Codes and Conventions of Film Review

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Film Name and Year

Having the film name and year of the film release is conventional to any review as it allows the audience to understand the film genre, credits, details, director, screenwriter, cast, stars, soundtrack and much more information.

Quotes and Tag Lines

More often then not a review will begin with a quote or a reference or a tag line from the actual film as a brief introduction into the film to grab the audiences attention, hence it is a common feature into reviews. Although it is not used by all short films as they may not have key quotations within them due to their length.

Introduction and Summary

Its is very conventional for the first paragraph to contain a brief plot summary of the film, often written with the intention of leading the audience to want to see the film. The summary will include aspects of the timeline, location, narrative, cast performance, etc. This is often proceeded by a personal view of the film form the writers perspective.

Ratings

In film reviews it is conventional to summarise the review in a brief paragraph. Usually with a percentage or a rating out of five stars. However this isn’t always present as it is sometimes just apparent in the wording of the review and is therefore not needed.