A good logline is one or two sentences that name a main character, what that character wants, what stands in the way, and what is lost if they fail. Below are nine from famous films, taken apart so you can see what each sentence is doing, followed by a fill-in template and a few weak loglines fixed.
One note before the examples: these are our own one-sentence summaries, written from each film’s plot. They are not studio taglines and they are not quotes, which is the point. A logline is something you write about your script, not something you find on a poster.
Nine logline examples from famous movies
Jaws (1975). A police chief on a New England resort island wants to stop a man-eating great white shark, but the mayor refuses to close the beaches because the town lives off summer tourists. The shark is the threat. The mayor is the obstacle. Pulling those apart gives the sentence two kinds of pressure, and it is why this reads as a story and not a monster-of-the-week summary.
Die Hard (1988). A New York detective flies to Los Angeles on Christmas Eve to reconcile with his estranged wife, then finds himself alone inside her company’s tower when armed thieves seize it and take the party hostage. Two goals are stacked here: a personal one (reconcile) that turns into a survival one (stop them). The personal goal is what keeps the logline from sounding like every other hostage thriller.
Groundhog Day (1993). A cynical TV weatherman sent to cover a small-town Groundhog Day festival finds himself living the same day over and over, and nothing he tries will get him out or win over the woman he is drawn to. Notice what is missing: any explanation for the loop. The logline sells the situation, not the mechanism.
Home Alone (1990). An eight-year-old accidentally left behind when his family flies to Paris for Christmas has to defend his house from two burglars on his own. This one is almost all situation. Delete “eight-year-old” and the joke goes with it.
Back to the Future (1985). A teenager accidentally sent from 1985 to 1955 in a scientist friend’s time machine disrupts his parents’ first meeting, and has to bring them together or stop existing. The stakes are built into the premise, so the logline does not need to announce them.
Finding Nemo (2003). An overprotective clownfish crosses the ocean with a forgetful blue tang to find his son after the boy is captured by divers. “Overprotective” is doing real work. It is the flaw the whole journey is going to test, so it earns its place in the sentence.
Gladiator (2000). A Roman general whose family is killed when the emperor’s son seizes the throne is enslaved and forced to fight as a gladiator, and has to survive the arena to get close enough to take his revenge. This is a longer sentence than the others, and it still works because every clause moves the hero toward the goal.
Get Out (2017). A young Black photographer spends a weekend with his white girlfriend’s family in upstate New York, hoping to win their approval, and has to work out what is really going on before it costs him his safety. Horror loggline rule: sell the dread and the protagonist, hold back the reveal.
Parasite (2019). A struggling family in a cramped Seoul semi-basement flat sees a way up when the son poses as a university student to tutor a wealthy family’s daughter, but their plan depends on keeping their real background hidden. One family counts as one protagonist here, which is how a logline handles an ensemble without listing five names.
The plot facts above were checked against each film’s Wikipedia plot summary.
The same nine, broken into parts
| Film | Main character | Wants | In the way | At stake |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jaws | Police chief | Stop the shark | A mayor protecting tourism | Swimmers’ lives |
| Die Hard | New York detective | Reconcile with his wife, then stop the thieves | Armed thieves in the tower | The hostages, his wife among them |
| Groundhog Day | Cynical weatherman | Escape the loop | The loop itself | Being stuck for good |
| Home Alone | Eight-year-old | Protect his house | Two burglars | His safety and Christmas |
| Back to the Future | Teenager in 1955 | Get home | His parents are not falling in love | His own existence |
| Finding Nemo | Overprotective clownfish | Find his son | The ocean and what lives in it | His son’s freedom |
| Gladiator | Enslaved general | Revenge on the emperor | Arena fights, guards, a paranoid ruler | His life and Rome’s future |
| Get Out | Young photographer | Win the family’s approval, then understand them | Strange hosts and staff | His safety |
| Parasite | A struggling family | A way up | Their fake credentials | Their income and the chance to stay hidden |
Fill in those four columns for your own script and you have the raw material for a logline. If any cell is blank, that is information about the script, not about the logline.
A logline template you can fill in
Wikipedia’s entry on the logline describes it as a brief summary, usually one sentence, that states the central conflict, and says it should state a premise and not a theme. Elements it lists include the protagonist, the antagonist, the inciting incident, the conflict and the goal. A reliable way to assemble those is this pattern:
When [inciting event], a [protagonist with one defining trait] must [goal], but [obstacle] puts [stakes] at risk.
Run Home Alone through it and you get: when his family flies to Paris without him, an eight-year-old must defend the house, but two burglars are closing in and his own safety is on the line. It is clunkier than the version above, which is normal. The template gets the parts on the table, and then you rewrite it until it sounds like a person said it.
Treat the template as a first pass and read each result out loud: if it sounds like a form, keep rewriting.
Weak loglines and how to fix them
These three are invented for the exercise, so you can see the repair without arguing about a real film.
The theme logline. A story about a woman finding herself after loss. There is no event, no goal and no obstacle, only a feeling. Fix: When a widowed ferry captain learns her late husband secretly sold their boat, she has three days to buy it back from the man who plans to scrap it.
The question logline. What would you do if you woke up in a stranger’s body? Asking the reader to imagine the premise leaves the writer’s job undone. Fix: A burned-out paramedic wakes up in the body of the patient she failed to save and has 24 hours to find out who killed him.
The name-and-backstory logline. Marcus Whitlock, a former Navy officer who grew up in Ohio and lost his brother in the war, meets Elena Park, a lawyer, and her partner Dev. Names mean nothing to a stranger, and backstory is not a plot. Fix: swap names for roles and keep only the backstory that creates the problem.
Where a logline gets used
Wikipedia’s entry notes that loglines help creators pitch a project in a sentence built around the protagonist, their goals and what is at stake. That puts it at the center of query letters and pitch conversations. The Academy’s Nicholl application, for one, requires a logline, and the same sentence is the seed of a good pitch (see Pitch Perfect). If your concept needs a stronger hook before the logline will hold together, nailing the high concept comes first.
Logline questions
What is a logline in a script?
A logline is a one-sentence summary of a script that names the main character, the goal, the obstacle and what is at stake. It is used to pitch the story quickly.
How long should a logline be?
One sentence is the usual target, and two is the most guides will allow. If it needs a third, the idea is not sharp enough yet or it contains backstory that belongs in the script.
Should a logline include the ending?
No. A logline sells the situation and the problem, so it stops before the resolution. Save the ending for the synopsis.
What is the formula for a logline?
A common pattern is: when an inciting event happens, a specific kind of protagonist must reach a goal, but an obstacle puts something important at risk. Treat it as scaffolding, then rewrite until it sounds natural.
Try it on the last script you finished, or the one you keep meaning to start. If you cannot write the sentence in under a minute, the film is not the problem. The idea is still deciding what it is about.
