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It’s day 2 of our vocabulary challenge – we’re learning over 100 words in these 5 days – and in this lesson we’ll focus on vocabulary related to movies. I’ve prepared a free PDF of this lesson which you can get by clicking on the link in the video description, to help you review and remember these movie words – so make sure you download that.
First let’s talk about the different genres or types of movies:
Action movies with lots of physical movement and adventures
Comedy, which is funny
Drama, which is more serious and focused on emotions
Horror, which is scary
Romance, which focuses on love and relationships
Sci-fi (short for science fiction) that explores the future or technology
Fantasy, which has elements of magic
Documentaries, which are non-fiction; they’re based on facts and designed to educate you
Animated films, which have computer-designed images instead of real people and things
Before a movie comes out, the studio often releases a trailer – that’s a short video showing just a few scenes (moments or situations) – in order to get people excited for the movie and interested in seeing it. And then the first public showing of the full movie is called the premiere.
The group of actors and actresses in a movie is called the cast, and the people who work on the movie without appearing in it are called the crew (like the people operating the cameras or doing the makeup for the cast).
Each actor or actress plays a character – that’s a person in the story. There might be one or more main characters, and others in supporting roles, meaning someone who is present but more on the side.
Some movies have a hero or heroine who shows great courage or accomplishes great things, and a villain – that means a bad guy. If the characters need to do some skilled or dangerous movements, those can be performed by a stunt double or stunt man/woman – a person who looks like the actor/actress but is able to do those difficult physical things.
Regular people can sometimes appear in movies as extras – who play the part of a person in the background, or walking down the street, or in a crowd.
Sci-fi and fantasy movies often have special effects, things done with computers that would not be possible in real life, like having a person transform into an animal or something like that.
The general story of a movie is called the plot, and each moment/situation is called a scene. Sometimes you’ll see a montage, that’s a quick collection of very short scenes, often with music – a montage is often used to quickly show time passing.
Another film technique is showing a flashback, that’s showing a scene that happened in the past or in someone’s memory, compared to the present moment in the story. The collection of music used in the film is called the movie’s soundtrack.
If a movie follows another one in a sequence, the second movie is the sequel of the first movie. If the story of the second movie happened earlier in time compared to the first movie, then the second movie is called a prequel.
If you’re watching a movie in another language, there are two options:
- the movie could use subtitles, words on the screen to translate the dialogue
- or the movie could be dubbed, meaning that voice actors record themselves talking in the new language and the new audio replaces the original dialogue
After a movie comes out, you might see some articles talking about how it’s doing at the box office – that’s literally the place where tickets are sold, and in this context it means how well ticket sales are going, so how popular the movie is. Film critics – people who evaluate and comment on movies – write reviews (detailed evaluations) of the movie.
And you and I can decide whether we want to see it at the movie theater / cinema – the place with the giant screen – or wait until it comes out on streaming services, meaning we can use the internet to watch it at home on our TVs, computers, or phones.
Now you know more than 30 words used to talk about movies! Go ahead and download the free PDF to review them, and leave me a comment talking about one of your favorite movies, using some of the words from this lesson.
Thanks for watching and I’ll talk to you tomorrow during day 3 of our challenge!
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About The Author
Shayna Oliveira
Shayna Oliveira is the founder of Espresso English, where you can improve your English fast - even if you don’t have much time to study. Millions of students are learning English from her clear, friendly, and practical lessons! Shayna is a CELTA-certified teacher with 10+ years of experience helping English learners become more fluent in her English courses.
