By Ken Miyamoto from ScreenCraft · April 26, 2023
What are the most common dramatic situations found in movies and television? In 1895, a French literary critic, Georges Polti, analyzed Greek storytelling texts, French classical and contemporary works, and other literary authors to determine the most common dramatic situations — otherwise known as plots. He was continuing the work of Carlo Gozzi, an Italian author that generated 36 dramatic situations.
That year, a book entitled The Thirty-Six Dramatic Situations was published in France, and later translated into English text in 1916. It would go on to work as an aid to writers for over a century now, helping them define and hone plots and stories in all mediums of storytelling.
For movie/TV lovers and screenwriters alike, here we present cinematic versions of these thirty-six dramatic situations and how they are found within movies and TV series. We’ll offer simplified definitions and showcase examples that utilized such dramatic situations.
Read More: How to Use the 36 Dramatic Situations as a Brainstorming Tool
The Wizard of Oz (1939)
Involves a character asking or begging an authority for help.
Example: The Wizard of Oz, as Dorothy travels to Oz with three unlikely friends, looking to find a way back to Kansas.
Characters being rescued or rescuing someone.
Example: Thirteen Lives, which tells the true story of the rescue mission in Thailand where a group of soccer players and their coach must be rescued from a flooded case system.
Someone seeking revenge for a crime.
Example: The Count of Monte Cristo, which tells the story of a young man that was falsely imprisoned but has escaped and is seeking revenge.
Knives Out (2019)
Families or a close group of people enacting vengeance upon each other.
Example: Knives Out, which involves a family blaming one another for the death of the rich head of the family.
Someone is in pursuit of another or someone is in pursuit.
Examples: The Fugative, where Dr. Richard Kimble is unjustly accused of the murder of his wife and is now on the run with a U.S. Marshal in pursuit.
Characters that were in power but are now dealing with being stripped of that power.
Example: Game of Thrones, where power shifts abound as the Stark family is betrayed.
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)
Characters that are dealing with bad things or bad luck.
Example: The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, where a group of friends end up at the wrong house and must deal that deadly misfortune.
Stories dealing with characters in power, usually tyrants, being plotted against.
Example: Game of Thrones, where tyrannical rulers are plotted against.
A bold leader takes something from an adversary.
Example: Ocean’s Eleven, where a crew led by Danny Ocean steals from three Vegas casinos owned by his rival Terry Benedict.
Someone is kidnapped.
Example: Taken, where the estranged daughter of a retired CIA agent with a particular set of skills is kidnapped.
The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
A mystery solver seeks out the help of someone that can help them — but that someone has ulterior motives.
Example: The Silence of the Lambs, where an FBI cadet must receive the help of an incarcerated and manipulative serial killer to catch another serial killer.
An adventure or quest involving characters trying to obtain something from someplace or someone.
Example: Raiders of the Lost Ark, with various objects being pursued by opposing forces of Indiana Jones and the Nazis.
Hatred between family or close-knit groups of people.
Example: Knives Out, where family members hate each other and plot against one another.
The rivalry between family or close-knit groups of people.
Example: Legends of the Fall where two brothers are in love with the same woman amidst other family issues and entanglements.
Stories that involve both murder and adultery.
Example: Body Heat, where a woman persuades her small-town lawyer lover to murder her rich husband.
Joker (2019)
Stories that deal with a character’s madness.
Example: Joker, where Arthur Fleck succumbs to his madness amidst a dark world that rejects him at all turns.
Characters doing something unwise to someone or lose something with fatal consequences.
Example: John Woo’s The Killer, where an assassin accidentally blinds an innocent woman.
Characters performing unintentional taboos or criimes of love within their relationship.
Example: The Devil’s Advocate, where a lawyer has unknowingly signed on to work with a law firm run by the devil himself, who happens to be his father. And his father has been trying to make the lawyer bed his half-sister.
Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005)
Characters hurting someone they are close to without knowing who they are.
Example: Halloween, where Michael Myers tries to kill Laurie (and vice versa in the third act), only to later learn in the sequel that they are brother and sister. Another example could be Mr. & Mrs. Smith, where a husband and wife and are unknowingly pursuing one another (until later in the story).
Someone sacrificing themselves for what they believe in.
Example: The Matrix Trilogy, where Neo sacrifices himself as The One.
Someone sacrificing themselves for their family.
Example: Armageddon, where Harry sacrifices himself for AJ and his daughter Grace (and the whole world, mind you).
Stories about characters that sacrifice everything and everyone they know for a passion.
Example: The Last of Us, in many different ways we can’t explain without spoilers.
Characters are forced to sacrifice their loved ones for something.
Example: Interstellar, where Cooper must sacrifice his life with his children to ensure humanity’s survival.
Toy Story 4 (2019)
The rivalry between someone that is inferior to someone else that is considered superior, as both strive for the same object or goal.
Example: Toy Story, where Woody looks upon Buzz as the superior toy as they struggle for Andy’s attention and love. One could argue that Woody feels he’s superior to Buzz’s inferiorness in his eyes.
Any story that involves adultery.
Example: Unfaithful, where a husband discovers that his wife is having an affair. Another example would be from the same filmmaker, Adrian Lyne, and the film Fatal Attraction.
Characters in relationships deemed to be criminal or relationships that are designated by society as unconventional or unacceptable.
Example: Loving, which tells the story of Richard and Mildred Loving, the plaintiffs in the 1967 U.S. Supreme Court (the Warren Court) decision Loving v. Virginia, which invalidated state laws prohibiting interracial marriage.
Characters learn that someone they love has been dishonerable in some way.
Example: A History of Violence, where Edie discovers the true history of her husband Tom.
Love between characters is blocked by something or someone.
Example: Titanic, where Jack and Rose defy everything forced upon them to live their short life together, and struggle to survive the sinking of the Titanic.
Stories where characters fall in love with the enemy — or learn to respect them.
Example: West Side Story, where Tony and Maria fall in love, despite being the enemy of the other, from a race and gang-affiliation perspective.
Wall Street (1987)
Stories about all types of ambition — or about characters that lack ambition and drive — and the adversaries they face.
Example: Wall Street, where Bud’s ambition takes him under the wing of Gordan Gekko.
The Mortal and the Immortal enter a conflict.
Example: Bruce Almighty, where a new reporter complains about God’s plans, and God responds by giving him the chance to step in His shoes.
Characters obsessed with jealousy for an incorrect reason.
Example: My Best Friend’s Wedding, where Julianne thinks she is jealous of her best friend Michael’s fiance Kimberly, but she’s really just afraid to be alone and wants what they have — true love.
Characters dealing with bad choices and judgments they have made.
Example: The Fugitive, where U.S. Marshal Gerard believes that Richard Kimble is a murderer on the run. Sure, he later tells Kimble he doesn’t care if he’s innocent or not, but Gerard slowly starts to believe him.
The Machinist (2004)
Characters feeling bad about something did — or characters lack in remorse for their actions.
Example: The Machinist, where Trent tries to escape his wrongdoing via his insomnia ways, and eventually realizes what he has done and comes to terms with it.
Characters struggling to get back their loved one or something they have lost.
Example: Breakdown, where a husband searches for his wife after their car breaks down and they are separated.
Someone is dealing with losing someone they loved. To be more specific, someone loved is killed — and it’s witnessed by the one they loved.
Example: Gladiator, where Maximus is betrayed, escapes, and arrives in his homeland to find his wife and son murdered by order of the one that betrayed him.
Read More: Five Plot Point Breakdowns
Ken Miyamoto has worked in the film industry for nearly two decades, most notably as a studio liaison for Sony Studios and then as a script reader and story analyst for Sony Pictures.
He has many studio meetings under his belt as a produced screenwriter, meeting with the likes of Sony, Dreamworks, Universal, Disney, and Warner Brothers, as well as many production and management companies. He has had a previous development deal with Lionsgate, as well as multiple writing assignments, including the produced miniseries Blackout, starring Anne Heche, Sean Patrick Flanery, Billy Zane, James Brolin, Haylie Duff, Brian Bloom, Eric La Salle, and Bruce Boxleitner, the feature thriller Hunter’s Creed, and many produced Lifetime thrillers. Follow Ken on Twitter @KenMovies and Instagram @KenMovies76.
David Young · April 24, 2023
