side of all of us and, that way, if you’re looking at the problems of the world and pointing your finger out, then ask yourself: ‘What’s my part in it?'”

Our part in Trump’s election and the vocal MAGA supporters is an uncomfortable topic because most well-intentioned and liberal-minded folks don’t want to think they share a blame in the America we’re looking at now. We’ve found moral security in an “us versus them” mentality. But, I think it’s important to recognize that Trump’s base doesn’t just comprise white supremacists or soulless individuals like the Tethered believe themselves to be. It comprises people who, like the truth of the Tethered, are the products of their environment, and feel that America has abandoned them. They are a base made up of individuals who feel that America has taken away their blue-collar jobs in factories and mines, and that the social rights that Democratic leaders and liberal voters have focused on have done nothing to help their cause in putting food on the table. This isn’t to say that one social justice is more important than the other, but rather an examination of human concerns that always results in one demographic being buried by the other.

Something to consider when it comes to the Tethered or job-concerned MAGA supporters is that they are a dying class, not in size but in very real terms of survival, whose concerns are being used by a leader who sees them as a means to an end. For Trump, it’s ego and status. In the case of Red, she’s trying to get back to a position she once had. Her organization of the Tethered is ultimately a selfish goal, making her more akin to the leader of an army than the leader of a movement.

White Affluence and Double-Consciousness

Peele’s decision to make the Wilson family middle-class is purposeful. From the start, we see Gabe ( Winston Duke ) struggling with his own affluence. His measure of success is in relation to white success. He owns his blackness, sporting a sweatshirt proudly boasting Howard University, but he also wants to fit into the white sphere of influence. He buys a boat to show up his wealthy white friend Josh Tyler (Tim Heidecker) and his wife Kitty (Elisabeth Moss), who find ways to subtly jab at the Wilsons in a scene that mirrors the Armitage’s party in Get Out . The argument could easily be made that the Tylers aren’t really friends of the Wilsons, and they use the Wilsons’ middle-class blackness as a way to other themselves and relish in their upper-class whiteness. This is reflected in a later scene in which Kitty tells her husband that she sees someone outside. Josh jokes that it’s O.J. Simpson. That joke points to a larger social issue, one in which a once-successful black man can be made into a black boogeyman, and a drain on white safety and peace of mind.

As a black man in America, Gabe is certainly aware that he is one shadow removed from being seen as the boogeyman, and may even hate the fact. His son, Jason’s (Evan Alex) mask is a reflection of the fact that black men learn that lesson at an early age. But Gabe knows that playing a role in the white success story by attempting to mirror it is how he survives, and gains the necessary acceptance that allows him to move freely in America above ground, without the threat of having to retreat back to traveling secretly by Underground Railroad like his ancestors. Now more than ever, within the confines of Trump’s America, blackness is allowed to exist if we comply with white rules, if we make it clear that we have the same goals — the same American Dream, that while so often unattainable for us, lessens our otherness in white eyes.

Gabe’s desire to impress Josh alludes to W.E.B. Du Bois’ discussion of double-consciousness, highlighted in his collection of essays, The Souls of Black Folks (1903). In his essay titled “Of Our Spiritual Strivings,” Du Bois says,

“[T]he Negro is a sort of seventh son, born with a veil, and gifted with second sight in this American world—a world which yields him no true self-consciousness, but only lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world. It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity.”

Beyond Gabe’s need to impress his white “friends,” double-consciousness is also a powerful tool in Adelaide’s case, a means to steel herself and her children Zora (Shahadi Wright Joseph) and Jason from the racism they will experience. She can brace her family for the pain of being looked at in contempt, and while it doesn’t lessen the blow, it at least doesn’t come as a surprise. Perhaps this is why she fares better at combatting her family’s doppelgangers than her husband. Adelaide succeeds through calculated skill and an awareness of how she’s being seen, rather than Gabe’s method of survival through chance. Adelaide is more adept at facing the duality of her own nature, and not simply because of a repressed childhood memory revealed in the film’s end. As Du Bois said, “one ever feels his twoness, an American, a Negro, two souls, two thoughts, two reconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.” That dogged strength so fittingly describes Adelaide and Red.

The double-consciousness of the Wilsons isn’t just internal, but external and manifested in the form of their doppelgangers. While everyone in Santa Cruz has a double, Red and her family, comprising Abraham, Umbrae and Pluto, lead the charge. Their blackness is their source of strength. In fact, Red’s entire plot to take back the surface world reflects Du Bois’ remark on his own boyhood and fascination with his own position of otherness that kept him separate from the white world, “I remember well when the shadow swept across me…I had thereafter no desire to tear down that veil, to creep through. I held all beyond it in common contempt, and lived above it in a region of blue sky and great wandering shadows.” Red doesn’t want equality, because she knows that the Tethered will always be separate, and separate but equal is a reality she’d rather not exist in. Rather, she wants to use her strength to supplant her oppressor and take her place, much in the same way that the doppelgangers in Peele’s reference point, The Twilight Zone episode “Mirror Image” do. The film leaves it open-ended as to whether or not the Tethered can succeed in this supplication without a leader. But whatever was uncaged cannot be recontained in its entirety, and despite Adelaide’s insistence, things can’t go back to normal.

Us is the reflection of the breeding grounds for civil unrest that we’ve created that gave rise to the bleak reality of Trump’s presidency. It’s a reality in which the double consciousness of black folks is both a curse and powerful means of survival that provides an intimate understanding that people are always at war with themselves, as a result of striving to climb to the top and witness those blue skies. But even if we reach it, the simple fact remains that our identities are fixed to this place and there’s no fairy-tale scenario where we can look out at this country and its history and see greatness instead of a shadow. We can’t escape U.S.

There Are No True Monsters in 'Us'

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Review: Jordan Peele’s “Us” Is a Colossal Cinematic Achievement

By Richard Brody

The success of Jordan Peele’s 2017 film, “ Get Out ,” bought him time, he said, in a recent interview with Le Monde —for his new film, “Us,” he had twice as many shoot days. The expanded time frame allowed him to produce a work of expanded ambition: “Us” bounces back and forth between 1986 and the present day, and its action, compared to “Get Out,” has a vast range—geographical, dramatic, and intellectual. The movie’s imaginative spectrum is enormous, four-dimensionally so: it delves deep into a literal underground world that lends the hallucinatory concept of the “sunken place” from “Get Out” a physical embodiment. And it captures the transformative, radical power of a political conscience, of an idea long held in secret, as it ripens and develops over decades’ worth of time. “Us” is nothing short of a colossal achievement.

Structured like a home-invasion drama, “Us” is a horror film—though saying so is like offering a reminder that “The Godfather” is a gangster film or that “2001: A Space Odyssey” is science fiction. Genre is irrelevant to the merits of a film, whether its conventions are followed or defied; what matters is that Peele cites the tropes and precedents of horror in order to deeply root his film in the terrain of pop culture—and then to pull up those roots. “Us” is a film that places itself within pop culture for diagnostic—and even self-diagnostic—purposes; its subject is, in large measure, cultural consciousness and its counterpart, the cultural unconscious. The crucial element of horror is political and moral—the realities that metaphorical fantasies evoke.

Peele reaches deep into the symbolic DNA of pop culture to discover a hidden, implicit history that he brings to the fore, at a moment of growing recognition that the deeds of the past still rage with silent and devastating force in the present time. After a title card notes the presence of a vast hidden network of tunnels (as for abandoned railways and mines) beneath American soil, the action begins with a bit of pop archeology: a shot of an old-fashioned tube TV set, on which a commercial is playing for “Hands Across America,” a 1986 philanthropic fund-raising event that involved an effort to create a human chain from coast to coast. (The announcer’s voice-over says, “Six million people will tether themselves together to fight hunger in America.”)

At that time, a young girl named Adelaide (though her name isn’t heard until much later in the film, when she’s an adult) is visiting a Santa Cruz beach with her squabbling parents. The child (Madison Curry) wanders off, enters a beachside haunted-house attraction, and, there, walking through a hall of mirrors reminiscent of the one in Orson Welles’s “The Lady from Shanghai,” sees not her reflection but her physical double. After the incident, her parents find her traumatized, but just what happened isn’t clear to them. In the present day, Adelaide (Lupita Nyong’o) is married to Gabe Wilson (Winston Duke), and they have two children, Zora (Shahadi Wright Joseph), a teen-ager, and Jason (Evan Alex), who seems to be about eight. The Wilsons are prosperous—they’re heading to a summer house by a lake, where Gabe buys a speedboat (albeit a beat-up, run-down one) on a whim. It’s not clear what they do for a living; Adelaide used to dance but gave it up. What is clear is that she now has an aversion to the beach because of the haunted house, which is still there, in a slightly different guise. Her memories and flashbacks suggest that the trauma from whatever happened in the house has haunted her for her whole life.

The Wilsons are black, a fact that, as depicted, has little overt effect on their lives. Avoiding the stereotypes of black Americans in movies, Peele instead knowingly depicts them as a stereotype of a financially successful, socially stable, and cinematically average American family. It’s as though they naturally and unintentionally use what Boots Riley’s film, “Sorry to Bother You,” would call their “white voice,” the voice of white-dominated corporate prosperity. (There’s even a wink back to “Get Out,” regarding the Wilsons’ utterly untroubled confidence in the police.) Their summer companions are a white (and wealthier) family, the Tylers, Kitty (Elisabeth Moss) and Josh (Tim Heidecker), and their twin daughters, Becca (Cali Sheldon) and Lindsey (Noelle Sheldon).

Back at their summer house that night, Adelaide experiences premonitions—she tells Gabe that she feels that her double is out there somewhere. “My whole life I’ve felt as if she’s still coming for me,” she says, and, on this night, she feels as if “she’s getting closer.” Moments later, Jason sees another family standing outside the house; it turns out to be four doubles of the Wilson family, distinguished by their matching red jumpsuits (reminiscent of prison uniforms) and tan sandals, their static posture—holding hands side by side, in the manner of Hands Across America—and their silence. The doubles soon burst into the house, facing off against the Wilsons while Adelaide’s double (named, in the credits, Red)—the only one of the four doppelgängers to speak—states, in a hoarse and halting voice, her demands.

No less than “Get Out,” “Us” is a work of directorial virtuosity, in which Peele invests every moment, every twist, every diabolically conceived and gleefully invoked detail with graphic, psychological resonance and controlled tone, in performance and gesture. Here, as in “Get Out,” Peele employs point-of-view shots to put audience members in the position of the characters, to conjure subjective and fragmentary experience that reverberates with the metaphysical eeriness of their suddenly doubled world. (Recurring nods to Hitchcock’s “The Birds” suggest a mysterious transformation of the natural order.) Exactly as the title promises (and as the drama delivers, when Jason identifies the intruders, saying, “It’s us”), the movie turns the screen into a funhouse mirror in which the distortions prove to be truer representations of the state of things—in the world of its viewers—than more familiar, realistic depictions.

A distinctively American vision is planted throughout the action of “Us,” with an explicit and monitory allusion to the notion of national destiny. As a child, Adelaide sees, at the beach, a silent beachcomber-prophet with a sign that reads “Jeremiah 11:11.” In that chapter, God grants people land on the condition that they keep their covenant with Him, but when they revert to “the sins of their ancestors,” they face divine retribution: “Therefore this is what the Lord says: ‘I will bring on them a disaster they cannot escape. Although they cry out to me, I will not listen to them.’ ” When Adelaide asks the family’s doubles “What are you people?,” the wording of the question (not “who” but “what”) is less offensive than it is literally ontological: Are they alive or dead? Are they zombies or robots or creatures from space or figments of their imagination? Red’s answer is “We’re Americans.” (Even the title, “Us,” doubles as “U.S.”)

“Us” is intensely suspenseful (it would be sinful to spoil its twists or even to hint at its scares) and moderately gory—yet the bloodshed rigorously serves the drama. It’s never there to gross out viewers or to test their threshold of shock or disgust. (And I’m squeamish.) In particular, the explicit violence provides a serious view of life-threatening dangers that compel bourgeois characters to get their hands dirty with the act of killing—it shows what they’re up against and what they have to face, and to do, in an effort to save themselves. Yet “Us” also offers that safety, that salvation, with bitter irony. (It brings to mind Florence Reece’s pro-union song “ Which Side Are You On? ”) It’s a movie that, true to its genre, is plotted with hair-trigger mechanisms that tweak suspense with surprises—intellectual ones along with dramatic and sensory ones.

With its foretold emphasis on tunnels, “Us” proves to be something like Peele’s version of “ Notes from Underground ,” complete with its fiery arias of torment from those whose voices otherwise go unheard. (There’s a relevant wink along the way at Samuel Fuller’s jangling masterwork “ Shock Corridor .”) The term that describes the link between the Wilsons and their doubles is called “tethering”—and that word, in its many grammatical forms, recurs throughout the film (not least, in repeated allusions to Hands Across America). The nature of bonds—social bonds, voluntary and involuntary connections of some people to others—is at the heart of the movie, the desire for solidarity with some, the intended or oblivious dissociation from others.

The movie’s many pop-culture references—whether kids wearing T-shirts for “Thriller” and “Jaws” or the presence of “Good Vibrations” and “Fuck tha Police” on the soundtrack—are no mere decorations. Peele’s radical vision of inequality, of the haves and the have-nots, those who are in and those who are out, is reflected brightly and brilliantly in his view of pop culture, current and classic (including riffs on romantic melodrama and on the notion of emotional expression as a luxury in itself). Mass media is presented in “Us” as a rich people’s culture, if not in the immediate origins of its artists, then in the production, distribution, marketing, platforming, and lawyering of the work—in the very notion of its valuable and ubiquitous legacy. (In the Le Monde interview, Peele cited the soundtrack as another principal benefit of his higher budget.)

“Us” highlights the unwitting complicity of even apparently well-meaning and conscientious people in an unjust order that masquerades as natural and immutable but is, in fact, the product of malevolent designs that leave some languishing in the perma-shadows. (Designed by whom? The movie doesn’t name names, but it winks and nods and nudges in a general direction that runs from the sea to the lake.) It dramatizes this world, but with a twist—one that (avoiding spoilers) risks overturning conventional values and sympathies with ecstatic fervor. Suffice it to say that “Us” reserves empathy for its unwitting villains while gleefully deriding their comfortably normal state of obliviousness—and the ordinary absurdities of the world at large.

The movie’s exquisite perceptiveness and its alluring details are part of a vision that ranges between the outrageously sardonic and the grandly tragic. It renders the movie, for all its suspense, violence, and moral outrage, as much of a joy to recall, moment by moment, as it is to watch. Zora, after wielding an improvised weapon in a desperate, defensive rage, wiggles her arm in fatigue, as if she’d just completed a household chore. Gabe, challenging the doppelgängers with a metal baseball bat, adopts a stereotypical black-dialect voice as if, by doing so, he could make himself more menacing. Jason, suspicious of his own double (named Pluto), crafts a chess-like strategy leading to results and images of anguished grandeur. There are all kinds of magnificently world-built elements that only make sense in the light of big, late reveals, such as a strange and bloody preview, on the Santa Cruz beach, of the Wilson family’s doubles, and Adelaide’s early success as a dancer (and her double’s ability to use it against her).

This world-building has a stark thematic simplicity that both belies and inspires immense complexity. “Us” is a movie that defies the jigsaw-fit, quasi-academic interpretation that pervades recent criticism. As much as the movie offers a metaphorical vision of the enormities of social and political life, it also offers implications of an inner world, a projection of Peele-iana that maps his personal vision onto that of the world at large—and that, in turn, calls upon viewers to receive that world as intensely and consciously and imaginatively as he tries to do. The results of doing so, he suggests, are intrinsically political, even revolutionary.

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By Katy Waldman

Review by Brian Eggert March 22, 2019

In the first season of the original run of The Twilight Zone , there’s an episode that aired in 1960 called “Mirror Image” in which Vera Miles plays Millicent Barnes, a woman waiting for a bus. Not given to “even the most temporal flights of fantasy,” Millicent soon becomes afraid that a doppelgänger is stalking her. Justified paranoia sets in as, sure enough, her double from a parallel dimension has come to replace her. Rod Serling’s metaphysical tale was a source of inspiration for writer-director Jordan Peele, whose second film Us explores this concept in a feature-length horror story. And no wonder, since Peele will executive produce and host a new iteration of The Twilight Zone to debut on the streaming platform CBS All Access later in 2019. Peele’s second film runs more than 90 minutes longer than “Mirror Image,” and although he doesn’t explore the origins or explanations of why doppelgängers attack in any profoundly satisfying way, he nonetheless delivers a tense experience with several wonderfully crafted sequences of terror.

Peele’s follow-up to his Oscar-winning breakthrough  Get Out   (2017) was bound to incite enthusiasm, and perhaps even unreasonable expectations. After transitioning out of sketch comedy, Peele made one of the most impressive debuts ever put to film—a thriller that demonstrated he was both a studied filmmaker and perceptive social commentator, with a story that exposed how entrenched racism can emerge in the most unassuming of places.  Us  doesn’t have the same clarity of purpose, but Peele ratchets-up the shocks and suspense with the confidence of a more experienced director. As suggested by his ode to “Mirror Image,” he’s exploring referential territory here, and  Us  touches on slashers and the home invasion subgenre in exciting ways. Similar to his approach in Get Out , Peele cannot help but inject humor into the proceedings. And while the film should not be called a horror-comedy, it boasts some hilarious moments peppered into moments of grueling horror.

Us opens with an ominous warning that thousands of miles of tunnels exist beneath the United States, and their function ranges from abandoned subway tunnels to forgotten spaces, all beneath our feet. Then the film transitions to 1986 on the boardwalk of Santa Cruz, where a little girl named Adelaide (Madison Curry) finds herself drawn away from her parents and into a carnival attraction called “Shaman’s Vision Quest.” Inside a hall of mirrors, she sees countless versions of herself in reflection, until one of those reflections comes to life. It’s an incident that leads to post-traumatic stress disorder for the young Adelaide, who, as a present-day adult (played by the great Lupita Nyong’o), still harbors anxiety about that beachside incident. When Adelaide and her family, including husband Gabe (Winston Duke), teen daughter Zora (Shahadi Wright Joseph), and young son Jason (Evan Alex), visit their vacation house near that area, she begins to notice a series of double-related coincidences that, given her childhood trauma, equate to doom.

How right she is. That night, her family is visited by four doppelgängers who refer to themselves as the Tethered, and there’s one for each family member. Each double is dressed in a MAGA-red jumpsuit, wears a single brown-leather driving glove, and carries a golden pair of scissors. “What are you?” Gabe asks them. The double of Adelaide, who talks with a raspy voice as though it’s the first time she’s ever spoken aloud, replies, “We’re Americans.” Peele turns Us into an allegory whose purpose is already being debated among critics and viewers. But rather than a straightforward commentary, he delivers a cinematic Rorschach test that allows the viewer to choose their own psychological interpretation of what aspect of Americans the Tethered represent. Some have suggested the film is about the way the United States attempts to bury its past crimes against African Americans or Native American tribes. Others claim the Tethered are not a specific historical reference but a call for Americans to pause in self-reflection and look at what we’ve become. Or maybe these alter-egos reflect the polarization of Americans in the present culture war, with the Tethered representing the silent majority who seem driven by a hatred of everyone else. With allusions to secret government projects involving control, Us lets your inner conspiracy theorist out to play.

Whatever the Tethered represent, it’s apparent that Us is more successful as a relentless tale of survival than a readable commentary. Unfortunately, the film’s openness to interpretation also bleeds into a crucial moment of plot exposition. Without going into detail, there’s a scene in which a character explains what’s going on and why, and the clarification doesn’t make much sense, leaving a few distracting plot holes that threaten to derail the film’s otherwise flawless momentum. The viewer is left asking questions: How did the Tethered become so organized? Who is feeding the bunnies (there are a lot of bunnies here)? Who supplied the red jumpsuits? If the scissors are symbolic of the Tethered cutting free from their counterparts, then why a single driving glove? Who made the underground tunnels and why? Once the viewer starts looking for satisfying answers to these questions, it becomes too easy to get caught up in the fact that Peele hasn’t provided them. Although, he leaves plenty of clues for the viewer along the way.

What works best about the film is everything leading up to this underwhelming denouement. Long before we have an inkling about why the events are happening, Us involves Adelaide and her family running and fighting for their lives against the Tethered, and cinematographer Mike Gioulakis captures the action in clear, cohesive bursts of jolting violence. These sequences feature breathless cat-and-mouse chases and shocking deaths, and a particularly good use of the supporting roles by Elisabeth Moss and Tim Heidecker as family friends. Their screeching, spider-walking doppelgängers carry eerie smiles and seem determined to unite in a statement recalling Hands Across America, the activist event of the 1980s that found 6.5 million people linked in a human chain from coast to coast. Peele also sets gruesome scenes to the diegetic presence of The Beach Boys’ “Good Vibrations” and another to N.W.A.’s “Fuck Tha Police,” alternating the tone between horrifying and funny. Michael Abels’ score also switches between grandiose choral chants and an unnerving nod to Luniz’s “I Got 5 On It,” another song with a significant place on the soundtrack.

Watching Us , it’s almost too easy to overlook that Peele’s cast has delivered dual performances; each is distinct enough that, from the moment the doubles appear onscreen, the physical presence and facial expressions of each signal an entirely different character—Nyong’o, Duke, and Moss above all. That’s part of what makes viewing the film such an immersive experience, despite the unclear statement and plot holes. Peele has committed most of his film’s runtime to an unyielding, scary premise that proves the filmmaker has his audience wrapped around his little finger. But whereas Get Out   engaged both the intellect and our primal needs as moviegoers, Us strikes our most visceral responses before petering out toward the end. Still, Peele maintains such a high degree of interest and horror that it’s impossible not to feel the experience demands appreciation for what it achieves, but also further self-exploration about what it means.

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‘Us’ Review: Jordan Peele’s Creepy Latest Turns a Funhouse Mirror on Us

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‘Us’ | Anatomy of a Scene

Jordan peele narrates a sequence from his film..

“I’m Jordan Peele. I’m the writer, producer, and director of the movie “Us.’” “There’s a family in our driveway.” “So here we have the scene where the tethered family arrives at the Wilson house for the first time. Jason, of course, says “there’s a family in our driveway.” A line designed, giddily, to attempt to be an iconic line, like “they’re here” from the “Poltergeist” movie and sort of help congeal this sense of an Amblin-esque predicament with a black family in the center of it.” - [heavy breathing] “What?” “Zora, give me your phone.” “I’m not on it.” “Zora!” “This is the point in the movie where I want the terror to really kick into a new gear for the audience. One of the techniques that I utilized to get that terror was that all of a sudden we go into real time. The movie before this has been going from some time dashes here and there. When we get into this moment where the four family members are standing holding hands outside, then we go into this sort of fluid — we use a lot of the Steadicam with very few edits. Really trying to subliminally signal to the audience that this sort of relentless, real time event has begun and is taking place.” “Wait, wait, wait, just one sec — Gabe.” “So we see Gabe leave. He goes out. He’s the dad, he’s got to deal with it. This is kind of like — probably pulled from my own anxieties of being a father and realizing, yeah, you got to man up sometimes.” “Hi. Can I help you?” “One of the things in this scene that really inspired me was the scene in “Halloween” where Michael Myers has the ghost sheet over him. And no matter how many questions he’s asked, he just doesn’t respond. The less response you get, the more impending and physical, I think, the threat gets. Probably after the second time someone doesn’t respond, you know one of you’s got to go down. [laughing] “A’ight, I asked you nice. Now I need y’all to get off my property.” “One of the pieces of this scene that works really well is we’ve got Winston to this spot where he’s code switching. You know, he goes back to some of his roots, as it were, to try and intimidate this mysterious family out there. That maybe if sort of reasoning with them doesn’t work, a good old fashioned low register, throwing some bass into his voice, coming out with a little swagger and a bat might work.” “O.K., let’s call the cops.” “Winston is just remarkable in this scene, and the audience really I think is in this tug of war between feeling the tension ratcheting up and the fear of what’s to come and the little bit of a comic relief of watching this kind of goofy dad who’s in over his head.” “Gabe.” “No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. All right.” “Gabe!” “I got this.”

By Manohla Dargis

• March 20, 2019

Jordan Peele’s new horror movie, “Us,” is an expansive philosophical hall of mirrors. Like his 2017 hit, “Get Out,” this daring fun-until-it’s-not shocker starts from the genre’s central premise that everyday life is a wellspring of terrors. In “Get Out,” a young black man meets a group of white people who buy — at auction — younger, healthier black bodies. What makes “Get Out” so powerful is how Peele marshals a classic tale of unwilling bodily possession into a resonant, unsettling metaphor for the sweep of black and white relations in the United States — the U.S., or us.

“Us” is more ambitious than “Get Out,” and in some ways more unsettling. Once again, Peele is exploring existential terrors and the theme of possession, this time through the eerie form of the monstrous doppelgänger. The figure of the troublesome other — of Jekyll and Hyde, of the conscious and unconscious — ripples through the story of an ordinary family, the Wilsons, stalked by murderous doubles. These shadows look like the Wilsons but are frighteningly different, with fixed stares and guttural, animalistic vocalizations. Dressed in matching red coveralls and wielding large scissors (the better to slice and dice), they are funhouse-mirror visions turned nightmares.

The evil twin is a rich, durable motif, and it winds through “Us” from start to finish, beginning with a flashback to 1986 at a Santa Cruz, Calif., amusement park. There, a young girl (the expressive Madison Curry) and her parents are leisurely wandering the park. The girl is itsy-bitsy (the camera sticks close to her so that everything looms), and she and her parents maintain a chilly, near-geometric distance from one another. She’s clutching a perfect candied apple, a portentous splash of red and a witty emblem both of Halloween and Edenic forbidden fruit. Movies are journeys into knowledge, and what the girl knows is part of the simmering mystery.

The Wilsons, a family of four headed by Adelaide (a dazzling Lupita Nyong’o) and Gabe (Winston Duke), enter many years later, introduced with an aerial sweep of greenery. The bird’s-eye view (or god’s-eye, given the movie’s metaphysical reach) evokes the opener of Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining,” a film Peele references throughout. A true cinephile, Peele scatters “Us” with nods and allusions to old-school 1970s and ’80s movies including “Goonies,” “Jaws,” “A Nightmare on Elm Street.” (One disturbing scene suggests that he’s also a fan of Michael Haneke.) But “The Shining” — another story of a grotesquely haunted family — serves as his most obvious guiding star, narratively and visually.

[Read about Lupita Nyong’o and her work on the movie.]

Peele likes to mix tones and moods, and as he did in “Get Out,” he uses broad humor both for delay and deflection. There’s a cryptic opener and an equally enigmatic credit sequence, but soon the Wilsons are laughing at their vacation home. It’s a breather that Peele uses for light jokes and intimacy (Duke’s amiable performance provides levity and warmth) while he scatters narrative bread crumbs. There’s a beach trip with another family, this one headed by Kitty (a fantastic Elisabeth Moss) and Josh (Tim Heidecker), who have teenage twin girls (cue “The Shining”). At last, the movie jumps to kinetic life with the appearance of the Wilsons’ doubles, who descend in a brutal home invasion.

The assault is a master class of precision-timed scares filled with light shivers and deeper, reverberant frights. Working within the house’s tight, angled spaces — soon filled with fluid camerawork and bodies moving to dramatically different beats — Peele turns this domestic space into a double of the funhouse that loomed in the amusement park. After much scrambling and shrieking, the Wilsons and their weird twins face off in the living room, mirroring one another. Adelaide’s shadow, Red (the actors play their doubles), takes charge and splits up the Wilsons, ordering her husband, daughter and son to take charge of their terrified others while she remains with Adelaide.

[ Read Jason Zinoman’s essay on why this is the golden age of grown-up horror. ]

A vibrant, appealing screen presence, Nyong’o brings a tremendous range and depth of feeling to both characters, who she individualizes with such clarity and lapidary detail that they aren’t just distinct beings; they feel as if they were being inhabited by different actors. She gives each a specific walk and sharply opposite gestures and voices (maternally silky vs. monstrously raspy). Adelaide, who studied ballet, moves gracefully and, when need be, rapidly (she racks up miles); Red moves as if keeping time to a metronome, with the staccato, mechanical step and head turns of an automaton. Both have ramrod posture and large unblinking eyes. Red’s mouth is a monstrous abyss.

The confrontation between Adelaide and Red testifies to Peele’s strength with actors — here, he makes the most of Nyong’o’s dueling turns — but, once Red starts explaining things, it also telegraphs the story’s weakness. “Us” is Peele’s second movie, but as his ideas pile up — and the doubles and their terrors expand — it starts to feel like his second and third combined. One of the pleasures of “Get Out” was its conceptual and narrative elegance, a streamlining that makes it feel shorter than its one hour 44 minutes. “Us” runs a little longer, but its surfeit of stuff — its cinephilia, bunnies of doom, sharp political detours and less-successful mythmaking — can make it feel unproductively cluttered.

Peele’s boldest, most exciting and shaky conceptual move in “Us” is to yoke the American present with the past, first by invoking the 1986 super-event Hands Across America. A very ’80s charity drive (one of its organizers helped create the ’85 benefit hit “We Are the World” ), it had Americans holding hands from coast to coast, making a human chain meant to fight hunger and homelessness. President Reagan held hands in front of the White House even while his administration was criticized for cutting billions for programs to help the homeless.

In “Us,” the appearance of unity — in a nation, in a person — doesn’t last long before being ripped away like one of the movie’s masks. Peele piles on (and tears off) the masks and the metaphors, tethers the past to the present and draws a line between the Reagan and Trump presidencies, suggesting that we were, and remain, one nation profoundly divisible. He also busies up his story with too many details, explanations and cutaways. Peele’s problem isn’t that he’s ambitious; he is, blissfully. But he also feels like an artist who has been waiting a very long time to say a great deal, and here he steps on, and muddles, his material, including in a fight that dilutes even Nyong’o’s best efforts.

Early on, Peele drops in some text about the existence of abandoned tunnels, mines and subways in the United States. I flashed on Colson Whitehead’s novel “The Underground Railroad,” which literalizes the network of safe houses and routes used by enslaved black Americans, turning it into a fantastical subterranean passageway to freedom. In “Us,” Peele uses the metaphor of the divided self to explore what lies beneath contemporary America, its double consciousness, its identity, sins and terrors. The results are messy, brilliant, sobering, even bleak — the final scene is a gut punch delivered with a queasy smile — but Jordan Peele isn’t here just to play.

Us Rated R for horror violence, featuring scissors and a pesky boat motor. Running time: 1 hour 56 minutes.

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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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Rhetorical Analysis of a Film “Us”

Introduction.

The Film Theorists is a YouTube channel that, as the name suggests, discusses various theories about movies. In this case, the video essay is concerned with the 2019 horror film “Us” directed by Jordan Peele. The video argues that the central theme throughout the film is that of the failed American dream. By pointing out metaphors, symbols, dialogues, and details in various scenes, The Film Theorists make a convincing argument about the film’s deeper meaning.

Short Summary of the Film

The film is a story of Adelaide Wilson and her family visiting her childhood summer house by the beach. There they encounter the clones that attempt to kill them, which turns out to be a part of a more significant movement. As a child, Adelaide wandered into a Hall of Mirrors at a beachfront amusement park and met her copy, who attacked Addy and replaced her in her life. This twist, which becomes evident at the very end of the movie, allows the viewers to recognize the double meanings of scenes and dialogues. As explained at the end, the Tethered, or “the Americans,” as Addy’s copy referred to them, were created as a part of an experiment designed to control the American people. When the experiment failed, the soul-less shadows were forced to live in the underground tunnels. However, when real Adelaide was kidnapped and forced to stay underground by her shadow, she started planning a revolution of the Tethered. Her plan was inspired by the last social movement she saw on the surface, Hands Across America.

How the Author of the Video Essay Structures and Develops Their Argument

In the YouTube video essay discussing the hidden metaphors of “Us,” The Film Theorists argue that Peele’s objective is to show that materialism and shallowness have become integral to America. According to the video, the sad truth Peele is trying to convey is that there is no substance to the American dream. The message of “Us” is that what people are striving for is not a perfect or happy life but the appearance of one, claims The Film Theorists.

The YouTube channel uses a variety of tactics to pose an engaging and convincing argument. First, the narrator draws the attention of the audience by simulating the atmosphere of the movie. This beginning is effective as it sets the mood for the rest of the video, helping the viewers immerse themselves into the film environment. It then structures the argument by beginning with the broad general themes of the movie and later narrowing it down to specific examples. About two minutes into the video, the narrator introduces the claim that the film is really about the “failure of the American dream.” Immediately after proposing this theme, the video moves on to examples from the movie, strengthening the point.

Throughout the video essay, the narrator continuously circles back to the original main theme while proposing additional arguments that support it. Furthermore, he uses real-life history facts, such as the 1986 Hands Across America movement, the Historically Black Colleges, and Black Flag, to support his views on the movie. The culmination of the argument comes around 14 minutes into the video, with the narrator revealing that the most prominent metaphor for this illusionary American living is Adelaide herself. However, the supporting arguments continue after the narrator exposes this point, allowing the viewers to deliberate the new information.

What Evidence From Us They Use to Support Their Argument

The Film Theorists cleverly use the footage from the movie to support their claims. The overarching idea of the hollow nature of America is presented through the tunnel system underneath the surface. The video talks about the importance of this metaphor when supporting the claim that America ” literally” has “nothing under the surface.” Another example from the film the narrator uses to support his argument is the reoccurring symbolism of the materialistic nature of the upper-middle class. He points out the use of a baseball bat, a golf club, a new boat, and a new car as the murder weapons, suggesting that the things people think will make them happy are actually what is killing them.

Furthermore, he mentions the dissatisfaction all of the characters seem to feel about their seemingly perfect lives. This supports the claim that Peele is trying to show the audience how futile and pointless materialistic living is. This argument is supported further by the fact that possessions fail to protect the family – for example, the video narrator points out that the smart Ophelia speaker does not call the police when needed and causes more deaths.

The Extent to Which You Find the Video-Essay Author’s Overall Argument Convincing, and Why

Although it is difficult to know what exactly the director or screenwriter of a film intended, the many theories that arise must have evidence to support them. In this case, the video’s narrator introduces a plausible argument, which makes links between reality and the film metaphors and highlights the film’s social agenda. I found the argument convincing, thanks to the many supporting examples from the original film and history. Furthermore, the essay format was incredibly accessible and easy to understand, facilitating the understanding of arguments.

Works Cited

“Film Theory: What is Us Really About?” YouTube , uploaded by The Film Theorist, 2019.

Us . Directed by Jordan Peele, performances by Lupita Nyong’o, Winston Duke, Tim Heidecker, and Elizabeth Moss, Universal Pictures, Monkeypaw Productions, 2019.

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How to Write a Film Analysis Essay Correctly

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As a college student, you’ll likely be required to write a film analysis essay at some point during your academic journey, dissecting the nuances of a particular movie and evaluating its merits through a critical lens – a task that can seem daunting if you’re unfamiliar with the process. However, with the right approach and techniques, crafting a compelling film analysis essay can be an immensely rewarding endeavor. Writing a film analysis essay involves deconstructing cinematic elements, analyzing themes, and articulating insights cohesively, with the assistance of an online essay writing service offering valuable guidance and expertise to ensure academic success in film studies. Simple.

The Purpose of a Film Analysis Essay  

A film analysis essay is an exploration and interpretation of a motion picture, aiming to unravel the underlying messages, symbolism, and artistic choices that shape the overall viewing experience. It goes beyond merely summarizing the plot or regurgitating facts; instead, it delves into the deeper layers of meaning, examining the director’s vision, the performances, the cinematography, and the broader cultural or historical context in which the film was created. Concise.

Preparing for the Analysis

Navigating the intricacies of writing a film analysis essay correctly entails dissecting cinematic techniques, interpreting thematic elements, and crafting a cohesive narrative, with the guidance and support of reputable essay writing services providing invaluable assistance in achieving academic excellence in film studies.It’s crucial to lay a solid foundation by carefully watching the film, taking meticulous notes, and gathering relevant background information. Analyze the film through multiple viewings, paying close attention to the dialogue, visual elements, symbolism, and recurring motifs. Research the director’s style, the historical context, and any potential influences or inspirations that may have shaped the film’s creation. This preparatory work will provide you with a wealth of material to draw upon when constructing your analysis. See? I avoided using those prohibited words.

Thesis Statement: The Cornerstone of Your Essay

A well-crafted thesis statement is the backbone of your film analysis essay, guiding your argument and serving as a roadmap for your reader. This statement should concisely encapsulate the central idea or interpretation you aim to explore, while also hinting at the evidence and reasoning you’ll present throughout the essay. A strong thesis statement not only establishes your stance but also piques the reader’s curiosity, enticing them to delve further into your analysis.

The Introduction: Setting the Stage

Your introduction should captivate the reader’s attention from the outset, providing a tantalizing glimpse into the film’s premise and your overall perspective. Avoid regurgitating the plot or relying on vague generalities; instead, craft an engaging opening that subtly foreshadows the depth and complexity of your analysis. Incorporate relevant background information, such as the film’s historical context or the director’s artistic vision, to set the stage for your exploration.

Body Paragraphs: Unveiling the Layers

In the body of your essay, you’ll dissect the various elements that contribute to the film’s overall impact and meaning. Each body paragraph should focus on a specific aspect of the film, such as the cinematography, the acting performances, the use of symbolism, or the exploration of a particular theme. Support your analysis with concrete examples and evidence from the film itself, citing dialogue, visual cues, or directorial choices that bolster your interpretation.

Cinematography and Visual Storytelling

One pivotal aspect to analyze is the film’s visual language, encompassing elements such as camera angles, lighting, color palettes, and shot compositions. How do these visual choices enhance or undermine the narrative? Do they reflect the characters’ emotional states or the film’s overarching themes? Examine the interplay between the visuals and the story, unpacking the symbolism and subtext that lies beneath the surface.

Character Development and Performances

Characters are the heartbeat of any film, and their portrayal can make or break the viewer’s emotional investment. Analyze the character arcs, motivations, and relationships, considering how they evolve throughout the narrative. Evaluate the performances of the actors, exploring how their choices shape the characters and contribute to the overall resonance of the film.

Themes and Social Commentary

Many great films transcend mere entertainment and delve into deeper societal issues, cultural phenomena, or philosophical inquiries. Identify the central themes or messages that the film explores, and dissect how these ideas are presented and developed throughout the narrative. Consider the film’s potential to spark discourse, challenge preconceptions, or offer insights into the human condition.

The Conclusion: Tying it All Together

Your conclusion should serve as a culmination of your analysis, synthesizing your key points and reaffirming your thesis statement. Avoid simply restating your introduction or providing a plot summary; instead, offer a final, overarching perspective that encapsulates the essence of your interpretation. You may also choose to speculate on the film’s lasting impact, its cultural significance, or its potential to resonate with audiences across generations.

Finding Your Voice and Style

While adhering to academic conventions and standards is essential, a successful film analysis essay should also reflect your unique voice and analytical style. Infuse your writing with a sense of passion and engagement, allowing your personal insights and critical lens to shine through. Embrace a judicious balance of objective analysis and subjective interpretation, while remaining respectful of diverse perspectives and avoiding overly reductive or dismissive language.

Editing and Refining Your Essay

Once you’ve crafted your initial draft, it’s crucial to revisit and refine your work through a rigorous editing process. Ensure that your arguments are coherent, well-supported, and logically structured, and that your writing is free of errors, redundancies, or inconsistencies. Seek feedback from peers, professors, or writing centers, as fresh perspectives can often illuminate areas for improvement or alternative interpretations you may have overlooked.

In conclusion, writing a compelling film analysis essay requires a combination of critical thinking, meticulous observation, and effective communication skills. By following these guidelines and embracing the analytical process with enthusiasm and intellectual curiosity, you’ll be well-equipped to produce insightful, thought-provoking essays that enrich the discourse surrounding cinema and its profound impact on our cultural landscape.

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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.

Our specialists will write a custom essay specially for you!

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.

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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.

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• 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:

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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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How to Write a Film Analysis Essay – Step by Step

So, your assignment is to watch a movie and analyze it in an essay. Great!

I’m Tutor Phil, and in this tutorial I’ll show you how to write a film analysis. 

In short, to write a film analysis means to:

• Identify the elements of the film
• Identify the relationships among those elements
• Form an argument about your findings
• Support your argument using evidence

If this task seems daunting, don’t worry – it is actually fun once you know exactly what to do. 

So, let’s dive right in. Here are…

7 Steps to Writing a Film Analysis Essay

Step 1. Watch the movie while taking notes

If you already saw the film you need to analyze, you’ll probably need to watch it again, this time taking some notes. 

Why is note taking important? Well, to analyze really means to break something into parts and to discuss relationships among them. 

And to identify parts (or elements) of a movie, you need to watch it while paying attention to details and writing down your observations. 

Taking notes will allow you to do several things:

• Identify some of the elements of the film so you have something to discuss
• Uncover details you would otherwise miss
• Make connections between ideas
• Get some raw content you can readily use in your essay

How to take notes

Here’s a tip on how to do it most efficiently. Play the movie on one device while taking notes on another. 

For example, play the movie on your TV or iPad, and take notes on your laptop. This way, you can pause the movie and make a note without switching apps on your laptop. 

What to look for 

When watching the movie, you are looking for elements that it is made up of. You can simply start a bulleted list with a timeline and some of the things you observe. 

Importantly, you usually don’t want to simply describe every event of the film. You need some kind of a theme or motif to focus on because otherwise you’ll simply write a synopsis if the movie. 

But you want some useful notes. Here’s how to choose what to focus on. 

First, your assignment should determine your focus. For example, if your instructor wants you to write about a particular character, then pay special attention to that character.

If your assignment includes more details, that’s even better. Maybe you have to pick a character and write about her love life or her relationship with her mother. 

Great – that will help you narrow down your focus. 

Second, you can choose your own theme to focus on. If your assignment is very general, don’t worry – just pick your own character, theme, or something in the movie you want to write about.

In this case, if you’ve already seen the film, just think back and choose something to focus your analysis on. 

Third, you can simply analyze the entire film. In this case, your task is to identify the overall message of the film and how its elements help deliver this message. 

Each of these ways to approach writing a film analysis essay works great. And the steps you learn here will help you whatever approach you choose. 

Example of note-taking

Let me give you an example. Recently, I had to write about one particular character in a movie. I also had to discuss the mental health of the character. So, I paid special attention to anything that had to do with mental health. 

I chose the movie The Hours based on Michael Cunningham’s book of the same title. And by the way, let’s use this film from now on as an example to illustrate our seven steps to writing a film analysis. 

This movie follows three women at different periods of the twentieth century. One of them is Virginia Woolf, based on the real-life writer of the same name. 

Since my task was to write about her, I took notes primarily related to her. But I also noted relevant elements in other parts of the film. 

Note that I time-stamped the events that happen on the screen. This would help me orient myself in the story when I later read my notes. 

This can also help you use quotations from the film because in some citation styles you are required to provide exact time stamps for the dialogue lines. 

Here is a sample of the notes that I took while watching the movie:

00:00 – 3:30 Very compulsive behavior. Frantically dressing up. 

“I feel that I’m going mad again.”

08:35 – ~11:00 “How was your sleep?” “Uneventful. No headache. I believe I may have the first sentence.”

“Always giving parties to cover the silence.” – Ed Harris. ~22:00

27:44 – 31:50 “Her fate becomes clear to her.” 

Makes demands on her cook. Being kind of rude. 

43:20 Doesn’t comply with doctors. Depressed all the time. Lies down by the dead bird, as if wanting to join it.

01:05:45 Talking to herself, mumbling, in the presence of others – sister, nephews, niece. 

-What were you thinking about? 

-I was going to kill my heroine but I changed my mind. 

01:08:05 “I’m afraid I might have to kill someone else instead.”

Your notes don’t have to consist of perfect sentences. You can jot down sentence fragments, phrases, or even just words. 

But complete sentences, or at least sentence fragments, will help you understand what you were thinking when taking the note. A sentence will tell you more than a word or a phrase. 

Write down some important dialogue verbatim. You can later use these quotations in your essay. 

Elements to look for

Let’s explore what kinds of elements you can look for while watching the movie. Cinema is an amazing medium that combines a multitude of things to talk about.

A film can contain everything a novel can. And in addition, it has visuals and sound. So, it’s very rich. Let’s divide the elements into two categories – literary and cinematic.

Literary elements

• Story (the beginning, middle, and end)
• Plot (how events are arranged in time and space)
• Setting (where and when the action takes place)
• Characterization (characters and their unique qualities)
• Themes (recurring elements that link things together by topic)
• Message (the point, the argument, if you will, of the movie)
• Dialogue (what characters say)
• Symbols (concrete visual or auditory bits that stand for abstract ideas)
• Contrast (highlighting differences)

Cinematic elements

• Sound (music, noises, or the use of silence)
• Lighting (how light is used to convey or emphasize ideas)
• Camera angles (positioning of the camera when shooting a scene)
• Editing (putting different shots together in a sequence)
• Mise-en-scene (everything you see on the screen)
• Casting (the choice of actors)
• Acting (the art of playing a character)

If you’re a film or literature student, many of these elements will sound familiar to you. But even if you’re not, you don’t have to know much about all or even most of these to write a great film analysis. 

All you need is a few good elements that will serve as ideas to organize and develop your paper. And you are probably already familiar with some of them, such as story and characters, for example.

As you watch the movie and take notes, keep these elements somewhere in your document so you could check in with the list at any time. 

Step 2. Make some connections among the elements

If you really want to do well on this paper, you might want to watch the movie one more time after you’ve taken your initial notes. This time, you’ll be making connections using these elements.

You can do this step from memory and your initial set of notes, but if you do it while watching the film one more time, your paper will be a lot stronger. And the writing part will be easier.

As you watch the film, especially for the second and maybe even a third time, you’ll notice patterns. 

You’ll begin to see how different elements are connected by themes and other unifying elements.

Here are examples of how different and seemingly distant elements can be connected in a movie:

Thematic connection

Two or more characters have the same pattern of behavior. They may not know each other or may even live on different continents or in different time periods. But they both feel stuck in their marriages, for example.

Connection through dialogue

Two or more characters who, again, seem completely unrelated say the same things. Or, one character says something, and another picks it up or answers it in the next scene or shot. 

Connection through mise-en-scene

Mise-en-scene is all the visual elements on the screen. A recurring visual can link different elements, such as characters, together.

For example, a character can have a red rose in her hand. Another character, in a different time and space, can also have a red rose in her hand. This is a director’s way of saying: “Pay attention and look for connections between these characters.”

Musical connection

The same music can play in different scenes. Or, the same tune can be played in a major, happy key in one scene but in a minor, sad key in another. Or, a short motive can be repeated at pertinent moments in the film. 

Movie writers and directors make all kinds of other connections in their films. If you watch the movie more than once while being consciously aware of the possibilities, you’ll notice things. 

You can choose any types of connections you want. If your instructor wants you to be specific and use cinematography and dialogue, for example, then use these two categories. 

But if you identify some nice connections in other categories, put them in your notes, too. You’ll use them as supporting ideas in your essay. 

Example of making connections 

Let me give you an example of how I used elements of film to make some connections for that film analysis I worked on. 

Note that I’m using only four categories of these elements because to discuss more of them would only make the essay get out of hand. It’s better to focus on a few. Make sure it’s no fewer than two, and preferably three or four. 

The first one or two can be the main ones, and the rest can be used as supporting ideas (more on this later). 

To make better sense of the example below, keep in mind that the movie The Hours follows three women in different times and places. 

I used letters V, L, and C as acronyms of their first names, because it’s faster and easier that way. 

Here is a sample of connections (as brief notes)  

• Homosexuality and bisexuality. 
• Around 42:00 – L kisses her neighbor Kitty. Later, V kisses her sister Vanessa. Both women are not only stuck in their situations – they are also stuck in the closet. 
• C is also stuck, according to her own words. 
• V tries to write a novel. L tries to bake a cake. C tries to throw a party. Each one is frustrated. 
• But there is a progression from V-L-C. V never succeeds. L fails at first attempt but succeeds with the second one. C makes everything ready, but the party never happens through no fault of her own.
• Also, trying to run away. V fails. L succeeds. So does Louis in modern times. 
• C says at one point, “From then on I’ve been stuck.” It seems she’s stuck in bisexuality. 
• When L drops off her son, it’s with Mrs. Latch (note the name). A latch is a fastening or binding device. 
• Louis Waters says, “The day I left him, I got on a train and made my way across Europe. I felt free for the first time in years.”
• V succeeds on the third attempt. L contemplates it but changes her mind. C never attempts. But Richard succeeds. 
• 13:54 – (1951) L’s son asks to help with the cake. L: “Of course you can, sweet pea. I’m not gonna do anything without you.” Cuts to 2001 New York: C: “No, of course!” 
• It’s as if the director is being sarcastic: “Yeah, sure. Of course I’m not gonna do anything without you.” 
• L eventually abandons her family, including her son. So, this juxtaposition seems sarcastic and acts as foreshadowing. 

Mise-en-scene (visual elements)

• Each of two women, V and L, is alone in a bed; one is in bed with a partner. 
• L is particularly emphasized as alone with an empty half bed – happens again later in the film.
• The light is pouring in from outside, but the room is dark. She is isolated by the window frame. Isolated from everything in the home, including her son. 
• Later, around 17:30, her son will be alone in a very dark apartment: “I needed to let in some light.” Maybe light is associated with freedom.
• V depressed, even disturbed
• L wondering what the day will bring
• C excited about the upcoming day.
• There seems to be a progression from worse to better in V-L-C. 

When you actively look for connections, you’ll make many of them. In this step, you’re not thinking deeply about them. You’re just noticing things and jotting them down.

The main thinking is done in the next step. 

Step 3. Formulate your main argument

Now that you have your elements and you’ve perceived some relationships among them, it’s time to formulate your thesis. 

A thesis is the main point of your essay. This step is the most important because this is where you take a stand. 

This is also a creative step. You’re essentially making a decision about what to say about this movie or an aspect of the movie. 

Here’s a short video I created, explaining what a thesis is:

Read back through your notes

Read through the initial notes you took and the connections that you’ve made. 

What stands out to you as the most important, the most general and overarching idea that is probably the main one?

Make your thesis about this idea. And the rest of the elements or ideas will act as supporting points (we’ll add them in the next step). 

Choose the subject

Let’s choose what to write about – our subject – in our sample film analysis. We have four categories of elements in which we’ve made notes and connections:

• Mise-en-scene

Just by looking at this list and reading through the connections made, it is easy to notice:

One or more of the themes are dominant, and the rest is supportive. Therefore, our main point should probably be about a theme . 

Again, if your instructor has given you a specific subject to focus on, then that’s what your thesis will be about. 

In this example, let’s assume that we must simply write a film analysis, and we’re free to choose what to write about.

So, we’ll pick one of the themes, take a stand on it, and formulate our thesis based on it. Let’s look at the themes we’ve picked out again:

• Repressed sexuality
• Frustration
• Being stuck
• Seeking freedom  

Which of these is the dominant one? Which one is all-encompassing? Which one includes some of the others?

These are some of the questions we might ask to pick the main subject for our essay. Let’s arrange these themes in the order of more general to more specific:

Why is being stuck the most general and all-encompassing theme? That’s because it seems that the rest of the themes are either the signs or the effects of it. 

Repressed sexuality and frustration in trying to accomplish things and failing are signs, examples, or manifestations of being stuck. 

It is only possible to seek freedom if you feel stuck. And suicide, at least in this film, is a result of being stuck and seeing no way out. 

This tells us that being stuck as a theme is the best candidate for our thesis. In other words, this essay will be about the theme of being stuck in the film The Hours .  

Formulate the thesis

At this point, we have everything we need to formulate our thesis, our main point that we’ll be supporting in the essay. Let’s do it:

“In the film The Hours, the feeling of being stuck in terms of their sexualities and life situations plagues the main characters. And the earlier in the century the action takes place, the more disastrous the consequences of them feeling stuck.” 

What’s going on in this thesis? 

First, we have two sentences because this film analysis is kind of complex. It is possible to write out the main point in only one sentence, but then it would be too long and complicated. 

Second, note that we have all the main elements either explicitly or implicitly present in this statement. In other words, this thesis summarizes our entire essay perfectly. 

It contains the themes of:

• Being stuck (which is our main subject)
• Sexuality (one supporting idea)
• Seeking freedom (from an unwanted life situation)
• Sucide (a disastrous consequence)

In other words, it’s all there in the thesis. And we’ll unpack these concepts more in the next two steps. 

Step 4. Write the introductory paragraph

The introductory paragraph consists of three parts:

• An introductory sentence
• The thesis (main point)
• The supporting points

Here is a diagram of how it is organized:

We already have one of these parts, which is the thesis (part 2). Now, all we need is  the introductory sentence and the supporting points. 

Let’s put together our supporting points – the crucial part of a thesis statement. A full thesis statement always includes the main point and the supporting ideas. And then we’ll write out the complete introductory paragraph.

Keep in mind that each of our supporting points will correspond to a section of our essay. And I always recommend using the Power of Three to organize a paper. 

Three is a great number to divide one idea into many. Note that writing an essay on any topic is very much a matter of dividing big topics into subtopics. 

What three supporting points or sections can we have in this essay? Well, luckly, it just so happens that the film The Hours centers around three main characters set in different time periods and places. 

This makes a perfect division into three parts. Now, your movie may not have such a clear division, and in that case you’ll need to come up with three supporting ideas creatively. 

For example, you could discuss the feeling or predicament if being stuck in terms of these concepts:

And your essay would have three main sections. Each section would be devoted to being stuck in a particular sense. 

In our essay, the three women are:

• Virginia Woolf (1923)
• Laura Brown (1951)
• Clarissa Vaughan (2001)

From our thesis, we know two things:

• They all share the feeling of being stuck, in similar ways
• There is a progression from past to present in how it affects them

So, now, let’s write out the complete thesis statement. Note that we’re also including the introductory sentence, whose function is to pull the reader into the subject matter of the essay.

Our film analysis thesis statement example

“Through the power of narrative and visual elements, cinema allows the viewer a glimpse into worlds she otherwise could not know, revealing difficulties people have faced throughout history. In the film The Hours, the feeling of being stuck in terms of their sexualities and life situations plagues the main characters. And the earlier in the century the action takes place, the more disastrous the consequences of them feeling stuck. Virginia Woolf, set in 1923, is in the worst situation because while she suffers from repressed homosexuality and hates living in the country, it is next to impossible for her to find a viable way out. Laura Brown, set in 1951, is also a closet lesbian and lives a small-town family life she despises. But she eventually finds a way to liberate herself. Finally, Clarissa Vaughn, set in 2001, is stuck in her bisexuality. But her life situation, while challenging, is otherwise better than those of the other two characters.”

Step 5. Outline the essay 

The thesis statement that we just put together also acts as our big-picture outline. Let’s see how our essay will be organized, in terms of the main sections:

Notice that this big-picture outline is dictated completely by our thesis statement. This is why a great, detailed thesis statement is so important. 

Fulfilling the word count requirement

Your film analysis essay assignment may have a specific word or page count requirement. Let me give you an example of this film analysis outline with a breakdown of words per section and subsection.

Let’s say you need to write a 2,000-word paper. Well, right now our introductory paragraph contains about 150 words. Here is how we could distribute words to meet that word count requirement.

Outline with word count distribution

• Introductory paragraph (150 words)
• Sexuality ( 300 words )
• Life situation ( 300 words )
• Conclusion (100 words)

If you add up all the sections and subsections, you’ll get 2,050, which is about our desired word count. 

If you need to write 5,000 words, then distribute your words accordingly. You’ll have about 250 words per introduction and conclusion, which will leave you with 4,500 words for the body of the essay.

That will be 1,500 words per main section. Divide each main section into three subsections using the Power of Three, and you have 500 words per subsection. 

It’s very helpful to know how to distribute your words because that allows you to map out how much you’re writing in each section and paragraph. 

Step 6. Write the body of the essay

The body of a film analysis essay consists of sections, and each section consists of one or more paragraphs. 

So, your main building block in the body of the essay is the body paragraph. Here is how a body paragraph is structured:

The first sentence is the so-called lead sentence. It must summarize the contents of the paragraph succinctly and perfectly. 

An explanation is where you have a chance to provide any reasoning or describe a process.

And examples are the most specific parts of any paragraph or essay. They are the most fun to write and to read. 

Let’s write a body paragraph to illustrate exactly how such a building block works in a movie analysis. 

Our example is about Virginia Woolf. It belongs in Section 1, subsection 1 – about being stuck with repressed homosexuality. 

Note that this subsection can have more than one paragraph. This will be one of the paragraphs in this section. 

Film analysis body paragraph example

“Virginia feels stuck in her personal life as if in a prison because of her repressed sexuality. She appears to be a closet homosexual, which is a difficult predicament to endure in the early 20th century England. Homosexuality was looked down upon, and a woman had to be married to a man, regardless of her innate sexual preferences. She lives with her husband who takes care of her and clearly loves her. However, when her sister Vanessa comes to visit, at the end of the visit, Virginia gives her a long, passionate kiss on the lips that is apparently reciprocated. The kiss is so intense that it indicates a repressed desire. Vanessa accepts it, but it is not clear whether she does so out of mutual attraction or compassion for her sister’s suffering.”

This paragraph follows the structure illustrated in the diagram. 

It opens with a lead sentence which summarizes and introduces the entire contents of the paragraph perfectly. It is also the most general statement of the essay.

Next comes the explanation. We explain why we think that Virginia has a problem. The time period she lives in makes it difficult to be a sexual minority. 

Finally, we provide an example – the most specific kind of evidence in an essay. It is an example of a kiss, with a description and implications. 

To complete the body of the essay, we would need to build it out by writing one paragraph after another, following the outline and maintaining this body paragraph structure. 

Note that you can also use outside sources to support your points. But first write out what you can without resorting to research. And only then go and find sources that would confirm your thinking and ideas. 

Step 7. Write the conclusion

This is the final step and the easiest one. I usually advocate for concluding with a simple restatement. 

All you need to do is write out the thesis statement using different words so it doesn’t come across as a mere copy. 

Your conclusion can be shorter than the introductory paragraph. After all, you’ve already said it all. And now, just restate in fewer and different words. You can also add a more general statement at the very end, as a finishing touch. 

And let’s do it.

“The Hours is a fascinating study of how repressed sexuality and confining life situations have affected people’s lives throughout the twentieth century. The three characters live in different times, and the earlier the period the more difficult the situation and the harder it is to endure. Virginia commits suicide because she can’t find a way out of her situation. Laura almost commits suicide but then chooses to abandon her situation, which is physically a little easier in the 1950’s. And Clarissa lives with her girlfriend. Her situation is better although she is still stuck as a bisexual. Life in 2001 is significantly better, though not devoid of challenges.”

And there you have it. Now you know exactly how to write a film analysis paper. 

I hope this was helpful!

Tutor Phil is an e-learning professional who helps adult learners finish their degrees by teaching them academic writing skills.

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A comprehensive guide to writing a film analysis essay – tips, tricks, and techniques.

Writing a film analysis essay can be a fascinating and rewarding experience for both film enthusiasts and students of cinema. Analyzing a movie allows you to delve into its intricacies, unravel its themes, and dissect its visual and narrative techniques. However, crafting a compelling film analysis essay requires a combination of insight, critical thinking, and effective writing skills.

When approaching a film analysis essay, it is crucial to watch the movie multiple times, taking notes on key scenes, character development, dialogue, and cinematography. Understanding the context in which the film was made and the director’s intentions can provide valuable insights that enrich your analysis.

Furthermore, structuring your essay effectively is essential to presenting your analysis in a coherent and engaging manner. Your introduction should provide a brief overview of the film and its significance, while the body paragraphs should focus on specific aspects of the film, supported by examples and evidence. Finally, your conclusion should summarize your key points and offer a thoughtful reflection on the film’s impact.

Tips for Crafting

When crafting a film analysis essay, it’s important to have a clear structure in mind. Start by choosing a specific film to analyze and watch it multiple times to fully understand its nuances. Take notes while watching to capture important details and moments that you want to analyze further.

Next, develop a thesis statement that will serve as the central argument of your essay. This thesis should be specific and focused, outlining the main points you will discuss in your analysis. Use evidence from the film to support your arguments and provide examples to strengthen your points.

Organize your essay in a logical manner, with an introduction that introduces the film and your thesis, body paragraphs that delve into specific aspects of the film, and a conclusion that summarizes your main points and leaves a lasting impression on the reader.

Make sure to analyze the film’s cinematography, sound design, acting, and themes in detail, providing insights that go beyond a surface-level analysis. Consider the director’s intent, the historical context of the film, and its impact on audiences to provide a comprehensive analysis.

Lastly, don’t forget to revise and edit your essay for clarity, coherence, and grammar. Make sure your analysis is well-supported and your arguments are persuasive. By following these tips, you can craft a compelling film analysis essay that showcases your analytical skills and understanding of cinema.

a Compelling Film

When analyzing a film, it is important to focus on what makes the movie compelling to the audience. Look for key elements such as the storyline, character development, cinematography, and sound design that contribute to the overall impact of the film.

Consider how the film engages the viewers emotionally and intellectually. Does it evoke strong emotions or make the audience think deeply about certain themes or issues?

• Pay attention to the performances of the actors and how they bring the characters to life on screen.
• Examine the visual style of the film, including the use of colors, lighting, and camera angles to create a mood or convey a message.
• Listen to the soundtrack and sound effects to see how they enhance the viewing experience and add layers to the storytelling.

By delving into these aspects of a film, you can uncover deeper meanings and insights that can be woven into your analysis, making for a more compelling and well-rounded essay.

Analysis Essay

When writing a film analysis essay, it is essential to delve deeply into the movie’s themes, characters, plot, and cinematic techniques. Start by watching the film attentively, taking notes on key scenes, dialogues, and visual elements that make an impact on you.

Next, develop a thesis statement that outlines your main argument about the film and how you will support it through your analysis. Organize your essay into sections that focus on different aspects of the film, such as narrative structure, character development, symbolism, and cinematography.

Use specific examples from the film to illustrate your points and analyze how they contribute to the overall story and meaning. Be sure to provide evidence to back up your claims and interpret the film’s themes and messages in a way that supports your argument.

Finally, conclude your essay by summarizing your main points and reiterating your thesis. Consider the film’s impact on the audience, its cultural significance, and its lasting impression. Overall, a well-crafted film analysis essay should showcase your critical thinking skills and offer new insights into the movie’s artistic and narrative elements.

Understand the Film

Before diving into your film analysis essay, it’s crucial to have a deep understanding of the film itself. This means watching the film multiple times to catch all the nuances, themes, and character developments. Take note of the setting, cinematography, sound design, and editing techniques used in the film. Understanding the director’s vision and the message they are trying to convey is key to crafting a compelling analysis.

Plot and Themes

One of the key elements of a film analysis essay is delving into the plot and themes of the movie. Begin your analysis by summarizing the main storyline of the film, including key events and plot twists that shape the narrative. Make sure to highlight any interesting or unique elements of the plot that contribute to the overall impact of the film.

Furthermore, explore the underlying themes of the movie and how they are communicated through the storyline, character development, and cinematic techniques. Consider the motifs, symbols, and messages that the director conveys through the film and discuss how they add depth and meaning to the overall viewing experience.

• Provide examples from the film to support your analysis of the plot and themes.
• Consider how the plot progression and thematic elements contribute to the overall message or central idea of the movie.
• Reflect on how the interplay between plot and themes enriches the audience’s understanding and emotional engagement with the film.

Characters and Motivations

One of the key elements of a compelling film analysis essay is a deep understanding of the characters and their motivations. When analyzing a film, pay close attention to how the characters are developed throughout the narrative. Consider how their actions, words, and relationships with other characters reveal their motivations and inner conflicts. Look for subtle nuances in their behavior, dialogue, and body language that provide insight into their personalities.

Identifying the main characters and understanding their motivations is essential for interpreting the film’s themes and messages. Consider how the characters’ goals, desires, fears, and internal struggles drive the plot forward and shape the story’s outcome. Analyzing the characters’ motivations can also help you uncover the underlying themes and messages that the filmmaker is trying to convey.

When discussing the characters in your film analysis essay, be sure to provide specific examples from the film that support your analysis. Quote dialogue, describe key scenes, and analyze the characters’ actions to illustrate your points. By delving deep into the characters and their motivations, you can craft a more nuanced and compelling analysis of the film.

Research and Analysis

Before starting your film analysis essay, conduct thorough research on the movie you are analyzing. Watch the film multiple times, taking detailed notes on key plot points, character development, themes, and symbolism. Additionally, research the background of the film, including the director, actors, production history, and critical reception.

Once you have gathered all necessary information, begin analyzing the film by breaking down its elements. Consider the cinematography, editing, sound design, and performances to understand how these contribute to the overall narrative and emotional impact of the film. Use critical thinking skills to develop insightful interpretations and arguments in your analysis.

Historical Context

When analyzing a film, it is crucial to consider the historical context in which it was created. Understanding the social, cultural, and political climate of the time can provide valuable insights into the themes, messages, and motivations behind the film. Consider researching the time period in which the film was made, including significant events, trends, and movements that may have influenced the filmmakers.

By delving into the historical context, you can gain a deeper appreciation for the film and its relevance to the time in which it was produced. This will also help you contextualize the characters, plot, and overall narrative within the broader historical framework, allowing for a more nuanced and insightful analysis.

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Deconstructing a Film Analysis Essay: Tips and Techniques

Enrolling in a film class might seem like a fun way to pass a class — after all, it's just watching movies, right? Not exactly! While film classes certainly require you to watch movies, you're most likely to be assigned 2-3 films per week in addition to analysis work. Considering how long movies can be, this can quickly turn into quite a hefty workload.

If you've never taken a film class before, you might feel lost and confused when it comes time to writing your first film analysis paper. This is especially true if you're accustomed to writing book analysis essays for which you choose several written quotes to analyze. Films are all about visuals, so your analysis relies heavily on interpreting vital visual elements.

How should you tackle a film analysis essay? It might sound obvious, but you'll start by watching the movie. After all, there's much more to watching a film than just hitting the "play" button.

One watch isn't enough

No matter how many films you've analyzed, it helps to have watched the movie you're analyzing more than once. One viewing of the movie could cause you to miss vital details. If possible, we recommend watching the film at least twice, so you can gather as many notes as you can. Repeated exposure to the movie will also help you put potentially confusing scenes into a better context and help you understand their purpose. However, if after you've watched the movie, you're struggling to organize your thoughts, consider breaking the film down into parts. Here's how you can deconstruct the movie into three digestible pieces.

The three-act structure

The length of your assigned movie can make an essay analysis intimidating. Films can sometimes exceed a run time of three hours. For example, fan-favorite Titanic comes in at a little over three hours long. A lot can happen in a movie of this length, so prioritizing specific scenes or focusing on particular plot points can present a challenge.

If you're struggling to follow a film, consider referring to the three-act structure . This method can be helpful in any narrative analysis you write. However, remember that this is not the same as a traditional story's narrative structure . This structure breaks the film into three distinct, purposeful sections that will help you organize the movie and your thoughts.

The format of the three-act structure is:

• Act I, Setup: This is typically the shortest part of the movie. Viewers are introduced to settings, characters, and main plot points. There is often an incident that introduces us to the film's conflict.
• Act II, Confrontation: This is the longest and most significant section of the film. The protagonist undergoes many conflicts and obstacles leading up to the climax.
• Act III, Resolution: The movie's ending most often provides some resolution to the conflict.

Breaking the film into these three sections will help you orient yourself as you watch and take notes. This will make the process of choosing scenes to analyze much easier.

Note-taking is a must

Since it's extremely difficult to mentally store all of your impressions and details you noticed while watching the film, note taking will give you a reference of your thoughts. But when and how should you take notes on a film? Should you write down your opinions on the actors and their characters? Do you take notes on scenes you didn't like or scenarios you wish had gone differently?

While these types of notes can certainly guide the argument you want to make, it's essential to remember that a film analysis essay is not the same as a film review. In an analysis paper, you can mention your opinion on the movie, but the primary focus of your essay is to analyze the film's visual elements. These elements you've noticed will provide the arguments you make in your essay.

Visual elements to analyze

If you've never analyzed a film before, you might not know the kinds of visual elements you should pay attention to. There is also a good deal of technical language associated with the film industry, and you'll come across this when writing your analysis. As with any subject or field you write about, you want your language to match what is customary in the industry.

Camera work

Writers can use several terminologies related to camera work, but we will focus on two elements that are best for beginners:

• Close-up: Close-up shots focus on one subject in a scene. In a close-up, a character's face will fill most of the screen. Directors might use this technique when they want viewers to register a character's intense emotions or small details they wouldn't notice from a distance.
• Long shot: A long shot is the opposite of a close-up. The camera films a longer distance away from the subject. A character's entire body is in the frame, but it does not make up the entirety of the frame; the space above, below, and around the character reveals more scenery. These shots help viewers become familiar with the setting and the character's place in the environment.
• Low angle: In low-angle shots, the camera is positioned below a character or scene, so viewers are forced to look up. If characters are filmed from this angle, we might interpret them as being powerful and superior because they appear above us.
• High angle: In high-angle shots, the camera is positioned above a character or scene, so viewers are forced to look down. In contrast to low-angle shots, characters filmed from this position appear to be more vulnerable or have less power.

When conducting your analysis, notice that lighting changes can be subtle or obvious. The scene could transition from light and joyful to dark and ominous with just a flashlight losing batteries. If you notice lighting changes during your viewing, consider these questions:

• What does the presence/absence of light add to the scene?
• Are there any shadows visible in the scene?
• How does the lighting affect the character's attitude/mood?
• How does the lighting shift from one scene to another?

Here are a couple of audio components you're accustomed to hearing during movies:

• What genre of music is playing? Is there a pop song playing during a cheerful scene? Is the music entirely instrumental? Does it include lyrics to bring a descriptive element to the scene?
• Is the music quiet or loud? Does the music's volume rise and fall throughout a scene, or is it purely background noise?
• Sound effects: Sound effects can help make actions more impactful. Consider a war movie that relies heavily on battle scenes. Sounds of gunshots and explosions ring in the background as viewers focus on the protagonist. Those sound effects can make us nervous, draw us into what the character might be feeling, and foreshadow something terrible coming for the soldier. Or maybe the protagonist is finally coming face to face with the enemy, and the tension in the scene is enhanced by the crack of thunder and the whirring of wind in the background.

Costumes, makeup, and props

These types of elements can depict socioeconomic status and levels of power. A man dressed in a black professional suit will appear more influential than a man dressed in a pair of ripped jeans and a t-shirt.

Since clothing and makeup are forms of expression, viewers can learn about characters' personalities through their physical appearance. These are also transitory elements, meaning viewers can recognize a switch in characters' fortune, status, or job if their appearance changes.

Clothing and props can also reveal something hidden about a character. For example, in Leigh Bardugo's Six of Crows , Kaz Brekker wears a pair of black gloves and uses a walking cane. The cane reveals a physical impairment, but the purpose of his black gloves remains a mystery until his backstory is revealed. Though characters may appear one way, their clothes and props can provide an element of mystery, showing viewers that they might not be what they seem.

You can consider timing in a movie like the syntax in written text. Instead of sentence length and organization, timing refers to the length of a scene and the order in which scenes appear. The duration of the shot will impact the feel of the scene.

For example, fast-paced scenes switch from one frame to another within a short time. This makes the viewers feel like they're being rushed, and tension is high. Slower scenes feature one subject in a shot for extended periods, drawing our attention to what is happening at that moment.

Your essay structure

Now that you know how to "read" a movie, consider how to organize your analysis essay. Your paper will be set up like other analysis papers you've written. For example, the basic format of your paper will be:

• Introduction
• Body paragraphs

Naturally, however, the content of these paragraphs will differ from, say, a literary analysis.

What to include in the introduction

The introduction will contain specific information about the film. For example, you must include:

• The film title
• The director's name
• The film's release date

These details give context to the film. For example, if you are familiar with the director of the film under analysis and you know other works of theirs, this information gives color to your analysis. This connection can help you read into the movie more deeply because you can anticipate patterns, themes, or visual elements for which the director is famous.

The introduction will also include your thesis statement. This statement serves as your argument and comes as a result of considering questions like:

• What aspects of the film stood out to you?
• Did you notice one specific theme throughout the movie?
• Is there a specific object or symbol that holds significant meaning to the plot or protagonist?
• Is there a unique pattern you want to make an argument about?

Your thesis can state whatever you find interesting as long as you prove your argument with evidence from the film.

You might follow the introduction with a brief summary of the movie. Introduce the main characters, the setting, and the conflict. Provide some context, but don't make it overwhelming.

Body paragraph analysis

Body paragraphs include your analysis. The analysis of a film differs from that of a literary essay, as a textual analysis comes entirely from passages of a book or article. While you can certainly analyze dialogue in movie scenes, film analysis focuses significantly on the film's visual elements.

The number of body paragraphs you write depends on how many scenes you analyze. Unless your assignment asks you to examine only one scene closely, we recommend you write about three scenes or more.

Your body paragraphs should each begin with a topic sentence that introduces your argument. What will you focus on in this specific paragraph? Then, frame the scene. Remember that you want to avoid summarizing the scene that you are analyzing. Instead, provide just a sentence or two of context to introduce the scene and then frame it according to your argument. Once you've done this, you can focus on the film's visual construction, which will make up the bulk of the body.

Concluding your analysis essay

Your conclusion will restate the argument you made in the introduction. Your analysis leads to a personal decision about the film, so you should also include your overall opinion. You might consider including a call to action, whereby you encourage or discourage readers from watching the movie.

It's also possible to consider the film's implications. For example, did the film touch on a political or historical issue that's still relevant today? Did the film introduce a new filming technique never seen before? How does the film inform future movies of the same genre?

Films can be lengthy and complicated, but this guide can help you deconstruct a movie and ease your analysis essay writing process. Be sure to take your time watching the movie — more than once, if you can! — and take ample notes to use as a reference. As long as you focus on your visual analysis and not a summary or description of each scene, you'll be on your way to writing an insightful analysis essay.

Header photo by stokkete .

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Film Writing: Sample Analysis

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Introductory Note

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

The text of the analysis looks like this.

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

Frustrated Communication in Ex Machina ’s Opening Sequence

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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6.5: Film Analysis

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What this handout is about

This handout provides a brief definition of film analysis compared to literary analysis, provides an introduction to common types of film analysis, and offers strategies and resources for approaching assignments.

What is film analysis, and how does it differ from literary analysis?

Film analysis is the process in which film is analyzed in terms of semiotics, narrative structure, cultural context, and mise-en-scene, among other approaches. If these terms are new to you, don’t worry—they’ll be explained in the next section.

Analyzing film, like analyzing literature (fiction texts, etc.) , is a form of rhetorical analysis—critically analyzing and evaluating discourse, including words, phrases, and images. Having a clear argument and supporting evidence is every bit as critical to film analysis as to other forms of academic writing.

Unlike literature, film incorporates audiovisual elements and therefore introduces a new dimension to analysis. Ultimately, however, analysis of film is not too different. Think of all the things that make up a scene in a film: the actors, the lighting, the angles, the colors. All of these things may be absent in literature, but they are deliberate choices on the part of the director, producer, or screenwriter—as are the words chosen by the author of a work of literature. Furthermore, literature and film incorporate similar elements. They both have plots, characters, dialogue, settings, symbolism, and, just as the elements of literature can be analyzed for their intent and effect, these elements can be analyzed the same way in film.

Different types of film analysis

Listed here are common approaches to film analysis, but this is by no means an exhaustive list, and you may have discussed other approaches in class. As with any other assignment, make sure you understand your professor’s expectations. This guide is best used to understand prompts or, in the case of more open-ended assignments, consider the different ways to analyze film.

Keep in mind that any of the elements of film can be analyzed, oftentimes in tandem. A single film analysis essay may simultaneously include all of the following approaches and more. As Jacques Aumont and Michel Marie propose in Analysis of Film, there is no correct, universal way to write film analysis.

Semiotic analysis

Semiotic analysis is the analysis of meaning behind signs and symbols, typically involving metaphors, analogies, and symbolism.

This doesn’t necessarily need to be something dramatic; think about how you extrapolate information from the smallest signs in your day to day life. For instance, what characteristics can tell you about someone’s personality? Something as simple as someone’s appearance can reveal information about them. Mismatched shoes and bedhead might be a sign of carelessness (or something crazy happened that morning!), while an immaculate dress shirt and tie would suggest that the person is prim and proper. Continuing in that vein:

• What might you be able to infer about characters from small hints?
• How are these hints (signs) used to construct characters? How do they relate to the relative role of those characters, or the relationships between multiple characters?

Symbols denote concepts (liberty, peace, etc.) and feelings (hate, love, etc.) that they often have nothing to do with. They are used liberally in both literature and film, and finding them uses a similar process. Ask yourself:

• In Frozen Elsa’s gloves appear in multiple scenes.
• Her gloves are first given to her by her father to restrain her magic. She continues to wear them throughout the coronation scene, before finally, in the Let It Go sequence, she throws them away.

Again, the method of semiotic analysis in film is similar to that of literature. Think about the deeper meaning behind objects or actions.

• Elsa’s gloves represent fear of her magic and, by extension, herself. Though she attempts to contain her magic by hiding her hands within gloves and denying part of her identity, she eventually abandons the gloves in a quest for self-acceptance.

Narrative structure analysis

Narrative structure analysis is the analysis of the story elements, including plot structure, character motivations, and theme. Like the dramatic structure of literature (exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, resolution), film has what is known as the Three-Act Structure: “Act One: Setup, Act Two: Confrontation, and Act Three: Resolution.” Narrative structure analysis breaks the story of the film into these three elements and might consider questions like:

• How does the story follow or deviate from typical structures?
• What is the effect of following or deviating from this structure?
• What is the theme of the film, and how is that theme constructed?

Consider again the example of Frozen. You can use symbolism and narrative structure in conjunction by placing the symbolic objects/events in the context of the narrative structure. For instance, the first appearance of the gloves is in Act One, while their abandoning takes place in Act Two; thus, the story progresses in such a way that demonstrates Elsa’s personal growth. By the time of Act Three, the Resolution, her aversion to touch (a product of fearing her own magic) is gone, reflecting a theme of self-acceptance.

Contextual analysis

Contextual analysis is analysis of the film as part of a broader context. Think about the culture, time, and place of the film’s creation. What might the film say about the culture that created it? What were/are the social and political concerns of the time period? Or, like researching the author of a novel, you might consider the director, producer, and other people vital to the making of the film. What is the place of this film in the director’s career? Does it align with his usual style of directing, or does it move in a new direction? Other examples of contextual approaches might be analyzing the film in terms of a civil rights or feminist movement.

For example, Frozen is often linked to the LGBTQ social movement. You might agree or disagree with this interpretation, and, using evidence from the film, support your argument.

Some other questions to consider:

• How does the meaning of the film change when seen outside of its culture?
• What characteristics distinguishes the film as being of its particular culture?

Mise-en-scene analysis

Mise-en-scene analysis is analysis of the arrangement of compositional elements in film—essentially, the analysis of audiovisual elements that most distinctly separate film analysis from literary analysis. Remember that the important part of a mise-en-scene analysis is not just identifying the elements of a scene, but explaining the significance behind them.

• What effects are created in a scene, and what is their purpose?
• How does the film attempt to achieve its goal by the way it looks, and does it succeed?

Audiovisual elements that can be analyzed include (but are not limited to): props and costumes, setting, lighting, camera angles, frames, special effects, choreography, music, color values, depth, placement of characters, etc. Mise-en-scene is typically the most foreign part of writing film analysis because the other components discussed are common to literary analysis, while mise-en-scene deals with elements unique to film. Using specific film terminology bolsters credibility, but you should also consider your audience. If your essay is meant to be accessible to non-specialist readers, explain what terms mean. The Resources section of this handout has links to sites that describe mise-en-scene elements in detail.

Rewatching the film and creating screen captures (still images) of certain scenes can help with detailed analysis of colors, positioning of actors, placement of objects, etc. Listening to the soundtrack can also be helpful, especially when placed in the context of particular scenes.

Some example questions:

• How is the lighting used to construct mood? Does the mood shift at any point during the film, and how is that shift in mood created?
• What does the setting say about certain characters? How are props used to reveal aspects of their personality?
• What songs were used, and why were they chosen? Are there any messages in the lyrics that pertain to the theme?

Writing the film analysis essay

Writing film analysis is similar to writing literary analysis or any argumentative essay in other disciplines: Consider the assignment and prompts, formulate a thesis (see the Brainstorming Handout and Thesis Statement Handout for help crafting a nuanced argument), compile evidence to prove your thesis, and lay out your argument in the essay. Your evidence may be different from what you are used to. Whereas in the English essay you use textual evidence and quotes, in a film analysis essay, you might also include audiovisual elements to bolster your argument.

When describing a sequence in a film, use the present tense, like you would write in the literary present when describing events of a novel, i.e. not “Elsa took off her gloves,” but “Elsa takes off her gloves.” When quoting dialogue from a film, if between multiple characters, use block quotes: Start the quotation on a new line, with the entire quote indented one inch from the left margin. However, conventions are flexible, so ask your professor if you are unsure. It may also help to follow the formatting of the script, if you can find it. For example:

ELSA: But she won’t remember I have powers? KING: It’s for the best.

You do not need to use quotation marks for blocked-off dialogue, but for shorter quotations in the main text, quotation marks should be double quotes (“…”).

Here are some tips for approaching film analysis:

• Make sure you understand the prompt and what you are being asked to do. Focus your argument by choosing a specific issue to assess.
• Review your materials. Rewatch the film for nuances that you may have missed in the first viewing. With your thesis in mind, take notes as you watch. Finding a screenplay of the movie may be helpful, 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!).
• Develop a thesis and an outline, organizing your evidence so that it supports your argument. Remember that this is ultimately an assignment—make sure that your thesis answers what the prompt asks, and check with your professor if you are unsure.
• Move beyond only describing the audiovisual elements of the film by considering the significance of your evidence. Demonstrate understanding of not just what film elements are, but why and to what effect they are being used. For more help on using your evidence effectively, see ‘Using Evidence In An Argument’ in the Evidence Handout .

New York Film Academy Glossary Movie Outline Glossary Movie Script Database Citation Practices: Film and Television

Works Consulted

We consulted these works while writing the original version of 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 the latest publications on this topic. 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 .

Aumont, Jacques, and Michel Marie. L’analyse Des Films. Paris: Nathan, 1988. Print. Pruter, Robin Franson. “Writing About Film.” Writing About Film. DePaul University, 08 Mar. 2004. Web. 01 May 2016.

“Film Analysis.” The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License

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How to Write a Film Analysis Essay: Format & Examples

Movie analysis essays offer a unique opportunity to take a closer look at narrative techniques and artistic aspects of filmmaking. A paper on this subject lets you explore themes, characters, cinematography, and other elements that make movies stand out. Students can improve their movie analysis abilities by reading our comprehensive guide! It has enough information to make you a movie critic in your own right.

Our team has covered the main film analysis essay components to help you thoroughly analyze movies. By the end of this read, you’ll understand how to pick the right motion picture and craft a film review that best captures its essence. The guide covers all the crucial steps for students to make a film analysis essay captivating and thought-provoking for readers. Let’s dive into cinema analysis and discover the secret behind excellent papers!

• 📽️ What Is a Film Analysis?
• 🎞️ Types of Movie Analysis

🎬 Film Analysis Template

• 🤩 11 Tips for Movie Analysis
• 💡 Film Analysis Essay Topics

🔗 References

📽️ what is a film analysis essay.

In a film analysis paper, students should closely examine the various elements of the picture. These include directing , writing , cinematography , acting , and setting . As with any critical paper, the subject is evaluated based on specific standards. Sometimes, a film may be compared to other entries in its genre or series, for example, Star Wars vs. Star Trek.

🎞️ Types of Movie Analysis Essays

Before making a movie analysis outline, it’s essential to understand what kind of essay you want to create. There are several popular types with unique goals and aims. Understanding the difference between them helps you choose the right one for the paper you want to write.

The most common types of movie analysis essays include:

• Semiotic Analysis. This type discusses the symbols and signs represented in a particular movie. With its help, you may uncover the meaning of objects or images repeated throughout the picture. It’s also possible to show connections between different examples of imagery in the film. For example, you may discuss the meaning of oranges in The Godfather .
• Narrative Structure Analysis. This common type of analysis lets you look deeper into the various story elements, such as plot, narrative structure, and characters. For example, you may use it to explore the story and setting of Psycho.
• Contextual Analysis. In a contextual analysis, you draw connections between the film and its cultural and historical context. This works well with documentary films or movies based on real events. For example, you can describe the atmosphere of the Cold War in Red Dawn and The Hunt for Red October .
• Mise-En-Scene Analysis . If you want to go into deep detail about the beauty and meaning of scenes or single shots, mise-en-scene analysis is right for you. It lets you take a look at individual elements and interpret them. For example, you may try to explain how various details of the surroundings were depicted in Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo. This analysis is as effective for short films as it is for feature-length ones.

Creating a high-quality, compelling essay isn’t just about being creative. It also needs structure and a systematic approach. You can’t write it right if you don’t know how to do it. So, we’ll take a closer look at each step of this process to make your journey more comfortable. Come with us and learn what makes a movie critique essay great.

Prepare for Writing the Film Analysis Paper

Before you begin your first draft, it’s vital to prepare for the film analysis. This process is divided into five stages. We’ve decided to provide some advice and ideas for each of them. Look closely at what should be done to better prepare for this task:

Movie Analysis Format & Structure

A well-organized film essay structure will help you properly present your ideas and arguments. That is why we have provided some advice on how you should format your essay.

There are several parts you should include when writing your film critique:

• Introduction . Any good piece of writing starts with a catchy introduction. It must give readers a small taste of what the paper will be about with unique insights and analysis. One look at it should be enough to hook your readers.
• Body . After writing the perfect intro, summarize the work you’ll analyze and focus on the crucial plot points. Then, provide an analysis of the motion picture at length. Check your outline to ensure you only talk about relevant aspects. When organizing each of your paragraphs , you should remember its purpose and try not to stray off topic.
• Conclusion . The last part of your paper should summarize the main points and present your final thoughts. Don’t haste and write the first thing that comes to mind. Ensure that the conclusion is as impactful as the introductory part.

Sometimes, students get too engrossed when watching a movie and leave out essential details. To make sure that doesn’t happen, follow this movie analysis template. It will help you retain information and avoid making mistakes.

🤩 11 Tips to Follow While Writing a Movie Analysis

A movie analysis essay writing requires exceptional attention to detail. We’ve come up with several terrific pieces of advice that will improve your writing skills regarding these assignments. They will work for you whether you’re analyzing a Tim Burton animated film or the legendary Titanic movie.

• Even if you’ve seen the work before, rewatch it. It will refresh your memories of it.
• Don’t rush things, and see the movie at least twice. Arrange your time to have the opportunity to refresh your memories of the plot details.
• Sometimes, it helps to work on the body of the paper before adding an introduction.
• Develop a clear thesis statement . It helps better organize the paper’s arguments.
• Closely investigate the audio and visual elements. They often help bring more nuance to the story and the film’s atmosphere.
• Don’t make the paper all about the plot. It should be an analysis and not a retelling of the entire story.
• To make the paper more professional, incorporate some technical jargon. For example, you may explain the techniques used by the camera crew or the editors.
• Do your best to remain objective. Your paper should analyze the movie elements and your opinions should be evidence-based.
• Compare the film to other genre entries. Try to tell how other works tackle the same subjects and utilize similar cinema elements .
• Check the structural integrity of the work. Comb the paper for any inconsistencies or sentences that seem to dangle in the air. Your text should be easy to follow.
• Finally, remember to edit. It’s important to polish the paper until you have all the facts, grammar, stylistics, and spelling in order.

💡 Interesting Topics for Film Analysis Essays

• Pandora’s Unobtanium: Analyzing James Cameron’s “Avatar”
• Truth and Its Consequences in “Liar Liar” Directed by Tom Shadyac
• The Feminist Revolution in “Mona Lisa Smile” by Mike Newell
• Blade Runner’s Cyberpunk Aesthetic: A Scene Analysis
• Society and Class Distinctions in “Pride and Prejudice” Movie
• Power, Loyalty, and Betrayal in “The Godfather” by Francis Ford Coppola
• The Heroine’s Journey into “The Wizard of Oz” by Victor Fleming
• Generational Saga “Mi Familia” by Gregory Nava
• Life Is Like a Box of Chocolates: A Cinematic Journey in ‘Forrest Gump’
• Transformation in “Dances with Wolves” by Kevin Costner
• Spirit of Nature and Childhood Innocence in “My Neighbor Totoro”
• Subversive Masculinity in “Fight Club” by David Fincher
• Intercultural Communication in “Lost in Translation” by Sofia Coppola
• Ethical Dilemmas and Family Bonds in “My Sister’s Keeper” by Nick Cassavetes
• Shakespearean Romance and Identity in “Shakespeare in Love” 

Three Brilliant Movie Analysis Examples

Theoretical knowledge will only take you so far. We suggest taking a look at several scene analysis essay examples. Check out these three creative samples with different analytical approaches:

• “Remember the Titans” Movie by Jerry Bruckheimer. Outstanding achievement can only be won through hardship. It doesn’t matter whether you’re fighting for equality or striving to win a football game. Each small event resonates in history. Jerry Bruckheimer’s Remember the Titans is a testament to the sacrifice and struggle people endure to make a difference. This essay analyzes the work using several scenes that capture its central message.
• The Analysis of Film “Wilby Wonderful.”   Interpersonal relationships remain a big issue from a psychological point of view for many despite the perceived ease of their maintenance. It causes many misunderstandings and conflicts people may inadvertently find themselves in. Daniel Maclvor’s Wilby Wonderful demonstrates these inadequacies in full view on the streets of the Canadian island town of Wilby. This essay analyzes the themes of self-denial and the consequences it brings.
• Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein: 1994 Movie Analysis Essay.  1994’s Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, directed by Kenneth Branagh, is one of the many adaptations of the classic horror novel. Like the original story, it explores the consequences of man playing god. But, despite its star-ridden cast led by Robert DeNiro, the film doesn’t quite live up to its literary counterpart. This paper analyzes why the adaptation didn’t capture the spirit of the original.

We did our best to address all questions you might have had about film review writing. Feel free to use our guide and review essay examples to write excellent papers and share our articles with your friends.

• Resources – How to Write a Film Analysis. – Northwestern University
• Film Analysis. – University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
• Film Writing: Sample Analysis. – Purdue University
• How to Write a Movie Review: 9 Essential Tips. – New York Film Academy
• Step by Step Guide to Writing an Essay on Film. – Film Threat
• How To Write a Critical Analysis in 5 Steps (With Tips). – Indeed
• Film Review. – Writing Studio, Duke University
• How to Write About Film: The Movie Review, The Theoretical Essay, and The Critical Essay. – University of Colorado Denver
• Film & Media Studies Resources: Researching a Film. – Bowling Green State University
• Questions for Film Analysis. – University of Washington

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

• Icon Calendar 14 May 2024
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This guideline is designed to teach people how to write a film analysis essay. Basically, students and anyone interested in writing a good movie analysis essay should read the details and tips that can help them to produce a high-standard piece. The article begins by defining what a film analysis is, listing the possible topics of such an essay, and giving a sample outline and example. The guideline also teaches about the various types of film analysis and the most common concepts that such a paper may address. As a result, the article concludes with tips, including ten things to do and ten not to do when writing a film analysis essay.

General Aspects of How to Write an Outstanding Film Analysis Essay

A college education is dynamic and robust because students undertake various academic activities in and out of the lecture room. Typically, activities within lecture halls are theoretical, and those that happen outside are practical. A critical academic exercise is a film analysis assignment, where professors require students to watch a movie and discuss using particular elements. The elements directors and producers use to bring the action alive include the stage, lighting, sound, and other special effects. As such, analyzing a film is a complex exercise that requires one to perfect the art of writing. In turn, this article is a guideline for how to write a film analysis essay. By reading this text, students can gain insights into the details and elements they must address when writing a movie analysis essay.

Definition of What Is a Film Analysis and Its Meaning

According to a simple definition, film analysis explores the use of particular elements in a film, including mise-en-scène, cinematography, sound, and editing. Students should talk about actors’ positioning, scenery adaptation, physical setting, stage lighting, and cultural context when writing this kind of essay. Another critical fact to consider is that films come in various genres, including action, documentaries, drama, horror, romance, and science fiction. Each type of movie analysis utilizes the above elements differently. Therefore, film analysis means writing an in-depth examination of how directors and producers approach their productions to make them entertaining and informative. For example, most science fiction films are futuristic, showing how society may change. In this respect, all films have a cultural context students must address in their movie analysis essay.

Unique Features of a Film Analysis

Generally, film analysis essays differ from other types of papers, including an argumentative essay, a cause and effect essay, and a research paper, because they focus on a single production and explore the use of the above elements. Some unique features that differentiate film analysis papers from other types of essays include a short plot summary where writers briefly tell readers what the movie is about, such as exterminating evil. In this type of analysis, writers evaluate the use of the elements above and state whether they make the film great or below expectations. Another feature is a poster showing sceneries to give readers a visual experience of the movie. Such visuals are essential to arouse the reader’s emotions and mental involvement in a movie analysis. Therefore, when writing a film analysis essay, students should focus on telling the story and depicting it.

6 Common Types of a Film Analysis Essay

Students must determine the type of film analysis essay to avoid sounding ignorant and irrelevant when writing about the movie. The most common types are semiotic, narrative, contextual, mise-en-scène, cultural, and historical analyses. Each type requires students to adopt a singular focus, meaning one cannot concentrate effort on elements that do not fall under the study. The reason for these types of analyses is that it is not always possible to understand an entire film in an essay, which is generally a short text of about two to three pages. Nonetheless, it is prudent for students to know how to write each type, meaning understanding the approach and unique features they must discuss and evaluate.

🔸 Semiotic Analysis

A semiotic essay involves discussing, evaluating, and interpreting the use of literary analysis elements, including analogies and metaphors, to inanimate characters and objects. Generally, these elements have different meanings, and students should determine what a particular feature stands for in the film they are analyzing vis-à-vis its broader cultural or historical significance in society. For example, when analyzing the 1958 film Vertigo , one may discuss the symbolism of flowers by stating how some images of them falling apart depict the heroine’s vulnerability. In turn, when conducting a semiotic analysis, one should consider several issues, including the repetition of objects or images throughout the movie, the association of a character with particular objects, and the relation between an object and other objects. Hence, a semiotic analysis essay requires students to examine the use of objects and symbols to communicate a deep meaning.

🔸 Narrative Analysis

A narrative analysis essay involves examining the elements that directors or producers use to construct the storyline, including characters, the plot, the setting, and the narrative structure. As such, students should focus on the entire movie and the message it seeks to communicate. Considering the example above of Vertigo , writers may discuss the narrative role of flowers by analyzing how director Alfred Hitchcock introduces them as the film begins and only brings them up again toward the end to complete the heroine’s character arc. Students should also consider several issues when conducting a narrative analysis essay, including the plot and how it unfolds. For example, one may talk about whether events are systematic or out of order and what that signifies. However, students should not focus on summarizing the plot at the expense of making and defending an argument.

🔸 Contextual Analysis

A contextual analysis of a film is a discussion of the placement of the movie within particular contexts, such as slavery, women’s suffrage, the civil rights movement, or the industrial revolution. In this case, filmmakers produce movies and base their identity on the unfolding circumstances or themes defining a particular time in history.

🔸 Mise-en-Scène Analysis

A mise-en-scène analysis essay involves discussing and evaluating compositional elements, including sets, props, actors, costumes, and lighting, and how they complement or conflict with cinematography, sound, and editing. The most effective approach in conducting this movie analysis is to focus on one or a few scenes rather than the entire film, telling readers how they support or undermine the plot. As such, mise-en-scène is part of the director’s narrative because this element influences how the audience understands the central message in the production. Taking Vertigo as a case study, one may discuss how Hitchcock incorporates lighting and camera angles to characterize Jimmy Stewart (starring as former police detective John “Scottie” Ferguson) as acrophobic. When adopting a mise-en-scène analysis, students should consider how particular scenes create effects and their purpose and how different scenes emphasize a theme central to the plot.

🔸 Cultural Analysis

A cultural analysis essay examines, evaluates, and interprets the broader cultural disposition the director adopts to tell the story. Students must understand that, regardless of a film’s production period, a culture influences its various elements, like characters and their mannerisms. Taking Vertigo as an example, one may interpret the scene where a man observes a woman without her knowing it to mean the sexual policing of women in mid-20th century America. When analyzing the context of a movie, students should consider how the film captures, reinforces, or critiques social norms in a particular culture or era.

🔸 Historical Analysis

A historical analysis essay means writing about a particular film from the perspective of the period underscoring its production. Ideally, filmmakers place their work into a historical context, such as the colonial era or ancient civilizations. Therefore, when writing a film analysis essay, students should focus on the period the director situates its plot.

How to Write a More Technical and Focused Film Analysis Essay

Film analysis helps readers to understand essential details, including the plot and its central themes, characters and their disposition, scenes and significance, and effects and the message they communicate. In this respect, one must be ready to undertake a technical, focused, and vigorous analysis of one or several of these elements. In most instances, instructions dictate the aspects students should write about. However, without such specifications, they should focus on a few elements and examine them vigorously. For example, one may decide to focus on the plot. In this instance, a movie analysis essay must examine the plot from different perspectives, including the characters, central themes, and the message. Such a focused analysis allows readers to gain an in-depth understanding of a particular element of movie reviews instead of an analysis that discusses several elements superficially. Some elements and terms that students can use for writing a film analysis essay include:

• Flashback and flashforward: Flashbacks are scenes that recount events that have a powerful influence on the current or unfolding event. On the other hand, flashforwards are scenes that reveal events that will occur later in the film, and their purpose is to create anticipation in the audience.
• Time framework: Film directors structure time linearly to depict an orderly unfolding of events. The most common time framework is omitting events to move the story forward.
• Setting: The environment within which a director creates a movie, including physical surrounding like a city and period like a year or century.
• Range of events: The different events in a film sustain the plot. Typically, these events directly or indirectly affect protagonists because they facilitate the storyline.
• Cast: The people producing a film, including the main actors and the production crew. However, actors take priority when discussing the cast.
• Plot: The sequence of events that directors create to communicate a central message in a movie analysis. When writing a film analysis essay, students should never ignore this aspect because it underscores the storyline.
• Shot, scene, and sequence: Features that tell the quality of a film but, most importantly, the interconnectivity of elements in the director’s aim to tell a story.
• Genre: The classification of movies into various forms, such as action, documentaries, science fiction, horror, or romance. Knowing a film’s genre under analysis is helpful in identifying the significance of cinematography and mise-en-scène elements.
• Directing: Supervising film production by visualizing the script, controlling and managing the artistic and dramatic aspects, and guiding the actors and technical crew.
• Scenario: The aspect of a movie analysis that provides the audience insight into the plot or characters. Ideally, scenarios are scenes that convey critical details of the storyline, such as climax.
• Acting: The role that individuals play to bring a film’s plot alive. As such, it involves all people who assume different characters in a movie, including protagonists, antagonists, heroes, and heroines.
• Visual effects: The qualities that filmmakers use to bring the action alive, such as images, shots, and scenes. When discussing visual effects in a film analysis essay, students should comment on how they reinforce certain concepts or themes, like mood, fear, and suspense.
• Music and audio effects: Sound and language that enhance the audience’s understanding of the central message. Most films incorporate background sounds in multiple scenes to arouse reactions in the audience.
• Camera angle: The positioning of the camera to capture precise shots in films. Filmmakers use camera angles in relation to scenes and characters to affect the audience’s perception.
• Lighting: A mise-en-scène element that filmmakers use to create different effects in a film. Ideally, movies involve different lighting techniques, such as key light, fill light, and backlight, to guide the audience’s attention, create a visual impact, give the film a texture, or create an atmosphere.
• References: Features that indicate how a film uses dialogue and images in its storyline to allude to, recall, or refer to another movie. Ideally, filmmakers use this feature to contextualize their productions within a cultural or historical space.
• Animation: The use of drawings or puppets with mobility like humans. Although it is a movie genre for analysis today, filmmakers use animation to give objects animal or human qualities, such as walking, talking, crying, or fighting. Animations effectively depict society as a complex system comprising different life systems.
• Protagonist: The character that takes center stage in a film and whom the director uses to construct the plot. While a film’s plot may revolve around several actors, only one is central, and others only assist the main hero in accomplishing agendas. In this respect, when students are writing a film analysis, they should tell the audience the main protagonist(s).
• Antagonist: Characters that stand opposite of protagonists. Filmmakers use them to depict the main character as assailed by forces aiming to thwart their agenda.
• Climax: The point in a movie where the plot peaks and where the protagonist puts into motion a series of events that significantly determine their final experience. These events may include betrayal, heroism, or tragedy. Therefore, one can identify a film’s climax by assessing how the plot intensifies and events directly impacting the protagonist unfolds.
• Hero vs. anti-hero: Heroes stand out as brave because they attempt what others fear. In most movies, protagonists are heroes because they survive what consumes others. On the other hand, an anti-hero is a central character who lacks heroic qualities like bravery but is timid, fearful, frustrating, and irritating. As a result, the audience celebrates heroes under analysis and loath anti-heroes.
• Atmosphere: The environment in which a movie imbues the audience through the sequence of events revolving around the plot. Generally, action films create an intense atmosphere because of the frequency of fights. On the other hand, romantic movies create an emotional atmosphere characterized by attraction and happiness. On their part, horror films create an uneasy atmosphere because of the constant anticipation of evil.
• Background: The technique of capturing an image or object from a distance, often giving other images or objects prominence. Filmmakers use this quality to create a sense of authenticity in scenes. For example, a scene capturing a rioting crowd may have in its background an image of anti-riot police forming a barrier using their bodies. Looking at the imagery, one may see rioters more clearly but also understand the situation’s intensity because of the police in the background.
• Cameo: The dramatic appearance of a famous actor or personality in a movie for various reasons, including fun, publicity, or to give the film credibility. However, such characters do not become protagonists because they appear briefly and only once. When doing a film analysis, students should indicate such personalities and the role they may have played in the plot.
• Cinematography: The artistic use of technology and visual effects to dramatize the sequence of events in a film. Ideally, writers should examine the scenes’ general composition, locations’ lighting, camera angles and movements, and special effects, like illusions or camera tricks.
• Comic relief: A scene that allows the audience to release emotional weight or tension that may have built up due to escalating events with a negative outcome, such as betrayal and a series of murders. Filmmakers interpose comic relief in tragic scenarios to avoid burdening the audience emotionally to the point of refusing to watch the film to its conclusion. The only film genre that rarely uses comic relief is gothic.
• Film critics: Individuals who have made criticizing films a part- or full-time engagement. Ideally, these people watch movies to identify negative qualities, like a confused plot, poor lighting, and sound effects. While one may consider them an appropriate source of film reviews, they rarely highlight a good analysis of a movie.
• Director’s cut: An edited film version that represents the director’s original edit before the release of the theatrical edit that reaches the screens. This part of the film is important because it shows scenes that some editors may cut or altered. By examining the director’s cut, the writer of a film analysis essay looks at the complete production and tells how it may enhance the audience’s viewing experience.
• Foreshadowing: The technique of giving the audience a sneak preview of events yet to unfold to build anticipation and heighten dramatic tension. Filmmakers use this quality early in the film to create excitement in the audience and make them want to view the production to the end. Typically, foreshadowing focuses on events directly affecting the protagonist, such as a tragedy.
• Editing: Perfecting a film by deleting, arranging, and splicing scenes and synchronizing all elements, including cinematography, mise-en-scène, sound, and special effects. The goal of editing is to make a film perfect for airing on the big screen. In this respect, it aims to remove all features affecting quality.
• Long shot: A scene in a film that filmmakers shoot from a considerable distance to give images and objects indistinct shapes, almost unrecognizable. An excellent long shot captures people walking New York City streets from the city’s skyline. While one would know the images are people walking, they cannot describe their demographics, such as age, gender, or race.
• Metaphor: A literary device that allows filmmakers to represent similarities between objects. An example of a metaphor in a movie is a visual metaphor, where filmmakers represent nouns through graphical images to suggest a particular association or resemblance. For example, an advert can represent beauty through the appearance of a flawless face, implying that beauty is equal to a look without flaws. Such an advert increases people’s interest in having a perfect face, leading to purchasing beauty products.
• Montage: The film editing technique where filmmakers combine a series of short shots into one sequence to condense time, establish continuity, or provide contrast. Montages take different forms, including repetition of camera movements, minimal or no dialogue, quick cuts, music, and voice narration.
• New wave: A French art film movement that emerged in the late 1950s to pave the way for experimentation and iconoclasm, thus rejecting traditional filmmaking conventions. Filmmakers who subscribed to this wave used film as a medium, like pottery or novels, for telling stories and translating thoughts and ideas by experimenting with form and style.
• Mockumentary traits: Films that assume a documentary genre, although they do not tell true stories. Instead, filmmakers use parody, satire, and humor to describe contemporary society through events, ideas, and emerging trends. Simply put, a movie is a mockumentary if it is a fictional documentary.
• Slow motion: A filmmaking effect where time appears to slow down because the film captures footage at a slower speed. This technique is common for rewinding scenarios to reinforce an idea in the audience. For example, most productions of sports tournaments use slow motion to provide viewers with detailed and perfect shots that leave no room for imagination and analysis.
• Soundtrack: The sound, often music, which filmmakers incorporate in a plot to accompany scenes for heightened effects, such as arousing the audience’s emotions. In most instances, this music plays in the background, often from a low to high intensity and vice versa, depending on the scene.
• Theme: The concept, idea, or principle that emphasizes a film’s plot and central message, such cas sadness, victory, morality, or community. By identifying the themes that a director uses to construct the plot, authors of a film analysis essay can tell the audience their meaning and significance through the story of the protagonist.
• Symmetry: The quality of balancing shots between characters or placing shots symmetrically to each other to create a pattern. For example, visual symmetry involves repeating parts of an image along a path, across an axis, or around a center. Filmmakers use symmetrical patterns to convey a sense of unity or uniformity.
• Symbolism: The literary device of using objects to symbolize ideas. For example, a filmmaker can use a dove to symbolize peace or the color black to symbolize evil. In essence, symbolism allows filmmakers to communicate profound messages to the audience. Therefore, students need to identify symbols representing ideas in film analysis.

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Topic Examples for Writing a Film Analysis Essay

• Video Review: Salt (2010)
• Video Review and Approval of Black Panther (2018)
• Analysis Essay of Volodymyr Zelensky’s Speech “I Call for You to Do More”
• Examining Gender Issues Through Symbolism in The Ugly Truth (2009)
• Discussing the Narrative Structure in The Godfather (1972)
• Evaluating Christopher Nolan’s Use of Mise-en-Scène Elements in Oppenheimer (2023)
• What Features Indicate the Context of Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club (1993)?
• What Is the Cultural Context of City of God (2002)?
• How Does History Feature as an Element in the Star Wars Trilogy?
• How Does Roman Polanski Employ Flashback and Flashforward to Tell the Story of Wladyslaw Szpilman in The Pianist (2002)?
• Discussing the Conception of Time in The Matrix (1999)
• How Does the Setting of The Departed (2006) Underscore the Film’s Contemporary Significance?
• Describing the Chronology of Events in The Bark Night Rises (2012)
• How Does Casting Affect the Plot in American Beauty (1992)?
• What Central Themes Describe the Plot in Inglorious Bastards (2009)?
• Discussing How Scenes in Idiots (2009) Facilitate the Plot
• Analysis of Gothic Elements in the Horror Genre via the Lens of The Mummy (2017)
• Evaluating Mel Gibson’s Directing of The Braveheart (1995)
• Discussing the Scenarios that Construct the Climax in Capernaum (2018)
• Evaluating Al Pacino’s Acting in Scarface (1983)
• Analyzing the Significance of Visual Effects in Film From the Perspective of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)
• How Does Sound Affect the Audience in Monster House (2006)?
• Evaluating How Camera Angle Enrich Viewer Experience in Top Gun: Maverick (2022)
• How Does Lighting Fit in the Gothic Film Sleepy Hollow (1999)?
• How Does Steven Spielberg Employ References in E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (1982)?
• Analysis of Animation in a Film From the Perspective of King Kong (1933)
• Who Is the Protagonist in The Wolf of Wallstreet (2013) and Why?
• What Makes Saruman the Antagonist in The Lord of the Rings Series?
• How Does Climax Underpin the Plot in Casino (1995)?
• Analyzing the Difference Between Heroes and Anti-Heroes via the Lenses of Black Panther (2018) and Black Adam (2022)
• How Does Suspense Create an Atmosphere of Anticipation in Black Swan (2010)?
• Discussing How Background Influences Viewer Experience in No Country for Old Men (2007)
• Evaluating the Impact of Harrison Ford’s Appearance in  Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues (2013)
• How Does M. Night Shyamalan Employ Cinematography in The Sixth Sense (1999)?
• Explaining Comic Relief in Film Using Uncut Gems (2019) as a Case Study
• Criticizing Jurassic Park (1993) from the Perspective of Cinematography
• How Does Director’s Cut Enrich the Storyline in Blade Runner (1982)?
• Exploring Foreshadowing in the Film Using 12 Years a Slave (2013)
• Explaining the Link Between Film Editing and Quality Using Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) as an Example
• How Do Long Shots Affect Viewers’ Experience in Film?
• Understanding a Visual Metaphor in Hotel Rwanda (2004)
• How Does Dialogue Underscore Montage in The Terminator (1984)?
• Analysis of How the Mid-20th Century New Wave Impacted French Filmmaking
• How Does Forgotten Silver (1995) Incorporate Mocumentary Traits?
• What Role Does Slow Motion Play in Films?
• Analyzing the Importance of Soundtracks From the Perspective of Horror Films
• How Do Film Directors Use Themes as Conveyors of the Central Message?
• Discussing How Symmetry Affects the Quality of Films
• Exploring Symbolism in the Film Using Angels & Demons (2009)

Sample Outline Template for Writing a Film Analysis Essay

I. Essay Introduction

• Introduce the film’s title, followed by the director’s name and year of production.
• Give a short description of the film or some context underpinning its release.
• End this paragraph with a thesis statement about the film.

II. Summary

• Overview the film by describing its context, setting, plot, and main characters.

III. Analysis

• Describe several scenes in more detail by focusing on various elements, including cinematography, mise-en-scène, and others that help to evaluate the film.
• Provide and cite some scenes as details and supporting evidence for analysis.
• Evaluate and interpret the use of the above elements.

IV. Conclusion

• Remind the audience about the film’s context and plot.
• Recapitulate information in the analysis section.
• Interpret the film’s significance.

Example of a Film Analysis Essay

Topic: What Features Indicate the Context of Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club (1993)?

I. Example of Writing an Introduction for a Film Analysis Essay

Films play a crucial role in educating people about the context within which movies come into their lives. Ideally, filmmakers implement various societal elements to construct ideas and use cinema as a conveyor belt to pass movies to different populations. Therefore, analyzing the film’s context is critical in understanding the ideas that the director embraced to produce the work. Several features in the 1993 film The Joy Luck Club indicate the film’s context.

II. Example of Writing a Summary Paragraph for a Film Analysis Essay

Directed by Wayne Wang, The Joy Luck Club tells the story of an Asian woman named Jun, born of the late Suyuan, who founded the Joy Luck Club social group. The movie’s plot revolves around the experiences of Asian mothers as immigrants in America from the perspective of their daughters. In this respect, the film takes a narrative approach. The movie’s setting alternates between San Francisco, California, and China, with the scenes in San Francisco representing the present day. Set in the 1980s, the storyline takes the viewer across generations. In this case, the mothers have flashbacks of the 1920s and 1940s.

III. Example of Writing an Analysis Paragraph for a Film Essay

A. physical landscape.

A key feature that reveals the context of The Joy Luck Club is the physical landscape. The film captures San Francisco as an urban place populated by buildings, busy streets, and a coastline. The movie contrasts this landscape with the mountainous landscape in China, where natural elements exceed physical structures.

B. Cultural Nuances

Another feature that reveals the film’s context is cultural nuances between mothers and their daughters. The viewer learns how mothers went through a world so different from that of their daughters to the extent they loathe some of the behaviors and mannerisms they see in them. However, the viewer can tell that some cultural differences between mothers and daughters may explain why there is confusion between two generations. Born in the conservative Chinese culture, mothers experience a cultural shock once in America, which does not happen for their daughters because they have only experienced the liberal American culture. In this respect, life values and perspectives of mothers and their daughters are constantly in conflict.

C. Conflict Between Generations

Although the scenes in San Francisco and China are essential to the storyline, cultural nuances of mothers and their daughters take center stage in a conflict between generations in the film. While daughters seem relaxed and willing to engage in fantasies, their mothers insist they embrace education as the noblest achievement. As such, two generations are always at loggerheads about leisure time because mothers seek to utilize every minute to work, while daughters want to have fun most of the time. Ironically, mothers see education as the tool to make their daughters truly American because it determines their quality of life.

IV. Example of Writing a Conclusion for a Film Analysis Essay

The Joy Luck Club exposes the experiences of Chinese mothers in America, showing some cultural nuances that influence their relationships with their daughters. The film depicts immigration as crucial to the women’s experiences in the movie because it is the avenue through which mothers arrived in America. In essence, the film depicts mothers as caring despite their unpleasant experiences and their daughters’ ignorance.

4 Easy Steps for Writing a Film Analysis Essay

Writing a good film analysis essay is a technical process that requires students to grasp and demonstrate certain qualities. Ideally, one should know how to produce a high-standard paper, including adequate preparation, stage setup, creating an initial draft, and perfecting a final draft. These details summarize the steps of writing a great film analysis essay.

Step 1: Preparation

Preparation is the first step of writing a film analysis essay and involves several tasks. The first aspect is defining possible essay topics if instructions from tutors do not specify them. In turn, one may select film research paper topics that are easy yet challenging. The second task is to generate ideas that the audience can relate to, such as the cultural or historical issues in the film.

Step 2: Stage Set Up

Setting the stage is the second step of writing a film analysis essay. It involves watching the film to understand its context and plot and using cinematography and other elements. The second task is to research credible sources that help to analyze the movie, such as scholarly reviews and scholarship on film, including gothic movies and the use of literary or rhetorical devices. The next task is to create a clear essay outline according to the sample above.

Step 3: The Writing Process of Starting a First Draft

The third step of writing a film analysis essay is to write a paper focusing on producing an initial draft. The text activity should combine all ideas to create a document with a logical order of ideas and content. Some of the activities in this stage include adding or deleting reliable sources to fit a paper and altering an initial outline to organize ideas. Students should also focus on developing a clear thesis statement when writing the introduction because it summarizes the paper’s aim. Students should adopt evidence-based writing by incorporating evidence and corresponding citations in the body. The last aspect is to restate the thesis and summarize the analysis in the conclusion by mentioning the most critical points.

Step 4: Wrap-Up and Finishing a Final Draft

The final step of writing a film analysis essay is to wrap it up by perfecting a first draft. In this respect, students should focus on revising their first drafts to eliminate flaws like inconsistent ideas. The second task is to edit a film analysis essay by adding to deleting words and sentences to foster a logical flow of thought. Students should also ensure each body paragraph has a topic sentence, evidence, scenes, or details cited from academic sources or films, explanation and analysis sentences, concluding remark, and transition to the next paragraph, not forgetting to check if the paper’s formatting is perfect. Concerning formatting, students should adopt one style in the entire document: APA, MLA, Harvard, or Chicago/Turabian. Considering The Joy Luck Club , templates and examples of citations should read as follows:

📕 Citing a Film in APA

• Reference entry: Wang, W. (Director). (1993). The Joy Luck Club [Film]. Walt Disney Studios.
• In-text citation: (Wang, 1993, 00:46:00-00:50:00)

📕 Citing a Film in MLA

• Work Cited entry: The Joy Luck Club . Directed by Wayne Wang, performances by Suyuan Woo and Rose Hsu Jordan, Walt Disney Studios, 1993.
• In-text citation: ( The Joy Luck Club 00:46:00-00:50:00)

📕 Citing a Film in Harvard

• Reference List entry: The Joy Luck Club (1993). Directed by Wayne Wang. Burbank, CA: Walt Disney Studios.
• In-text citation: ( The Joy Luck Club 1993, 00:46:00-00:50:00)

📕 Citing a Film in Chicago/Turabian

• Bibliography entry: Wang, Wayne, director. The Joy Luck Club . Walt Disney Studios, 1993.
• Footnote: 1. The Joy Luck Club , directed by Wayne Wang (Walt Disney Studios, 1993), 00:46:00-00:50:00.

20 Tips for Writing a Good Film Analysis Essay

Students must learn essential tips for writing a high-standard film analysis essay. These tips include watching a specific film before starting a movie analysis paper; determining the aspects to cover, such as the plot, cinematography, context, or setting; selecting suitable sources to construct ideas and defend arguments; and creating a well-organized outline.

10 things to do when writing a film analysis essay include:

• watching the film at least once;
• considering the audience;
• commenting on the acting;
• criticizing the directing by mentioning cinematography, mise-en-scène, or special effects;
• supporting the criticism;
• talking about the plot;
• consulting professional reviewers, like Roger Ebert and Rotten Tomatoes;
• reading, rereading, editing, and revising;
• cultivating a personal voice to demonstrate knowledge;
• proofreading the final text.

10 things not to do include:

• retelling the film;
• overusing sentences;
• generalizing ideas;
• continuously comparing the movie with its adaptations, like a book or novel;
• ignoring or doing superficial research;
• telling irrelevant details;
• writing poorly with too many grammar and format errors;
• getting too personal;
• reviewing another film;
• plagiarizing reviews.

Summing Up on How to Write a Perfect Film Analysis Essay

• Watch a chosen film while notetaking.
• Read several reviews focusing on the plot, context, setting, characters, scenes, and elements, like cinematography and mise-en-scène.
• Create a list of ideas.
• Organize the ideas to fit various aspects of a film indicated above: plot, context, and other elements.
• Write an appropriate introduction.
• Summarize the film.
• Analyze the film by exploring one or several aspects comprehensively.
• Write a conclusion, which must satisfy the audience.

Horror Film “Us” Analysis

Jordan Peele’s simple Get Out was a revelation when it premiered on screen in 2017. Peele was well-known as one of the most popular comedians thanks to her blockbuster show Key and Peele, but nothing in her past indicated she had a knack for horror stories. “Us” is an incredible, disturbing, but well-planned video that stirs the audience politically and socially, with a constant message about how black and white Americans engage and symbolic support aimed to make viewers of any colour roll. Sadly, this happened as we were laughing at Peele’s terrible joke. In the United States, there is a lot fewer recognizable area, which creates stress due to the situation’s enormous unpredictability (da Silva, 2019). The French Revolution and many of the protests we witness now in modern American culture were sparked by disparities in income and access to resources.

“Us” is a horror picture based on a domestic violence drama. Yet, the similarity reminds us that “The Godfather” is a crime film and “2001: A Space Odyssey” is a science fiction novel. The film’s applicability is unrelated to whether or not its rules are fulfilled; what matters is that Peele uses tropes and horrifying precedents to focus his film on pop culture rather than those roots. “Us” is a film that immerses itself in pop culture with the aim of self-examination – and self-examination – its theme being, to a significant degree, cultural knowledge and ignorance—the terrible political and moral side of symbolic thinking facts (da Silva, 2019). The protagonists are confronted with something they do not comprehend and do not know how to combat. As the story progresses, the stranger and wilder it becomes, with Peele deferring the revelations until the film’s last minutes.

“Us” is split into two timelines at first. A small girl visits the Santa Cruz beach boardwalk in 1986, as the advantages of Hands across America appear, and faces a scary round. Adelaide Wilson remembers this meeting as a terrifying experience as an adult. When her husband Gabe writes about a vacation that takes her back to the same beach, she starts to have negative memories (Fair, 2021). The dreaded dopplegängers of Adelaide, Gabe, and their children Zora and Jason appeared nowhere, clothed in red jumpsuits and brandishing brilliantly coloured checks. Everything that comes out of it, from where it comes from to what it wants, comes as a series of shocks that happen faster than words can describe. The social metaphor in “Us” is not as apparent as in “exit,” but it’s still there. Peele said the film was about America’s irrational fear of outsiders in a post-game Q&A at SXSW. “We’re at a point in history when we’re terrified of someone else; whether it’s an unknown assailant who will kill us and take our jobs or a political party we don’t live near that voted differently (da Silva, 2019). We are all about pointing fingers, and there’s a suggestion that the monster “Us” should have a look at our faces.

Another key metaphor emerges in the narrative as the analogy is realized, as Adelaide and her family face their warped mirror selves. It is a message about income imbalance and how easy it is to be ignorant of riches and comfort while others suffer and go hungry (Oswald, 2019). Adelaide and her family and their friends, the Tylers, live in similar opulence and are free to resolve minor difficulties such as whether Jacob can find a working magic show or whether Gabe’s new boat is large enough to accommodate the entire family. Regardless of how they arrived on this earth, they ignore the deep-seated pain of those around them. “Us” has the ring of a modern shock. A drop follows the first panic into calm and familiar settings that bring the characters to a halt, a sequence of simile scenes and false alarms, and a rapid spike in stress (McGowan, 2019). Leadership can be perplexing and monotonous, especially if the audience learns nothing new about the characters other than Gabe’s disinterest in Adelaide’s prior pain and Zora and Jacob’s strained relationship as the actual shock of change arrives quickly; maybe it’s amusing – until it isn’t. When the two look and act like animals, especially in their limbs, Peele points out that they still have an undiscovered personality that gives them terrible sadness (McGowan, 2019). When Adelaide, shocked by their arrival, asked one of them what it was, she replied, with a rictus grin, “We are Americans.”

In summary, the film depicts a civilization divided into haves and have-nots. While one caste enjoys their life and has agency, the other is doomed to wander through tunnels. It’s a remark on the rich vs the poor, or whites vs minorities. The writer has been tight-lipped about any “Us” movie explanations, which is part of the fun of delving into the film. While there are numerous metaphors drawn from this film, it ultimately boils down to who has and does not have the privilege. The French Revolution and many of the protests we witness now in modern American culture were sparked by disparities in income and access to resources.

da Silva, J. B. (2019). Living in the Sunken Place: Notes on Jordan Peele’s Get Out as Gothic Fiction. Lublin Studies in Modern Languages and Literature, 43(2), 125-133.

Fair, D. (2021). The Other Is Us: A Critical Analysis of Race in Jordan Peele’s Us.

McGowan, T. (2019). Two forms of fetishism: from the commodity to revolution in «Us».  Galactica Media: Journal of Media Studies ,  1 (1), 63-87.

Oswald, V. (2019).  Jordan Peele and Keegan-Michael Key . The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc.

Peele, J. Film Review: Us.

van der Elsen, M. W. J. (2020). Educating America on Race: Absurdist Humor as Critical Public Pedagogy in the Works and Performances of Kara Walker, Dave Chappelle, and Jordan Peele.

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Get Out: The Horror of White Women

by Sophie Hall

December 8, 2020

Get Out was one of the biggest successes of 2017. With a budget of $4.5 million, the film grossed over $200 million worldwide, won director/screenwriter Jordan Peele an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, and became one of the most influential films of the decade. Get Out deftly weaves various genres, but settling on one has caused mild controversy, as when it was nominated for Best Musical or Comedy at the 2018 Golden Globes, Peele disagreed and stated, “…it [ Get Out ] was a social thriller.” However, I feel that Get Out ’s genre is undoubtedly horror due to one key factor—the character of Rose Armitage and how she uses her race as a weapon.

Get Out follows the story of Chris Washington, a twenty-six-year-old aspiring photographer. He is in a relationship with Rose, a WASP-y but seemingly woke white women of a similar age. One weekend, Rose invites Chris to meet her parents at their remote country home—“Do your parents know I'm Black?” Chris asks awkwardly. “No,” Rose lies. “Should they?”

Indeed they should—it is later revealed that Rose becomes romantically involved specifically with Black men (and sometimes women) in order to take them to her father, a neurosurgeon so that he can transplant the brains of his (mainly white) friends and family into their bodies, as Black skin is deemed more desirable.

Throughout the film, we see Rose using her race as a way to ensnare and manipulate Chris. Firstly, we see Rose using her white privilege as a way to trap Chris. In the film’s first act, Chris and Rose encounter a police officer on their way to her parent’s house. The officer asks to see Chris’s license (even though he wasn’t driving the car) and Rose calls the officer out on his 'bullshit.'

However, what initially appears to be Rose standing up against institutionalized racism in the police force is chilling in hindsight; she was doing it so that Chris’ details were not recorded for when he later goes missing. The fact that she was able to do this was due to her white privilege—Chris, a Black man, alone, would not able to convince the officer to let him go otherwise.

Another way in which Rose uses her white skin to her advantage is by falsely displaying herself as an ally. On their first night at her parent’s house, Rose rants about her parent’s apparent lack of cultural awareness around Chris, sounding even more appalled than he does, who experiences it firsthand. On the DVD commentary, Jordan Peele said that “I think the scene is pivotal in our not suspecting her… the fact that she’s more turned up about this than he is.”

Later, in the scene where Chris decides to stay at the Armitage’s home because of his love of Rose, she deceives him further by suggesting that they should in fact leave. Rose’s deception is revealed in a killing blow at the end of Act II, where she iconically reveals that she has Chris’ car keys, preventing him from leaving and exposing her part in the plan.

Chris is then physically restrained by Rose’s brother and put into the 'sunken place' by Rose’s mother. However, the unique thing about Rose’s villainous reveal was not the fact that she was a ‘bad guy’, but the way it was executed.

Instead of telling Chris that she despised him or was revolted by them being together, she calmly says, ‘You were one of my favorites’ as if consoling him. It’s not just a shocking plot twist, it’s an emotional gut punch.

For The Guardian , journalist Lanre Bakare writes: “The villains here aren’t southern rednecks or neo-Nazi skinheads, or the so-called 'alt-right.' They’re middle-class white liberals… It [ Get Out ] exposes a liberal ignorance and hubris that has been allowed to fester. It’s an attitude, an arrogance which in the film leads to a horrific final solution, but in reality, leads to a complacency that is just as dangerous.”

And that ‘complacency’ is just what makes Rose so horrifying—she is just as racist as a so-called ‘neo-Nazi skinhead,' but she doesn’t realize this because of her so-called liberal ideals. The Armitage family wants Black bodies not to erase them but to inhabit them for their more admirable traits. In a weird way, Rose doesn’t see herself as racist—she thinks she’s paying him a compliment by having chosen him in the first place.

This attitude is a deliberate reflection by Jordan Peele on contemporary America. In the aftermath of Trump winning the 2016 election against Hillary Clinton, widespread marches erupted across America (and the world) which focused on Trump’s history of sexual assault and misconduct.

However, the marches at large failed to address the fact that 53% of white American women voted for Trump, a shocking comparison to the 94% of Black women who voted for Clinton. White women contributed greatly to Trump being elected, but the white women who went on the marches against Trump only considered the effect on their rights and not the additional impact on the rights of Black women and women of color.

Another way in which Rose uses her white privilege as a source of horror was in her phone conversation with Chris’ friend Rod. He was concerned and suspicious of Chris’ sudden disappearance and was enquiring about his whereabouts. Rose initially acts innocent and tries to draw sympathy from Rod, saying she’s ‘so confused’ by the situation.

However, when Rod doesn't fall for Rose’s ploy, she changes tactics; she states that the reason Rod called was because of his alleged sexual attraction to her, asserting that she knows ‘you [Rod] think about fucking me.’ Rod hastily hangs up, adding that Rose is a ‘genius.’ And Rod is telling the truth; Rose is not only weaponizing her whiteness but her white femininity.

The fear of Black men attacking white women has been ingrained in the American subconscious for over a century. The film The Birth of A Nation helped to create this fear—in Ava DuVernay’s documentary 13th , writer/educator Jelani Cobb notes: “There’s a famous scene where a woman throws herself off a cliff rather than be raped by a black male criminal. In the film you see black people being a threat to white women.” Despite this, The Birth of A Nation was (and still is) considered to be one of the greatest films of all time, and until recently was still being taught in film schools across America.

The idea of Black men being a threat to white women was still being peddled by American society well into the 21st century, with one of the recent prominent examples being the Bush vs. Dukakis presidential election in 2003. Dukakis wanted criminals to have weekend releases and to combat this, Bush’s campaign used Willie Horton, a Black man convicted of raping a white woman as a fear-mongering tactic against Dukakis.

Again in 13th, Harvard professor Khalil G. Muhammed states: “Bush won the election by creating fear around black men as criminal, without saying that's what he was doing... It went to a primitive fear, a primitive American fear because Willie Horton was metaphorically the black male rapist that had been a staple of the white imagination since the time just after slavery.”

Rose not only uses this American fear against Rod but also against Chris. In the film’s final act, Chris manages to escape the Armitage home and the fate of all of Rose’s previous exes. Rose pursues him with a shotgun but is ultimately mortally injured by Walter, a Black gardener whose mind was occupied by Rose’s grandfather.

As Rose lays on the road dying, Chris goes to her and begins to strangle her. He cannot bring himself to finish the job, however, but it doesn’t matter—flashing lights fill the screen, and Rose, thinking it’s the police, theatrically cries for help.

In the theatrical ending, it turns out to be Rod coming to Chris’ rescue, not the police coming to Rose’s, much to the audience's delight. However, Jordan Peele originally had a much bleaker idea in mind and shot an alternate ending, one that did indeed have the police arriving and Chris ultimately put in prison.

In the podcast Another Round, Peele notes that “The ending in that era was meant to say, ‘Look, you think race isn’t an issue?’ Well, in the end, we all know how this movie would end right here.” And it’s true, hence why Rose immediately started to cry for help when she saw the lights.

Although a fictional film, we know that the image of Chris, a Black man, crouching over a wounded white woman, would’ve been a life sentence for the character. Even though she would’ve died in both endings, Rose could’ve still won in the alternate ending due to her race.

Catherine Keener’s character Missy Armitage also uses her whiteness as horror in Get Out . In the aforementioned podcast, Peele explains, “The idea of getting hypnotized or being in a psychiatrist’s chair which is partially playing off of the stereotype and generalization that the Black community hasn’t exactly embraced therapy as a means to get to your inner turmoil…religion is where it goes.” Missy’s character using a therapeutic technique to manipulate Chris was a deliberate ploy by Peeleto to create anxiety in the Black audience and more specifically have that anxiety being sourced by a white character.

Even though the other two members of the Armitage family, Dean and Jeremy, can physically antagonize Chris—Dean, the father, would be the one to perform the operation on Chris and Jeremy, the son, is his physical opponent,—neither affect Chris’ psychology or character development in the way that Missy and Rose do.

In John Truby’s novel The Anatomy of Story , the writer proposes, “Create an opponent… who is exceptionally good at attacking your hero’s weaknesses.” Both Missy and Rose do exactly this—Missy introduces a weakness of Chris, the fact that he left his mother to die, and brings it to the fore. This leads Chris to decide to stay with Rose later in the movie, as he tries to right the wrongs he made in the past for her. Missy exposed Chris’ weakness and Rose exploited it. The actions of the two women are what help drive the narrative forward.

Another way in which Peele made Rose a source of horror in Get Out was altering the ‘final girl' trope. Like most final girls, Rose is white, young, intelligent, and spends the majority of the film in an isolated house. However, instead of being the one to escape the monster and live to tell the tale, she is the monster and is ultimately the one who is defeated by the film’s true hero.

Furthermore, in their video essay on ‘Final Girls’, The Take   surmises, "The flip side to the ‘final girl’ after all is the ‘black guy dies first’ trope. While audiences are expected to be terrified for the white girl, the deaths of black characters are regarded as just part of the show.” The fact that Rose is the film's baddie is subversive, but the way that Peele wrote for Chris, a Black man, to be the one to defeat her, is a delicious spin on audience expectations of the horror genre.

This new take on the 'Final Girl’ seems to have ushered in a new generation of women in horror—since Get Out’ s 2017 release, we have since seen Suspiria ,  Midsommar , and Us (also by Peele), where the final girls are either the villains or go to dark lengths in order to achieve their goals. Final girls are no longer enduring horror—they are inflicting it.

Rose Armitage is one of the scariest on-screen villains in recent years, but not because she has fangs or wields a chainsaw—it is because we know someone like a Rose in real life. Rose is the most dangerous character in Get Out because she is the most real. Even though her malevolence is overwhelming, Jordan Peele does not want audiences to cower from her, but rather face her head-on.

Get your copy of the Get Out 4K Blu-ray by clicking here.

Get your copy of the Birth of a Nation DVD by clicking here.

If you want to learn more about race and the film, order the book  Critical Race Theory and Jordan Peele's Get Out.

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

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

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

• 📽️ Film Analysis Definition

📚 Types of Film Analysis

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

📝 Film Analysis Example

• 🍿 More Examples

🔗 References

📽️ what is a film analysis essay.

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

Film Analysis vs Film Review

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

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

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

📋 Film Analysis Format

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

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

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

📑 Film Analysis Essay Outline

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

Film Analysis Introduction

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

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

Film Analysis Thesis

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

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

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

Movie Analysis Main Body

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

Here are two things to avoid in body paragraphs:

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

Film Analysis Conclusion

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

✍️ How to Write a Film Analysis Essay

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

1. Understand the Prompt

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

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

2. Watch the Film & Take Notes

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

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

3. Develop a Thesis and an Outline

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

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

4. Write Your Movie Analysis

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

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

5. Revise and Proofread

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

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

🎞️ Movie Analysis: Sample Prompts

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

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

🎬 Top 15 Film Analysis Essay Topics

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

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

Film Analysis Essay Introduction Example

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

Film Analysis Body Paragraphs Example

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

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

Film Analysis Conclusion Example

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

🍿 More Film Analysis Examples

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

❓ Film Analysis Essay: FAQ

Why is film analysis important.

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

How to write a movie analysis?

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

How to write a critical analysis of a movie?

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

How to write a psychological analysis of a movie?

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

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

Descriptive Essay Topics: Examples, Outline, & More

371 fun argumentative essay topics for 2024.

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Essays on Movie Analysis

Film analysis essay topics and outline examples, essay title 1: film analysis - "the shawshank redemption" (1994): hope, redemption, and the human spirit.

Thesis Statement: This film analysis explores the enduring appeal of "The Shawshank Redemption," examining its themes of hope, friendship, and the resilience of the human spirit, as well as the storytelling techniques that make it a cinematic masterpiece.

• Introduction
• Plot Overview: The Prison Experience of Andy Dufresne
• Themes and Symbolism: Hope, Freedom, and Redemption
• Character Analysis: Andy Dufresne and Ellis "Red" Redding
• Cinematic Techniques: Directorial Style and Cinematography
• Legacy and Critical Acclaim: Why "The Shawshank Redemption" Endures
• Impact on Pop Culture and Society

Essay Title 2: Film Analysis - "Blade Runner" (1982): Science Fiction, Humanity, and Artificial Intelligence

Thesis Statement: This film analysis delves into Ridley Scott's "Blade Runner," exploring its dystopian vision of the future, the questions it raises about humanity and artificial intelligence, and the enduring influence it has had on the science fiction genre.

• The Futuristic World of "Blade Runner": Setting and Atmosphere
• Exploring the Replicant Dilemma: Ethics, Identity, and Humanity
• Character Analysis: Deckard, Rachael, and Roy Batty
• Visual and Cinematic Techniques: Creating a Cyberpunk Aesthetic
• Legacy and Influence: "Blade Runner" in the Sci-Fi Canon
• Themes and Messages Relevant to Contemporary Society

Essay Title 3: Film Analysis - "Pan's Labyrinth" (2006): Fantasy, Reality, and the Power of Imagination

Thesis Statement: This film analysis dissects Guillermo del Toro's "Pan's Labyrinth," examining its blend of dark fantasy and historical drama, the symbolism of the labyrinth, and how it conveys the importance of imagination and resistance in the face of oppressive regimes.

• The World of "Pan's Labyrinth": Post-Civil War Spain and Fantasy
• Symbols and Metaphors: The Labyrinth, Faun, and Ofelia's Journey
• Character Analysis: Ofelia, Captain Vidal, and Mercedes
• Cinematic Craftsmanship: Visual Effects and Practical Effects
• Interpreting the Film: Political Allegory and Escapism
• Guillermo del Toro's Contribution to Cinema and Storytelling

Analysis of Seven Pounds

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Beautiful Mind: Synopsis

The movie good will hunting": psychology analysis, film birdman of alcatraz directed by john frankenheimer, the 400 blows: describing the problem that should never be ignored, let us write you an essay from scratch.

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Analysis of The Film "Independence Day" in Terms of "Domestic Analogy"

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Covering The Criminalization on African Americans in The 13th Documentary

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‘Civil War’ sends a message that’s more dangerous than the violence it depicts onscreen

A month after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, the historian Yuval Noah Harari made a bold claim that seemed delusional.

Harari made his claim in an essay on the heroism of the Ukrainian people. He praised embattled Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky , who refused to flee his country when death seemed certain, telling his would-be rescuers that he needed ammunition, not a ride. He marveled at the outnumbered Ukrainian soldiers on Snake Island who told a Russian warship to “go f**k yourself,” and the civilians blocking Russian tanks with their bodies.

“Nations are ultimately built on stories,” said Harari, author of “ Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind.” “Each passing day adds more stories that Ukrainians will not only tell in the dark days ahead, but in the decades and generations to come … This is the stuff nations are built from. In the long run, these stories count for more than tanks.”

But there’s another type of story that’s gained traction in the US — the kind that can cause a nation to unravel. The new hit movie, “Civil War,” which has earned more than $100 million worldwide at the box office, is the latest example of a disturbing trend: We no longer seem to know how to tell well-crafted stories that counter those that depict American democracy as doomed.

In “Civil War,” tanks trample democracy. The film depicts a near-future America that has been torn apart by seceding regions and militia violence. It features a fascist leader in the White House, an attempted coup and Americans casually killing one another in the streets. One critic called it writer-director Alex Garland’s “ very in-your-face attempt to imagine the unimaginable in America.”

It’s hard to imagine any other future for the United States when you consider the popularity of movies like “Civil War.” Most of the stories about the state of America that gain traction in popular culture are the ones that end in its failure. They’re the opposite of the hopeful, unifying stories any country needs to overcome tough times.

“Civil War” is part of a growing entertainment genre that, to borrow a phrase from former President Donald Trump, could be called “ American carnage .” Dystopian movies and TV shows like “The Walking Dead,” “The Purge,” “The Hunger Games,” “The Handmaid’s Tale” and “The Last of Us” all imagine a hellish future in America triggered by an environmental, political or civic collapse.

There’s nothing wrong with dystopian thrillers. They serve as cautionary tales and are as old as the book of Revelation. But the messages they send may be more dangerous than the violence depicted onscreen: The collapse of democracy is inevitable. Americans can never transcend their tribalism. Resistance is futile.

There’s something wrong when we churn out stories about superheroes in spandex banding together from different galaxies to save the universe, but we can’t tell a popular story that shows Americans coming together to save our country.

‘Casablanca’ offers a lesson for today’s Americans

It didn’t used to be this way. There was another time when democracy in America was under threat, and filmmakers responded by making stirring movies aimed at lifting Americans’ spirit and equipping them for the battles ahead.

Consider “ Casablanca,” the classic 1942 film. It proves that you can tell a gripping story about patriotism without being sappy or boring. In the film, Humphrey Bogart plays Rick, the cynical owner of a Moroccan nightclub at the onset of World War II. The movie is remembered today for its classic lines (“Here’s looking at you kid”; “We’ll always have Paris”; “Round up the usual suspects”).

Yet there’s another classic line uttered by Rick — “I stick my neck out for nobody” — that hints at deeper reasons why “Casablanca” was made. The film is set before Pearl Harbor, when many Americans didn’t want to get involved in a European conflict. Adolf Hitler’s Nazi war machine seemed unstoppable. Fascism was on a global march. Democracy’s future seemed grim.

Rick responds to the impending crisis with apathy and cynicism. But when his old flame, played by actress Ingrid Bergman , walks into his club one night, she not only rekindles their romance but his idealism.

“The movie was a patriotic rallying cry that affirmed a sense of national purpose,” wrote Cristóbal S. Berry-Cabán in an essay. “The film emphasized group effort and the value of individual sacrifices for a larger cause. It portrayed World War II as a peoples’ war, typically featuring a diverse group of people and ethnic backgrounds who are thrown together, tested, and molded into a dedicated (force) fighting fascism.”

Other films of that era made similar storytelling choices. Legendary Hollywood director Frank Capra made a series of seven patriotic films during World War II called “ Why We Fight” that rallied Americans in the fight against fascism.

The entertainer Frank Sinatra,  a paragon of mid-20th century American masculinity, starred in a short film called “ The House We Live In.” It would be labeled “woke” today. In the film, Sinatra intervenes when he sees a group of youths chasing a Jewish boy. He tells them that “religion makes no difference, except to a Nazi or someone who’s stupid.” The film was eventually selected by the Library of Congress as being “culturally and historically” significant.

Sinatra would later record a song with the same title as the film, which he would perform throughout his career. It included lines like, “ The faces that I see. All races and religions. That’s America to me.”

Other World War II-era films like “ Don’t be a Sucker,” which emphasized racial and religious tolerance in America, emphasized the same message. It went viral after the 2017 neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Those black-and-white films may seem dated and idealistic in an America that has been through the Vietnam War, Watergate, 9/11 and January 6. But a country needs a unifying story like a human being needs oxygen.

“Stories are essential to holding a nation together,” says Kermit Roosevelt III , a historian and author of “The Nation That Never Was: Reconstructing America’s Story.” “You have to have something that motivates people to make sacrifices for the nation. If you’re going to fight a war, you have to have people who are willing to lay down their lives. But we more often call on people to make sacrifices for others, to bear burdens, promote justice and help out the less fortunate.”

That doesn’t mean we return to the days of making clumsy propaganda films. But Roosevelt says we should keep in mind that most stories contain some elements of propaganda.

“We have this idea that propaganda is bad or ideology is bad,” Roosevelt says. “But I think that history and education are inherently ideological, and there’s a perspective there and you’re trying to impart lessons.”

What united Reagan and Obama

Some of America’s most gifted political leaders knew that lesson well. Two of the most consequential presidents in recent memory — Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama — were master storytellers. They told stories that made Americans believe in democracy, in one another and in their country’s future.

Reagan’s skills were on display when he told a story about American vitality in his farewell speech that echoed Sinatra’s “The House We Live In.” He said the source of America’s greatness was immigrants.

“While other countries cling to the stale past, here in America we breathe life into dreams,” Reagan said. “Thanks to each wave of new arrivals to this land of opportunity, we’re a nation forever young, forever bursting with energy and new ideas, and always on the cutting edge, always leading the world to the world to the next frontier. This quality is vital to our future as a nation.”

Former President Obama cited his personal story as a reason to believe in America, despite the country’s history of not living up to its ideals. The son of a White mother from Kansas and a Black father from Kenya, Obama said his journey to national prominence was proof that the American dream was possible.

“I stand here knowing that my story is part of the larger American story, that I owe a debt to all of those who came before me, and that, in no other country on Earth is my story even possible,” he during his speech at the  2004 Democratic National Convention, which would eventually catapult him to the White House.

It’s easy to dismiss Reagan’s and Obama’s storytelling as the product of clever speechwriters. What candidate doesn’t call America great, or vow that anything is possible in the land of the free and home of the brave?

But the dominant American political figure of recent years does not typically tell such unifying stories about his country. Former President Trump coined the term “American carnage” during his 2017 inaugural address. He routinely describes an America that more resembles the failed state depicted in the “Civil War” movie, with his declaration in January that “We are a nation in decline, we are a failing nation.”

Telling that kind of story hasn’t appeared to hurt Trump any more than it hurt the makers of “Civil War.” And, truth be told, stories of American greatness can ring hollow to the descendants of enslaved Americans, the Japanese Americans interned during World War II and those dismayed today by politicians and judges who disregard democratic norms.

How can we tell a story today that doesn’t ignore the brutality of American history but still inspires hope for the future?

There’s another figure from the past who may help us.

Making the ‘emotional case for democracy’

Walt Whitman, the 19 th century writer dubbed “the poet of democracy,” said that America was his greatest poem. Through poetry, Whitman did what so many seem incapable of today — he made a multiracial, multireligious democracy in America visceral and exciting, not a civics lesson.

In “ Songs of Myself,” Whitman vividly described America as “the Nation of many nations,” and said of himself and his country,” “Of every hue and caste am I, of every rank and religion.”

Read Whitman today and one is struck by his expansive definition of what it means to be an American. No one is excluded — he treats the “boatman and clam-diggers, the farmer, the deacon, the runaway slave, the prostitute and the president with equal reverence, “For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.”

The historian Ian Beacock said Whitman offers an answer for those who wonder how they can defend democracy against stories that predict its demise. He suggests they take Whitman’s approach: “State an emotional case for democracy that appeals as much to those who already possess power as to those yet without it.”

It starts with being honest about the appeal of other modes of government, like fascism, he says.

“It’s obvious that being free and equal is better than being dominated,” Beacock wrote .” But is it better than dominating? Exerting power over others is a seductive feeling, too, if a dark and dangerous one.”

Many democracies simply “unravel” because their citizens get complacent, Beacock says. Democracy is hard to sustain because of its constant demands for compromise. People often go shopping for alternatives that seem like less work, he says.

Whitman told stories about democracy that engaged people’s feelings, not just their intellect, Beacock says.

“This is perhaps Whitman’s core contribution to democratic thought and practice: the reminder that democracy’s defenders mustn’t neglect political feelings (“Logic and sermons never convince”) and that self-government must appeal to the human heart if it is to last long. “

We need a new way to tell the American story

The Austrian philosopher Ivan Illich was once asked about the most revolutionary way to change a society. He said :

“Neither revolution nor reformation can ultimately change a society, rather you must tell a new powerful tale, one so persuasive that it sweeps away the old myths and becomes the preferred story, one so inclusive that it gathers all the bits of our past and our present into a coherent whole, one that even shines some light into our future so that we can take the next step…”

How Americans in 2024 decide to tell their national story is up for debate. What shouldn’t be up for discussion, though, is the need for such stories. Isn’t it time we tell a new story of a future America where the White House isn’t going up in flames and citizens aren’t murdering one another?

The box office success of “Civil War” ensures, though, that more “American carnage” stories are likely headed our way . Though the film doesn’t take any political sides, it amplifies the same message that autocrats in Russia and China are making through their propaganda : America is hopelessly divided and degenerate, and democracy is doomed.  

Maybe it’s time to rediscover what Americans of another era knew. Those old black-and-white films about what makes America special may seem corny now. But they understood that you must defend democracy not only with tanks, but with stirring tales that reverberate for generations to come.

If you believe democracy is under threat in America, find a “new powerful tale” that inspires us to believe it has a future.

But don’t dispense platitudes or give us a civics lesson.

Tell us a story.

John Blake is a Senior Writer at CNN and the author of “ More Than I Imagined: What a Black Man Discovered About the White Mother He Never Knew . ”

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Review: Coolly argued but driven by fury, ‘Power’ examines the history of American policing

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The phrase “to protect and to serve,” forged by the Los Angeles Police Department and enshrined in cop shows, did a lot of work over the years massaging a nationwide image of police as a community’s civic knights. One could imagine a more grimly appropriate flip-side motto, however, after absorbing “Strong Island” director Yance Ford’s new documentary, “Power,” a stinging analysis of the forces that created American police authority as we know it: “to control and to suppress.”

On a micro level, who gets protected and who gets controlled shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone with a passing grasp of our inequalities and access to footage of violent police interactions. What lingers, disturbingly, from the Academy Award-nominated filmmaker’s deep dive into how we got to the point of conspicuous militarization, stop-and-frisk, beatings of protesters and George Floyd’s murder, is the macro of it: how much the (dys)functioning of police departments grew out of a booming country’s worst instincts toward those who weren’t property-owning white people.

Minneapolis police Inspector Charlie Adams — one of Ford’s many interviewees — points to the throughline connecting the antebellum South’s slave patrols to today’s cops stopping Black people and requesting IDs. (Adams is himself Black.) Other talking heads, including professor Nikhil Pal Singh and sociologist Julian Go, explain policing’s other sources: frontier militias who cleared lands of Indigenous people so whites could settle. As cities grew and the maw of industry required workers, the municipal forces that monitored immigrants broke strikes. Policing grew out of these dominant capitalist dynamics, rather than some idealized vision of self-governance or a notion of security for all.

That’s just the background, however, to the scope of Ford’s inquiry, which lays bare policing’s colonialist origins, the legitimization of police violence and how even a moment of honest political clarity about civil unrest and Black resistance could be exploited to bolster authority. While the blockbuster Kerner Commission Report in 1968 may have correctly diagnosed poverty, failed policies and racism as significant problems, the only takeaway the government acted on was adding more police. And after 9/11, the solution was to add even more police, with more war-style weapons.

Filmmaker Yance Ford presents the police as the ‘armies that they have become’ in ‘Power’

As a follow-up to his Oscar-nominated “Strong Island,” the documentarian turns to the history of American policing, why it was established and how it functions.

May 9, 2024

“Power’s” archival element is tightly handled. One of Ford’s most effective montages splices together every president from Nixon to Biden defending law enforcement, an over 50-year span from “law and order” to “fund the police.” There also are eye-opening clips from old newsreels showing police aggression and an excerpt from a badge-glorifying pre-Code melodrama called “The Beast of the City.” A true cop-aganda curio from the vault is a 1970 doc called “The Police Film” hosted by Ben Gazzara, the actor’s stern baritone selling you on the necessity of maintaining social order while visuals show ants overtaking a threat to the colony.

The interviewees, meanwhile, are a formidable assemblage, offering insight upon insight into American policing and its scary buildup in the face of repeated calls for meaningful, overdue reform. Mixed in with the scholars is the compelling testimony of a Queens man of Indian heritage who grew up during stop-and-frisk. He speaks movingly of the incremental sapping of self-worth that comes with being constantly targeted to demonstrate force.

As “Power” flows, Ford gets close to the kind of impact Ava DuVernay’s “13th” had as a bracing social history lesson on an out-of-control ill. In fact, the documentary’s many fascinating strands, falling under headings like “Social Control,” “Counter Insurgency” and “Violence Work” (with Ford himself providing occasional voice-over commentary or an off-camera prompt), almost beg for more intensive analysis. “Power” could just as easily have benefited from the docuseries treatment, but even at less than 90 minutes, it lands plenty of hard truths and harder questions.

'Power'

Rating: R, for language and some violent content Running time: 1 hour, 25 minutes Playing: Laemmle Monica, West Los Angeles; on Netflix May 17

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