How to Write the Title of a Movie in an Essay Correctly

I’ve been grading essays for seven years now, and I can tell you with absolute certainty that movie titles are one of the most consistently mishandled elements in student writing. It’s not because students are careless, exactly. It’s more that nobody really sits down and explains the actual rules in a way that sticks. Everyone assumes you picked it up somewhere, and then you graduate without ever knowing for sure whether you’re supposed to underline, italicize, or just leave it alone.

The frustrating part is that the rules aren’t even that complicated. They’re just inconsistently taught, which creates this weird fog of uncertainty. I remember being a student myself, staring at my own essay about Citizen Kane, wondering if I’d made a mistake. I hadn’t looked it up. I just guessed based on what felt right. Turns out I was right, but that’s not a strategy I’d recommend to anyone.

The Core Rule: Italics Are Your Default

Here’s the thing I wish someone had told me straight up: movie titles go in italics. That’s it. That’s the baseline. When you’re writing an essay and you mention a film, you italicize the title. Full stop.

Parasite won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 2020, and when you write about it, you italicize it. The Godfather is one of the most discussed films in cinema history, and it gets italicized. Oppenheimer, Barbie, Everything Everywhere All at Once–all italics.

This applies whether you’re writing in MLA format, APA, or Chicago style. The Modern Language Association, the American Psychological Association, and the Chicago Manual of Style all agree on this one thing. When you have that level of consensus across different academic disciplines, you know it’s not arbitrary.

The reason for italics is actually logical if you think about it. Italics are used for titles of longer works, things that stand alone as complete entities. A movie is a complete work. It’s not a short story or a poem. It’s a full production with a beginning, middle, and end. So it gets the same treatment as a novel or a play or a symphony.

When Quotation Marks Might Appear (But Probably Won’t)

Now, there’s a caveat here that confuses people. Sometimes you’ll see movie titles in quotation marks. This happens occasionally in certain contexts, but it’s rare and usually indicates a stylistic choice rather than a rule.

Quotation marks are typically reserved for shorter works: short stories, poems, articles, individual songs. If you’re writing about a song featured in a movie, that song title gets quotation marks. The movie itself still gets italics. So you might write: In Whiplash, the character practices to “Caravan” by Duke Ellington. The song is in quotes. The film is italicized.

Some older publications or certain academic contexts might use quotation marks for movie titles, but this is becoming less common. If you’re writing for a class, stick with italics unless your instructor specifically tells you otherwise.

The Practical Application in Your Essay

When I’m helping students understand how to write their essays, I always start with the formatting because it’s the easiest thing to get right. Once you know that movie titles are italicized, you can apply that rule consistently throughout your entire paper.

Let’s say you’re analyzing Moonlight by Barry Jenkins. Your opening paragraph might read: “In Moonlight, Jenkins explores identity through three distinct chapters of a man’s life.” That’s correct. The title is italicized, and you’re good to go.

If you’re comparing two films, both get italicized: “Parasite and Squid Game both examine class inequality through different mediums.” Even though one is a film and one is a television series, both are italicized because they’re both complete works.

Here’s where it gets slightly more interesting: when you’re writing in a digital format, italics can sometimes be tricky. If you’re using Google Docs or Microsoft Word, you can use the keyboard shortcut (Ctrl+I on Windows, Command+I on Mac) or click the italics button. If you’re writing in plain text or a platform that doesn’t support formatting, you can use underscores or asterisks to indicate italics, though this is becoming less necessary as most platforms now support proper formatting.

Understanding the Broader Context

I think the reason people struggle with this is that formatting rules feel arbitrary until you understand their purpose. Academic writing has conventions because they make communication clearer. When everyone follows the same rules, readers know exactly what they’re looking at. They see italics and they immediately recognize it’s a title of a major work.

The MLA Handbook, which is what most high schools and many colleges use, has been consistent about this for decades. The Chicago Manual of Style, which is used in publishing and many academic fields, agrees. Even if you’re writing for a publication that uses AP style (Associated Press), movie titles are still italicized.

What’s interesting is that these rules have evolved. Decades ago, underlining was the standard way to indicate italics before computers made actual italics possible. Some older style guides still mention underlining as an alternative, but in modern writing, underlining a movie title would be considered outdated. Italics are the current standard.

Common Mistakes I See Repeatedly

After years of reading student essays, I’ve noticed patterns in how people mess this up. Here are the most frequent errors:

• Capitalizing every word in the title (sometimes correct, but often overdone)
• Putting quotation marks around movie titles instead of italicizing
• Forgetting to italicize altogether and just writing the title in regular text
• Mixing formats–italicizing part of the title but not all of it
• Italicizing the word “the” when it appears at the beginning of a title, then removing it from the italics

That last one deserves clarification. If the title is The Godfather, you italicize the entire thing, including “the.” You don’t write Godfather, The. The article is part of the title, so it’s part of what gets italicized.

A Quick Reference Table

Why This Matters More Than You Think

I know this seems like a small thing. It’s just formatting, right? But here’s what I’ve learned: when you get the small things right, your entire essay reads more professionally. Teachers and professors notice. It signals that you care about your work, that you understand academic conventions, that you’ve thought about the details.

When I’m reading an essay and I see consistent, correct formatting, I’m already predisposed to view the content more favorably. It’s not fair, exactly, but it’s human nature. Correct formatting removes a distraction. It lets your ideas shine through without the reader getting hung up on whether you know the rules.

I’ve also noticed that students who take time to learn formatting rules tend to be more careful about other aspects of their writing. They proofread more thoroughly. They think about their word choices. They don’t just dash off an essay the night before it’s due. Whether that’s correlation or causation, I’m not sure, but the pattern is real.

The Bigger Picture

When you’re trying to help me write my essay, one of the first things I tell people is to get the basics right before worrying about the complex arguments. Formatting is a basic. It’s foundational. Once you know that movie titles are italicized, you can stop thinking about it and focus on what actually matters: your analysis, your argument, your interpretation of the film.

I think about this in the context of classroom innovation for better learning experience. When teachers explain rules clearly and students understand the reasoning behind them, learning becomes less about memorization and more about comprehension. You’re not just following a rule because someone told you to. You understand why the rule exists, and that understanding makes it stick.

This is also relevant when I consider whether is an architectural technology degree worth it or any specialized education. The value isn’t just in learning facts. It’s in understanding systems, conventions, and the reasoning behind them. That’s what transfers to other areas of your life and work.

Final Thoughts

So here’s what I want you to take away: movie titles are italicized. That’s the rule. It applies to every movie, every time, in every academic context. There are minor exceptions and edge cases, but they’re rare enough that you can ignore them for now.

When you sit down to write your next essay about a film, you’ll italicize the title. You’ll do it correctly. You won’t have to second-guess yourself. And that