Incorporating Movie Themes into Academic Essays: A Guide for Students

On the surface, movies are simply entertainment that can be enjoyed via kaleidoscope movies. But beneath their glossy veneer, they’re the story of life and society, of culture and the human condition. As a student, perhaps this has escaped your notice. A good general rule, however, is that anything interesting to watch is probably interesting to write about. Incorporating movie themes into academic essays can elevate your writing, and an essay writing company can help you refine your ideas and structure. UK Writings provides expert guidance and support, making it easier for students to excel in their assignments by integrating creative concepts.

Movie Themes

Before we talk about how to use themes from movies in your essays, we need to discuss what movie themes are. A theme is a novel’s big idea or underlying meaning. Movie themes are big ideas about life, like love, justice, power, identity, and so on.

Take The Shawshank Redemption: of course, one of its main subjects is a man in prison – but the story of the film isn’t just that; it is about hope, friendship and the human spirit overcoming adversity. These are the themes that make the film resonant.

Why Use Movie Themes in Academic Essays?

Why should you even consider movie themes for your academic writing? Here are some reasons. 

First, the mere presence of funny movie themes in your essay can make your prose more engaging to read. You shouldn’t have to tell me this: academic writing is often dreary, and one way to increase your reader’s pleasure is to bring in ideas exposed (and perhaps exploited) by popular movies.

Second, themes from films can be used to make difficult ideas more accessible. If you are writing about something inherently challenging, the concept can be brought down to Earth by drawing a comparison to a movie theme.

Thirdly, selecting movie themes exposes your ability to find connections across different areas of knowledge, which is a hallmark of good academic writing and critical thinking.

Choosing the Right Movies

Not all movies work for an academic paper. Pick one that has meat on it. By this I mean one that deals substantively with some matter of social, political or philosophical import.

Using movie themes in academic essays can bring creativity and depth to your writing, as noted in positive essay writing services reviews, which suggest this approach to improve your work. It is typically preferable to use a classic movie because they have had lasting appeal, and thus are likely to be familiar among your users. But don’t shy away from using a more recent movie if it pertains to your topic.

And, again, it’s important to bear in mind that you’re not writing a movie review. You’re employing the themes of a movie in the service of your argument. So choose movies with themes that enhance your essay’s main ideas.

Connecting Movie Themes to Academic Subjects

Now, let’s look at how you can connect movie themes to different academic subjects. Here’s a table showing some examples:

How to Incorporate Movie Themes into Your Essay

Armed, then, with an idea of both why and how to select your movie theme, it’s time to address the nuts and bolts of actually doing it in your own piece of writing.

Then raise the movie and your theme – not a full plot synopsis, just enough context so the reader knows what you’re hitting next.

Follow up by explaining how this all ties together with your essay’s theme. Outline and explain what these parallels are. Don’t just assume your reader will see it, too.

Afterward, refer back to the examples from the film, which should now make sense in light of your argument. You could describe a scene or even quote dialogue from the film that supports the theme you’re emphasizing.

Lastly, keep returning to your point. After all, you’re writing an academic essay, not a film review. The theme from the movie can support your argument – but it’s only a device. 

Examples of Movie Themes in Academic Writing

Now here are a few possible examples of how you might use movie themes in various different kinds of academic essays.

When writing a history essay about the Second World War, you might tie into the theme of sacrifice that was featured in the film Saving Private Ryan as a way to describe the personal costs that people incurred as a result of war, and describe the opening scene of the D-Day landing as an example of the brutal nature of war.

For a paper on memory for the psychology course, you could use the eponymous film Memento (2000) to examine the thorny issue of anterograde amnesia, and its reverse chronology might also make for an interesting metaphor for how memory works.

If you’re writing a sociology essay on social mobility, Parasite would make a powerful illustration of how class dynamics play out. You might analyze how the film depicts the relationship between the wealthy Park family and the poor Kim family.

Pitfalls to Avoid

Film themes can be a great way to spice up your essays, but here are three things to avoid. 

If movie quotes start swallowing your argument, or begin to frame most of your sentences, you’ve probably gone too far.

Movie examples are frequently alluring but overuse can be perilous. One or two just-right references should be adequate. If there are too many, your piece starts to read like a paper on film studies, not a piece of academic work in your given field. 

Don’t just report on the movie, but tie the theme back to your academic area and why this relates to you. 

Steer clear of obscure movies. If your reader doesn’t recognise the film, your reference will distract rather than clarify. 

Citing Movies in Academic Essays

If you do include a theme or song from a motion picture in your essay, you’ll have to cite it per the conventions of the citation style you’re using (MLA?, APA?, Chicago?, …) – but you’ll at least have to provide the title of the film, who directed it, the company that made it and the date it premiered.

For example, in MLA format, a citation might look like this:

The Shawshank Redemption. Directed by Frank Darabont, Castle Rock Entertainment, 1994.

If you are quoting dialogue verbatim, quote it like any other quote, but also include the timestamp of when the line occurs in the film.

Balancing Creativity and Academic Rigor

Although it can be tempting to use movie themes in your essays, you have to be careful not to compromise academic seriousness and professionalism in the name of creativity and entertainment.

To maintain that balance, be sure your film references always serve a function in your academic argument; let them illustrate points, not replace scholarly sources. 

Why? It can be helpful to ask your professor to read your ideas first, before you start writing. Some instructors are open to this, and some are not; you just might want to know. 

Conclusion

Choose your movies carefully, make sure to circle back to your main argument each time you bring up an example, and watch out for common mistakes such as overusing references or making your movie analysis dominate the academic landscape. 

The better you get, the more you realize that a movie theme can not only make your essays more interesting to write, but more interesting to read – and just maybe you’ll start watching movies with a different sort of eye, always on the lookout for themes that might be useful for your next academic paper. 

In short, then, the next time you sit down to compose an essay, regardless of your subject, think of your favorite movies – and ask yourself how the themes of your film might enhance your reading of the textbook, or of your scholarly articles. You might just find that you can make connections, and uncover insights that you never could have imagined.