How to Write a Movie Synopsis, With a Real Example
A movie synopsis tells your film's whole story, ending included, in present tense and third person: who the main character is, what they want, what turns the story, and how it ends.
Most guides on how to write a movie synopsis explain the rules with an invented example or a famous feature, so you never see a synopsis set beside the film it describes. We watched A Proper Introduction, a 5:45 short by Jaime Yao, Flick's in-house filmmaker, shot by shot, read its narration and the prompts behind its 217 generated video clips, and wrote its synopsis at three lengths. This guide shows the result first, then how to write a movie synopsis of your own in six steps, each with a frame from the film.
A synopsis is the story told plainly from start to finish, and the same film can carry three lengths of it: a one-sentence logline, a short paragraph and a one-page version.
Logline (34 words)
A knight a few centimetres tall, imagined by a little girl, sets out to be introduced to her busy father, and learns that he has to find himself before anyone can really see him.
Short synopsis (110 words)
Ser Loras is a knight a few centimetres tall, imagined by a girl named Lydia, and he has one task: to be introduced to her father. He crosses the yard and turns up in a cardboard box on the father's desk. The father studies him with care, but as a model to draw, and draws a helmet and armour that are not Loras at all. So Loras goes looking for himself, finds the crayon drawing Lydia made of him, and lays her drawings in a trail through the house before he crumbles into coloured dust. The father follows the drawings, and asks Lydia to tell him the knight's whole story.
One-page synopsis (298 words)
Ser Loras is a knight a few centimetres tall, with a scroll case on his back and a sword and grappling hook at his belt. He has no surname, but he has a task: to be introduced to someone. He climbs over a windowsill and sets off across the grass.
Introductions matter more than they seem, he tells us, because until you are properly introduced you can be mistaken for all sorts of things. He drags a cardboard box to the front door, climbs inside, and is unpacked on the desk of a man whose wall is covered in drawings of armour and dragons.
For a while the plan seems to work. The man picks him up, looks at him with considerable care and draws him in pencil. But the drawing shows a helmet, a posture and a piece of armour, and Loras sees that it is not him.
He decides he must find himself first. In the bedroom of the man's daughter, Lydia, he reaches a drawer and pulls out the crayon drawing she made of him, half plain silver, half covered in pink flowers. She put it away there, promising to introduce him next time, when her dad was less busy.
But "next time" can become a place no one ever reaches. So Loras lays her drawings in a trail across the hall floor, sets down his scroll case, sword and hook, and crumbles into coloured dust.
Her father finds the drawings and follows them to her room, where the floor is covered in her pictures. When Lydia comes home, he is sitting on her bed with a stack of them, and asks her to tell him the knight's whole story. On the windowsill, Ser Loras sits on his drawing and watches the introduction finally happen.
More detail: how we read the film
We watched the finished film on its public A Proper Introduction page and read its burned-in narration, which is where the knight's lines in the one-page synopsis come from. Lydia's name, her promise to introduce him "next time, when Dad isn’t so busy" and her father's last question come from the shot prompts on the film's public canvas, read on 2026-10-30. The order of the beats and every sentence above are our reading of the film, not Jaime Yao's words; the director's own account of the story is in his post Behind "Ser Loras".
How do you write a movie synopsis, step by step?
In six steps: list the beats, write the logline, introduce the hero and the want, name the turn, tell the ending, then cut it to the length you need.
Step 1
List the beats
Write every story beat of the finished film or script in order, one short line each, before you write any synopsis sentence, so you summarise what happens on screen rather than what you remember.
A Proper Introduction comes down to six beats: the knight sets out, reaches the father in a box, is drawn as a model, finds his drawing, lays a trail and vanishes, and the introduction happens.
Leave out anything that does not change what happens next, like how he climbs the drawer.
Write one sentence of 25 to 35 words that names the main character, what they want and what stands in the way, because every longer version grows out of it.
The logline above names the hero (a tiny knight), the want (to be introduced) and the obstacle (no one sees who he is).
If you cannot write the sentence, the story is not settled yet, and a longer synopsis will hide that rather than fix it.
Open with the main character's name, one or two details that make them specific, and what they want, so the reader has someone to follow from the first line.
Our first paragraph gives Ser Loras his size, his kit and his task in three sentences.
Write a name in full the first time, then keep to one form of it; here that is Loras.
Give minor characters a role instead of a name unless the story turns on them: "a man" becomes "her father" once it matters.
Give away the ending in full, because a synopsis is for producers, programmers and collaborators who need to judge the whole story, not for an audience you want to surprise.
A blurb or trailer stops at the question; a synopsis answers it.
Ours tells both endings: the knight crumbles into coloured dust, and the father asks Lydia for the knight's whole story.
As long as the place it goes asks for: one sentence for a logline, one paragraph for a submission form, and about one page when someone asks for the full story.
The usual forms of a film summary, from shortest to longest. Lengths are common rules of thumb, so always follow the word limit a festival, contest or producer gives.
Form
Usual length
What it is for
Logline
1 sentence, about 25 to 35 words
Pitching the idea in one breath
Short synopsis
1 paragraph, about 100 to 150 words
Festival and contest submission forms, a film's page
One-page synopsis
About 300 to 500 words
A producer, a funding application, a collaborator
Treatment
Several pages
The whole film told scene by scene in prose, before the script
What makes a movie synopsis work?
A clear chain of cause and effect, told plainly: one hero, a want, a turn and an ending, with nothing about how the film is shot.
1. Use present tense
Write "Loras climbs over a windowsill", not "climbed", because a synopsis describes the story as it plays, the same way a script does.
2. Link beats with but and therefore
Join events with "but" or "therefore" instead of "and then", the test South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone use on their scripts, so each beat causes the next.
3. Name who matters
Name the characters who change the story, three in this film, and call everyone else by their role, so the reader is never tracking a name that goes nowhere.
4. Leave out the camera
Describe what happens, not how it is filmed, because "close-up" and "slow motion" tell a reader about the shoot, not the story.
5. Quote one line at most
Borrow a single line of dialogue or narration when it carries the theme, as "next time" does here, because more quotes turn a synopsis into a script.
6. Keep the tone, not the voice
Let the synopsis feel like the film, gentle here, while staying in third person, even when the film is narrated by its hero.
Questions about writing a movie synopsis
What is a movie synopsis?
A movie synopsis is a short prose summary of a film's whole story, from the setup to the ending, written in present tense and third person. It names the main character, what they want, the turn and how it ends, and it leaves out how the film is shot.
What is the difference between a logline and a synopsis?
A logline is one sentence that sells the premise: who the hero is, what they want and what stands in the way. A synopsis tells the whole story in one paragraph or more, and it includes the ending, which a logline leaves out.
Should a synopsis give away the ending?
Yes. A synopsis is read by producers, festival programmers and collaborators who need to judge the whole story, so it tells the ending plainly. Keep the mystery for the trailer, the poster and the blurb an audience reads.
How long is a synopsis for a short film?
Usually one paragraph of about 100 to 150 words, which fits most festival submission forms. Follow the word limit the festival gives, and keep a one-sentence logline and a longer version ready in case it asks for them.
Is a synopsis written in first or third person?
Third person and present tense, even when the film is narrated by its hero. Write "she finds the drawing", not "I found the drawing", so the synopsis reads as an account of the story rather than a scene from it.
What is the difference between a synopsis and a treatment?
A synopsis summarises the story in a paragraph or about a page. A treatment is longer, often several pages, and tells the film scene by scene in prose, with more of its tone and detail, before the script is written.
Can AI write a movie synopsis?
AI can draft one from your script or a list of beats, but check every sentence against the film, because a model will fill gaps with events that never happen. In Flick, paste your beats into chat, ask for a logline and a one-paragraph synopsis, then rewrite the draft in your own words.
