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THREE-ACT STRUCTURE BREAKDOWNS

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FRANKENSTEIN (1931)

  • HOOK: Frankenstein and Fritz dig up a body to use in Frankenstein’s experiment
  • CATALYST/INCITING INCIDENT: Fritz steals an abnormal brain
  • B STORY: Frankenstein’s marriage to Elizabeth
  • ACT I TURNING POINT: Dr. Frankenstein succeeds in reanimating a man assembled from body parts
  • MIDPOINT: the monster escapes
  • ACT II TURNING POINT: after inadvertently killing a little girl, the monster tries to take Frankenstein’s wife at their wedding, setting the towspeople against the monster
    • In trying to flout the power of god, Frankenstein reaps the consequences of his own creation, whom he must destroy

REAR WINDOW (1954)

  • HOOK: The opening shot establishes the setting, the protagonist, his job, his accident, his girlfriend, the weather, the supporting characters and the theme
  • CATALYST/INCITING INCIDENT: Jeff Jeffries notices Thorwarld having a fight with his wife
  • B STORY: Jeff’s romance with Lisa
  • ACT I TURNING POINT: Jeff Jeffries hears a scream from one of the apartments and immediately after begins witnessing strange, late-night behavior from Lars Thorwald, whom he later suspects of murdering his wife
  • MIDPOINT: Jeff is visited by his detective friend who informs him all signs point to Thorwald’s wife being alive
  • ACT II TURNING POINT: a neighbor’s dog, whom Thorwald angrily shooed away from his flower bed, turns up dead, cementing Jeff’s suspicions that he’s the killer
    • Helpless in his cast, Jeff’s voyeurism puts his life and the life of those he cares about in danger.

LAWRENCE OF ARABIA (1962)

  • HOOK: Hero Lawrence is killed while riding his motorbike through the English countryside
  • CATALYST/INCITING INCIDENT: Lawrence is sent to Arabia to meet with Prince Faisal and learn his intentions in the Arabian theatre of WWI
  • B STORY: Lawrence’s relationship with Ali and Auda
  • ACT I TURNING POINT: Lawrence conceives a plan to attack Aqaba from the land
  • MIDPOINT: Lawrence kills Gasim, the man he saved, and the Arabs attack Aqaba
  • ACT II TURNING POINT: Lawrence is tortured by the Turks and abandons the Arabs
    • Humbled and aware of his mortality, Lawrence becomes a distant, hollow man. Alienated from his fellow Brits, forsaking his Arab comrades, Lawrence is a man without a country

TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD (1962)

  • HOOK: Mr. Cunningham tries to pay Atticus Finch discreetly in produce for his services, showing Atticus as a man of respect amongst the poor during the Depression
  • CATALYST/INCITING INCIDENT: Heck Tate asks Atticus Finch to defend Tom Robinson
  • B STORY: Scout and Jem’s attempt to see Boo Radley
  • ACT I TURNING POINT: Bob Ewell confronts Atticus about his disbelief in the Ewells’ story
    • The theme is the plot point Jem brings Mr. Cunningham son home for dinner and explains that it’s “a sin to kill a Mockingbird” and that you don’t understand someone who until you “climb in his skin and walk around in it”
  • MIDPOINT: the townspeople come to lynch Tom Robinson and Scout shames them into leaving
  • ACT II TURNING POINT: Tom Robinson’s conviction, which Scout witnesses, and the black community’s respect towards her father for defending him
    • Scout’s coming-of-age as she discovers injustice, first the town’s against Tom Robinson, then her own at misjudging Boo Radley’s character

THE GODFATHER (1972)

  • HOOK: Bonasera’s speech to Don Corleone about his love of America and the brutal act of injustice against his daughter
  • CATALYST/INCITING INCIDENT: Michael explains the family business to Kay
  • B STORY: Michael’s slow seduction into the family business
  • ACT I TURNING POINT: Luca Brasi is killed, Tom Hagen is kidnapped, and Vito Corleone is shot, igniting a mob war
  • MIDPOINT: Michael Corleone, to this point a civilian in the mob business, shoots and kills Sollozzo and police captain McCluskey, after which he must flee to Sicily
  • ACT II TURNING POINT: After recovering from his attack, Vito makes peace with the five families, and discovers the real mastermind behind the mob war
    • After initially rejecting the family business, Michael Corleone succumbs to it in order to save his father, eventually succeeding him to become the new head of the mob family

THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE (1972)

  • HOOK: The Poseidon is rocked by a storm at sea
  • CATALYST/INCITING INCIDENT: The ship owner’s representative threatens to relieve the captain of duty if he doesn’t order the ship full ahead
  • B STORY: Scott’s confrontational relationship with Rogo
  • ACT I TURNING POINT: the wave hits the Poseidon and capsizes it
  • MIDPOINT: with the water rising behind them, an explosion rocks the ship and sends Acres, the waiter plummeting to his death. The stakes are raised. Not everyone will survive
  • ACT II TURNING POINT: Shelly Winters has a heart attack while trying to rescue Gene Hackman and dies
    • In the midst of a crisis of faith, believing god only helps those who help themselves, Reverend Frank Scott makes the ultimate sacrifice, giving his life so that others with less strength may live

CHINATOWN (1974)

  • HOOK: one of Jake Gittes’s clients seeing sex photos of his wife
  • CATALYST/INCITING INCIDENT: Gittes spots Mulwray with a girl
  • B STORY: Evelyn Mulwray’s relationship to the missing girl, her daughter
  • ACT I TURNING POINT: Hollis Mulwray is discovered drowned in a reservoir
  • MIDPOINT: Noah Cross offers Jake Gittes $10,000 to find the Mulwray’s missing girlfriend
  • ACT II TURNING POINT: Gittes spots Evelyn with the missing girl and she confesses that she’s her sister
    • A cynical divorce investigator, Gittes falls for Evelyn Mulwray, the murdered man’s wife, only for her to be killed and for him to realize that powerful people can get away murder

JAWS (1975)

  • HOOK: a shark attacks a woman off a coastal town
  • CATALYST/INCITING INCIDENT: Brody tries to close beaches
  • B STORY: Matt Hooper’s interest in the shark
  • ACT I TURNING POINT: Matt Hooper arrives and confirms it was a shark attack that killed the girl at the beginning. He also confirms that the shark that was caught is the wrong shark
  • MIDPOINT: The shark attacks swimmers on the 4th of July, ending the summer season on Amity Island
  • ACT II TURNING POINT: the shark attacks the Orca, making it personal
    • Escaping from seemingly fruitless job of keeping New York streets safe, a hydrophobic sheriff must take to the ocean to kill a shark that has been hunting the residents of his newly-adopted idyllic town

ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN (1976)

  • HOOK: The letters of a typewriter slam against a piece of typing paper in extreme closeup followed by archival footage of Nixon entering the Congressional chamber followed by the break-in at Watergate
  • CATALYST/INCITING INCIDENT: Woodward discovers a connection between a break-in at the watergate and the White House
  • B STORY: Two cub reporters hungry for a story and the resistence they meet not just from those they’re investigating but from their own editors
  • ACT I TURNING POINT: Woodward meets Deep Throat who tells him he’ll keep him in the right direction and to “follow the money”
  • MIDPOINT: Woodward and Bernstein hit a brick wall and have to start again / Bernstein meets a bookkeeper who gives him information about how money was exchanged
  • ACT II TURNING POINT: Woodward meets with Deep Throat who gives him vital clues as the motivation behind break-ins and by implication, who was involved

STAR WARS (1977)

  • HOOK: Star Destroyer attacks rebel ship
  • CATALYST/INCITING INCIDENT: R2D2 and C3P0 are sold to Luke Skywalker
  • B STORY: Luke learns the Force from Ben Kenobi
  • ACT I TURNING POINT: Ben Kenobi discovers Princess Leia’s hologram, and her plea for his help
  • MIDPOINT: The Millennium Falcon is captured by the Death Star
  • ACT II TURNING POINT: Ben Kenobi is killed and the heroes escape the Death Star
    • Yearning for adventure, Luke Skywalker learns the force and that with great struggle comes great loss

HALLOWEEN (1978)

  • HOOK: Michael Myers murders his sister
  • CATALYST/INCITING INCIDENT: Michael escapes from the mental hospital
  • B STORY: Laurie Strode’s virgin love life
  • ACT I TURNING POINT: Loomis discovers the deranged Michael Myers is heading for Haddonfield
  • MIDPOINT: Loomis takes the sheriff to Michael Myers’s childhood home and explains to the sheriff that Myers is purely and simply evil
  • ACT II TURNING POINT: Loomis spots Myers’s car and realizes he is nearby
    • Shy and skittish, Laurie Strode must overcome her fears to protect two children from a demonic figure

ALIEN (1979)

  • HOOK: the massive, empty spacecraft and the crew waking up
  • CATALYST/INCITING INCIDENT: the crew is given orders to investigate a distress signal from a nearby planet
  • B STORY: Ash is a robot sent to make sure the alien is captured for the company’s weapons division
  • ACT I TURNING POINT: the alien egg attaches something to Cain’s face
  • MIDPOINT: the alien bursts out of Cain’s chest
  • ACT II TURNING POINT: the surviving crew decide to blow up the ship and leave in the escape shuttle
    • After butting heads with the ship captain over how to handle things, Ripley must finally take charge in order to ultimately save herself

THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK (1980)

  • HOOK: Luke is attacked by the Wampa
  • CATALYST/INCITING INCIDENT: Ben’s ghost tells Luke he has to go to Dagobah to train with Yoda
  • B STORY: Han and Leia’s love story
  • ACT I TURNING POINT: After the attack on the rebel base, Luke heads off to train with Yoda, while Han and Leia try to evade capture
  • MIDPOINT: Luke confronts himself in the cave, facing off against an imaginary Darth Vader
  • ACT II TURNING POINT: Luke abandons his training to help his friends who have been betrayed by Lando Calrissian
    • Luke’s encounter with Darth Vader in the cave becomes a premonition, and his showdown with Vader on Cloud City reveals his unreadiness to face the dark side of the force

AIRPLANE (1980)

  • HOOK: a spoof on Jaws as the plane’s tail fin slices through the clouds with
  • CATALYST/INCITING INCIDENT: Ted Stryker tries to convince Elaine to come back to him and we learn he can’t fly anymore because of what happened to him in the war
  • B STORY: Stryker’s reconciliation with Elaine
  • ACT I TURNING POINT: the passengers order dinner
  • MIDPOINT: the pilot collapses from eating tainted fish
  • Act II plot point: after losing his nerve, followed by an inspiring story from Dr. Rumack, Stryker takes to the cockpit to land the plane
    • Haunted by the deaths of his comrades in combat that has led to a fear of flying, and aided by Dr. Rumack, Stryker is able to let go of the guilt that has held him back

RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (1981)

  • HOOK: Indy stealing the idol from the temple
  • CATALYST/INCITING INCIDENT: Indy meets with military intelligence
  • B STORY: Indy and Marion’s love affair
  • ACT I TURNING POINT: Indy heads to Nepal to get the headpiece to the staff of Ra from Marion
  • MIDPOINT: Indy discovers the Well of Souls
  • ACT II TURNING POINT: After escaping with Marion from the Well of Souls, Indy successfully steals the ark and boards it on a ship
    • The cynical Indiana Jones becomes a believer in the power of the Ark

BLADE RUNNER (1982)

  • HOOK: During an interview, Holden is shot by Leon
  • CATALYST/INCITING INCIDENT: Deckard is summoned to Bryant’s office to come out of retirement and kill four replicants
  • B STORY: Deckard’s relationship with Rachel, who discovers she is a replicant
  • ACT I TURNING POINT: Rachel visits Deckard at his apartment to convince him she’s not a replicant / Roy Batty goes to see Chew to find a way to get to Tyrell
  • MIDPOINT: Deckard kills Zora
  • ACT II TURNING POINT: Batty kills Tyrell
    • Deckard, through his relationship with Rachel, realizes he, too, is a replicant. Batty, in his dying moments, finds a humanity that is missing in those who hunt him

BACK TO THE FUTURE (1985)

  • HOOK: Marty is blown away by a huge speaker in Doc’s house
  • CATALYST/INCITING INCIDENT: Marty goes to the mall at Doc’s request
  • B STORY: Marty getting his parents back together
  • ACT I TURNING POINT: Marty is transported back to 1955
  • MIDPOINT: Marty informs Doc that he knows when lightning will strike the clock tower / Doc tells Marty he has to get his parents back together or he’ll disappear from existence
  • ACT II TURNING POINT: George punches Biff, thereby ensuring Marty will be born
    • Marty thinks his parents don’t understand what it’s like to be a teenager until he goes back and sees them as teenagers and realizes their problems weren’t that dissimilar to his

FERRIS BUELLER’S DAY OFF (1986)

  • HOOK: Ferris gives an elaborate performance to get out of school
  • CATALYST/INCITING INCIDENT: Ferris calls Cameron to ditch school with him (note: there is no corresponding search for Cameron when he ditches school)
  • B STORY: Rooney’s search for Ferris
  • ACT I TURNING POINT: Cameron lets Ferris take his dad’s car to go into the city
  • MIDPOINT: Cameron confronts Ferris about his indifference to Cameron’s needs
  • ACT II TURNING POINT: Cameron crashes his dad’s car
    • An inveterate hypochondriac with severe anxiety disorder, Cameron rejects Ferris’s offer to take the blame for crashing the car and makes the decision to confront his father over his neglect

WALL STREET (1987)

  • HOOK: The crush and machinations of people going to work on Wall Street
  • CATALYST/INCITING INCIDENT: Bud learns about a ruling in favor of his father’s airline
  • B STORY: Bud’s desire to buy BlueStar airlines / His relationship with Darien
  • ACT I TURNING POINT: Bud agrees to trade insider information for Gordon Gekko
  • MIDPOINT: Bud signs a contract giving him power of attorney for Gekko’s stock purchases, effectively making him the fall guy for Gekko if anything goes wrong
  • ACT II TURNING POINT: Bud discovers that the deal he asked Gekko to make with his father’s airline involves Gekko liquidating the airline
    • Bud discovers there’s a personal price to be paid for his greed

DIE HARD (1988)

  • HOOK: John McClane, afraid of flying, lands at LAX wearing his gun, announcing he’s a cop
  • CATALYST/INCITING INCIDENT: The terrorists enter Nakatomi Plaza / McClane has a fight with his wife
  • B STORY: McClane’s relationship with Seargent Al Powell
  • ACT I TURNING POINT: the terrorists kill Takagi after announcing their intention to break into the vault
  • MIDPOINT: John McClain’s wife becomes personally involved when she is designated liaison to the hostages / also, an assault on the building fails spectacularly but the terrorists response is thwarted by McClain
  • ACT II TURNING POINT: the terrorists retrieve the detonators they’ve been after for the whole movie and McClain is injured
    • Estranged from his wife and confrontational over her career, McClain must muster the strength to rescue her when no one else can

THELMA & LOUISE (1991)

  • HOOK: An opening shot of the desert road that Thelma & Louise will eventually travel, going from sepia to vivid color before fading out (the women’s journey as told through a single image and through the use of color)
  • CATALYST/INCITING INCIDENT: The women stop at a bar
  • B STORY: Thelma’s relationship with her husband, Louise’s relationship with Jimmy
  • ACT I TURNING POINT: Louise tells Thelma of her intention to go to Mexico
  • MIDPOINT: After J.D. steals their money, Thelma robs a 7-Eleven
  • ACT II TURNING POINT: Detective Slocumb tells Louise that he’s aware of their plan to go to Mexico and they trace the call
    • With an unjust world of men bearing down on them, Thelma & Louise take their lives into their own hands and end their lives on their own terms

SPEED (1994)

  • HOOK: cables are blown off an elevator car and a terrorist is asking for ransom
  • CATALYST/INCITING INCIDENT: Jack and Harry foil the plan
  • B STORY: Harry tries to find the killer / Jack and Annie romance
  • ACT I TURNING POINT: the bus blows up and Howard Payne lays out his plan to Jack Traven
  • MIDPOINT: One of the passengers is killed, demonstrating Payne’s commitment
  • ACT II TURNING POINT: Jack is able to get Annie and the passengers off the bus without Payne knowing, allowing him to go after Payne without the threat of hostages
    • Realizing his maverick ways put innocent lives in jeopardy, Jack puts his own life on the line to save the hostages, including Annie

LITTLE WOMEN (1994)

  • HOOK: the little women are introduced as Marmee returns home on Christmas
  • CATALYST/INCITING INCIDENT: Jo wants to be a writer / the girls speculate about Laurie
  • B STORY: Meg is looking for a suitor / in direct contrast to Jo wanting to be independent
  • ACT I TURNING POINT: Laurie is invited into the women’s secret circle / just prior, she confesses to Beth that she wants to be different, to do something exciting with her life
  • MIDPOINT: Jo rejects Laurie’s proposal and goes to New York to pursue her writing career
  • ACT II TURNING POINT: Jo has a falling out with Friederich Baher, receives a letter of Beth’s poor health and returns home
    • Torn by Beth’s death, Jo finds the courage to write from her heart

L.A. CONFIDENTIAL (1997)

  • HOOK: Backstory of Mickey Coen’s arrest and Hush Hush Magazine
  • CATALYST/INCITING INCIDENT: Bloody Christmas: the suspension of Bud White and Dick Stensland and Exley’s rise to Detective
  • B STORY: Bud’s relationship with Lynn
  • ACT I TURNING POINT: The Night Owl massacre
  • MIDPOINT: Bud begins a relation with prostitute Lynn Bracken / Jack Vicennes has a crisis of conscience over a setup that will hurt a young aspiring actor / Exley discovers from his witness that the men he killed for the Night Owl massacre were not the men responsible for it
  • ACT II TURNING POINT: Jack Vicennes is killed and Exley realizes it was captain Dudley Smith killed him and has been taking control of organized crime
    • A smarmy political cop and a violently brutal cop confront their inner selves and decide to work together to solve a case that has been seemingly closed

OCEAN’S ELEVEN (2001)

  • HOOK: Danny Ocean is released from prison after being asked what he would do if released
  • CATALYST/INCITING INCIDENT: Ocean tells Rusty that he wants to rob three casinos
  • B STORY: Ocean wants to get back together with his wife (this is introduced in the opening scene)
  • ACT I TURNING POINT: Danny Ocean lays out the plan to rob Terry Benedict’s casinos
  • MIDPOINT: Ocean is red-flagged by the casino and is out of the heist
  • ACT II TURNING POINT: the blackout and the heist begins
    • Trying to reunite with his estranged wife, Ocean shows her the man he is compared to the man she is currently married to

NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN (2007)

  • HOOK: Anton Chigur is arrested and immediately murders a sheriff’s deputy
  • CATALYST/INCITING INCIDENT: Llewelyn Moss discovers a satchel full of money
  • B STORY: Ed Tom Bell’s search for the killer and for Moss
  • Act 1 plot point: Ed Tom Bell discovers the scene of drug deal shootout, setting in motion his search for the killer / Anton Chigur goes to Llewelyn Moss’s home
  • MIDPOINT: Moss is ambushed by Chigur and narrowly escapes with his life to Mexico
  • ACT II TURNING POINT: Moss is killed
    • Ed Tom Bell realizes that his time is passed and the spectre of death cannot be avoided

MICHAEL CLAYTON (2007)

  • HOOK: The entire staff of Kenner, Bach & Ledeen is frantically working late at night to close a case and the head counsel is hounded by reporter
  • CATALYST/INCITING INCIDENT: Michael Clayton’s car explodes
  • B STORY: Michael owes money to a loan shark for his failed restaurant
  • ACT I TURNING POINT: After Arthur Edens has a breakdown in the middle of a deposition, Michael Clayon confronts him about stopping his medication. Arthur pleads with him to look into the corruption of the case he’s working on and Clayton takes over his case, primarily to cover Arthur’s tracks
  • MIDPOINT: Michael asks Marty for $80,000 to square a loan / Karen Crowder puts out a hit on Arthur
  • ACT II TURNING POINT: After Arthur is killed, Michael confronts his boss about the U-North case, concerned that it’s a corrupt case. His boss says he knows but that’s what the firm does. He also gives Michael the check for $80,000 that he asked for
    • Currently a “fixer” for a prestigious law firm, Michael Clayton betrays his firm in order to vindicate his friend who was murdered for trying to do the right thing

RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES (2011)

  • HOOK: Caesar is stolen from his home in the jungle and sold to a lab
  • CATALYST/INCITING INCIDENT: James Franco brings Caesar home
  • B STORY: James Franco’s father has Alzheimer’s
  • ACT I TURNING POINT: Caesar is shown where came from
  • MIDPOINT: Caesar steals a pocket knife to escape from his cell, releasing the gorilla and taking his place as alpha
  • ACT II TURNING POINT: Caesar releases the gas that has given him super intelligence on all the other apes
    • The apes escape to an uncertain future forest outside of San Francisco