How to write a Movie Title in an Essay: Examples & Tips

Writing an essay is a very complex task. When submitting the assignment to universities and colleges, various minor details must be considered. Although these details are not considered very important, they make scoring difficult for the students or become a disaster for them. The students may need to mention the movie's name in the essay to describe a plot.  Sometimes, mentioning the names of the movies is also essential as it helps support the writer's ideas in the essay. The following blog is written by our experts.  Theassignmentninjas will be very helpful for the students when using essay titles in various formats. 

Rules and principles of writing movie titles

Rules and principles which are required to be followed when using movie titles in the essay are:

General Rules

• Discuss the background of the movie 
• Discuss the experience
• Provide the information regarding the topic and how they relate to it.
• Explains the lesson learned in the movie.

Basic rules of grammar

• It is essential to follow the required formatting style in the essay.
• It is essential to make use of active voice.
• It is essential to structure the essay correctly
• It is crucial to create a smooth transition between different ideas.
• It is essential to use correct punctuation in the headings and titles of the essay.

Writing Movie Title in different formats

Steps for writing a movie title in MLA

MLA formatting is one of the most widely used formatting styles in essays. Like any other formatting style, MLA has its distinct writing format, which helps organize the movie title in the essay. The MLA, or the modern language association, refers to the essential collection of formation and citing guidelines when used in academic reports.  The MLA format for using a movie title states that the titles should be formatted uniformly throughout the essay.  Two essential rules that need to be followed when using MLA formatting are :

• The words' first letter must be capitalized without considering the article, conjunctions, prepositions, or other such letters. However, the articles and conjunctions present at the beginning of the sentence must be capitalized. 
• All the titles placed in the body of the essay should be italicized.
• For example, The Fast and the Furious

Steps for writing movie titles in APA formatting

APA is another popular format required in different universities and colleges when writing movie reviews. The APA, also known as the American Psychological Association, is widely used in academic research and writings in various scientific and social fields such as psychology, sociology, anthropology, and others. APA, MLA and  Chicago styles all use the same formatting style, including the title capitalization of the first letter. Also, the three formats, MLA, APA, and Chicago, use Italics. Some of the significant rules of APA formatting style are:

• Capitalize all the first letters of the main words, excluding the prepositions, articles and any other word.
• It is essential to italicize the entire title of the essay.
• The only difference between APA and MLA formatting is that, during APA referencing, it is mandatory to capitalize only those words that include four or more letters, even in the case of prepositions. For instance, Gone With the End.

Steps for formatting in Chicago Formatting

• The formatting style of Chicago is the same as used in the MLA formatting style.

Steps for writing movie reviews in Harvard style

• Harvard style is also the same and uses italics and title cases. For instance, Age of Ultron and Avengers: 2

Referencing the movie titles in the Essay 

While writing a movie review, it is also essential to incorporate references for the movie titles. However, every writing style has rules for referencing movies in the essays. 

APA referencing style for movies 

• Citing the movie director: First initial of the last name
• Place of release of the movie in brackets
• Fowling this  by writing the title of the movie
• Referring to the platform of watching the movie, for example, DVD,
• Provide the name of the distributor and the location of the distributor. 

MLA referencing style of movies

• Name of the director: Last name, first name
• Movie title 
• Name of the distributor
• Year of release 

Harvard style of referencing movies

• Listing the name of the director's last name followed by the first name 
• The year of release should be in brackets
• Mention the title of the movie
• The name and location of the distributor follow the movie's title.

Importance of proper formatting in an essay

Formatting styles are essential to increase the efficiency and consistency of writing papers. This also helps increase the clarity of the information the essay provides. 

Taking precautions when writing movie reviews in essays is vital as it helps score higher grades in universities and colleges. 

Tips for referencing movies in an essay

• It is essential to watch the whole movie. 
• Provide the background of the movie. This helps in better understanding the movie and its different characteristics.
• Provide your own opinion regarding the movie. Provide information regarding the different things that affected you as a movie viewer. Moreover, it is also essential to avoid repeating the background of the movie during the process of reflection and to include information regarding the characters who influenced you the most in the movie. 
• Analyze the storyline of the movie critically. Mention the lesson learned in the movie personally and in general.  Also, mention the critical life lessons learnt from the movie, such as parents always providing better suggestions regarding life.

The tips above can be constructive for the students to write movie reviews in essays and score high academic grades.