Man on phone waiting for train

Useful for execs, useless for geniuses. See it with a notebook and a grain of salt.

And yet, it is dead.

If you’ve ever doom-scrolled through screenwriting TikTok or lurked in a film school subreddit, you’ve met them: The 7 Movie Rules. They are whispered like commandments: Thou shalt have a protagonist with a flaw. Thou shalt raise the stakes every ten pages. Thou shalt never, ever use voiceover unless it is Goodfellas .

But if you want to make art? Learn the rules like a pro so you can break them like a king. The moment you feel the "rising action" sagging, put in a ten-minute scene of a man just cooking an omelet. That is the movie I want to watch.

Similarly, Parasite uses the "Three-Act Structure" like a sniper rifle. Just when you think the rising action is over (Rule #7), the basement door opens, and the genre flips. The rules didn't restrict Bong Joon-ho; they gave him a trampoline. Here is where the rules become a straitjacket. Look at any forgettable "algorithm-bait" thriller on streaming. It obeys all seven rules perfectly. The hero has a flaw (he drinks too much! How quirky). The stakes are global (a bomb in a baby carriage!). The conflict is relentless (no one ever eats a sandwich in peace).

If you are writing your first script, laminate these rules to your desk. They will stop you from writing a 90-minute scene where two people talk about the weather. They are the training wheels.

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6 Comments

  1. My longtime favourite is Solomon’s Boneyard (see also: Solomon’s Keep!). I’ll have to check out Eternium because it might be similar — you pick a wizard that controls a specific element (magic balls, lightning, fire, ice) and see how long you can last a graveyard shift. I guess it’s kind of a rogue-lite where you earn upgrades within each game but also persistent upgrades, like magic rings and additional unlockable characters (steam, storm, fireballs, balls of lightning, balls of ice, firestorm… awesome combos of the original elements.)

    I also used to enjoy Tilt to Live, which I think is offline too.

    Donut county is a fun little puzzle game, and Lux Touch is mobile risk that’s played quickly.

  2. Thank you great list. My job entails hours a day in an area with no internet and with very little to do. Lol hours of bordom, minutes of stress seconds of shear terror !

    Some of these are going to be life savers!

  3. I’ve put hours upon hours into Fallout Shelter. You build a Fallout Shelter and add rooms to it Electric, Water, Food, and if you add a man and woman to a room they will have a baby. The baby will grow up and you can add them to an area to help with the shelter. Outsiders come and attack if you take them out sometimes you can loot the body to get new weapons. There’s a lot more to it but thats kind of sums it up. Thank you for the list I’m down loading some now!

    1. Oh man, I spent so much time on Fallout Shelter a few years ago! Very fun game — thanks for the reminder!

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