Ask Lemmygrad

Officially, I imagine the criteria to be snobby af as I rarely find award winning movies to be especially good.

Personally – although I think some of this is more universal than merely subjective – there are several factors that distinguish my favourite movies.

Story. The same thing that makes a book or play or game great will make a movie great (even if the parts might be presented differently, depending on the medium). Shakespeare nailed down many of the elements, including structure. He used five acts. So does Tarantino.

Three acts usually aren't enough because too much has to happen in the second act, leading to the audience (me) wondering where everything is going and losing interest (e.g. Green Lantern where the guy just goes from one place to another over and over again).

An act ends when a character makes a choice from which they cannot return. Sometimes that decision can be taken out of the character's hands (e.g. a mountain slide blocking the hero's path) but this kind of thing is better left for scene breaks rather than act breaks because then the character's agency is driving the story rather than the other elements – and people watch films to watch the characters interact with each other and the world.

Characters. Flat characters are boring. This is common in Hollywood blockbusters, where the evil character has no redeeming features or qualities. The best characters are multi dimensional, flawed.

Character interaction. It's not a movie example but the first seasons of Arrested Development are great because everything is driven by the characters interacting with one another. The final season has episodes that focus on one character at a time; I didn't like it nearly as much.

Arcs. The story needs an arc, as do the characters. Character starts poor and becomes rich or starts rich and becomes poor. Character starts happy and becomes sad or the other way round. Or they start happy, become sad, and then overcome something to become happy again. The arc can be up to down or down to up. Or it can go up and down, throughout.

I can't remember the name but there's a movie with Adam Sandler as jeweller. The arc goes down, down, down, with no ups. It's so tense, I couldn't finish the movie. Writers can play with arcs for different effects. There isn't one right way but when it's done right, it makes the movie feel right.

A tighter arc, without too many ups and downs is probably better most of the time. Arcs can be trite. I hate this. It's like when loads of bad things (too many bad things) happen to the main character without anything good happening. Right at the end, everything will go right and all will be well. It feels contrived. Usually it's when there are only three acts and the writers keep adding tragedies to fill up the second act. A great film gets the balance right between story, structure, character, and arcs.

Reasoning. In great movies, the reasons are believable. Ordinary people don't just throw themselves into deep #@&$ just to satisfy the story need. So if the story needs the main character to rob a bank, the character's reason for doing so must be believable and 'within character'. They might rob a bank to save a kidnapped loved one.

Background. Some stories need to explain something like a historical context or physics (for space flight). Great movies give you the right details at the right time. The details and timing can vary. A narrator over voice can tell the audience everything but it doesn't always work.

Emotion. Great films make the audience feel emotions. Humour, sadness, happiness, glee, etc. There's a debate as to how explicit all this should be, whether you should be aware that the actors are acting, that they're making you feel emotions to move you on purpose, or whether you are moved because you empathise with what happens to them.

Think about lord of the rings. The characters do their thing. They aren't interested in the audience. The audience kinda has a birds eye view. The audience cheers when the good guys get the upper hand and the audience holds it's breath when the characters are in trouble. In something like White Chicks, though, the actors are always kinda facing the camera, playing directly to and for the audience. The characters are kinda aware that people are watching. One way isn't necessarily better. I've seen great movies of both types.

Chekhov's gun. If there's a gun on the mantle piece in act one, it better be used in act three. This one's more of a nod to elegance. Elegance is simplicity. Only the essential is included. We can argue about what's essential, I suppose. In general, it means that everything in a scene adds something important. It could foreshadow a murder or a character's later need for self defence (the gun on the mantle piece). Or it could remind us about a character trait – a neat bookshelf in the bedroom reminds us that the murder suspect is a neat freak, making us question whether they could have committed the very messy murder being investigated.

This links to semiotics / mis en scene. That means the symbols and the settings contribute to the story in some way. Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind is a good example.

Sound. The music will contribute to the story and neither distract from the story nor the voices unless the point is disorientation. Same for the sound effects. Unfortunately, the way that sounds are compressed for home movies means that a movie that sounds great in the cinema can sound terrible at home. Can't always blame the movie makers for that. Great movies tend to get the balance right.

Lighting/focus. Can't say much about these. In general the camera must be on the right thing, which needs to be well lit (even if it's dark and night time). It's a visual medium. Great movies make it easy to see what you're supposed to see (and let you know that it's dark and night time with semiotics instead of turning all the lights off).

Length. Personally, I think movies should be roughly between 90 and 120 minutes. Most movies longer than that could be improved by cutting them down. Some great movies are 180+ mins, so it does depend. Generally, the longer the movie, the more acts it needs. Insufficient acts are probably why many longer movies feel too long.

Editing. There's a book called In The Blink of an Eye. A scene should cut at about the point that you'll blink. This way, scenes change without the audience noticing the technicality behind a scene change. Movies that get the editing wrong let the audience break out of the story. Great movies keep you in the story all the time.

There are great films that break these 'rules'. Usually by design. Breaking the rules can add humour or heighten tension. I think it's best done when the rule breaking is surprise or over-the-top and constant. That way, it doesn't look like an accident.

It's not quite formulaic. It's possible to overdo all the above things. A great film gets the balance right, where everything 'matches' and suits the story.

I'm not an expert at all. In fact, I stopped watching most movies years ago, after reading Parenti's Make Believe Media. If it want a guide on what not to do, on how to patronise the audience and take it for granted, read that book or watch his lecture, Rambo and the Swarthy Hordes (I think that's the title on YouTube). The above is just what I've picked up over the years trying to figure out why some movies are great and why most of them aren't.