How to write a movie review

How to write a movie review

If you have a movie blog (like this one) or want to write movie reviews for others, it’s important to learn how to write them in order to gradually make your way as a film critic or critic.

For our part, we will talk about the structure of a review, its tone, and the elements to add. How To Write A Movie Review?

Structure of a movie review

There are a number of common elements within every review, which are the ones we are going to address. From there, you can always further customize based on the length of the review or the type of movie to review.

Context and basic information of the film

It is important to put the readers in context. They may not know movie details like production year, country, genre and other general information. Thus, in an argumentative manner, you can add in the first two paragraphs:

• The reason you’re writing the review: movie premiere, anniversary, box office success, or as an example of a genre movie.
• Title in your language and in the country of production, if applicable.
• Release year.
• Director.
• Main actors.
• Screenwriter.
• Producer.
• Gender.
• Notes on the historical context.
• If you have been awarded or nominated for an award.
• Any curiosity of interest about the shooting or the film itself.

This part of the review can be considered a summary of it with the most important data. Two paragraphs would be enough.

Synopsis or main plot

This is the most objective part of the review, where it is important not to offer your personal opinion, but rather a summary of the argument. Of course without spoilers (if you do, it is better to notify the reader at the beginning) and always adding the real names of actors and actresses next to the characters to locate the readers.

personal opinion

After informing, it is time to offer the personal vision of the film. It is true that you have to keep a certain distance so as not to be too partial, but in this part (the longest) you can delve into the characters, the plot, the script, the production and everything else you consider to be highlighted .

As you can imagine, the previous parts usually coincide with other reviews, while this section is the one that differentiates one review from another and where more effort is made to contribute something new to the thousands of reviews that, for example, can be written about. a great premiere. .

Also, this part of the review can be divided into subsections if they are large enough and you want to go deeper.

Artistic and technical sheet

It is not necessary, since in the previous sections you have already added part of this information. However, at an informative level it may be useful to add:

• Artistic file: with data on the director, actors, scriptwriter, music and everything related to the artistic part.
• Technical sheet: where to include country of production, release date, Box Office, language of the film, etc.

This structure can be the beginning to organize your ideas. With time and practice you will be able to develop your own style of criticism, although it never hurts to add the basic informational facts to reach more readers.

Books and manuals to learn how to write book reviews

We will be adding more titles. For now, we recommend the following: