Narrative film is a type of film that tells a story from beginning to end using a particular structure. According to narrative theory, these stories follow a format that begins by introducing characters, disrupting their lives, and showing how they overcome adversity to resolve the plot.

Key Theorists

Todorov – all narratives contain equilibrium, disequilibrium, recognition, resolution, and new equilibrium. “Logical and artistic necessity” mandates these formal similarities. Narrative, Todorov suggests, is a language that humans are conditioned to speak.

Levi-strauss binary oppositions – Levi Strauss, a French anthropologist in the 1900s, proposed a theory of ‘binary opposites’ which entails that the majority of narratives in media forms such as books and film contain opposing main characters. These binary opposites help to thicken the plot and further the narrative; and introduce contrast.

Propp spheres of action – Vladimir Propp (1928) claimed characters could be defined by their “spheres of action” and the role they played in the progression of the story. After studying 100 fairy tales in tremendous detail, he identified seven archetypes: the villain, the donor, the helper, the princess, the dispatcher, the hero, and the false hero.

Vogler/ Campbell Hero’s Journey –  the Hero is living in the so-called “ordinary world” when he receives a call to adventure. Usually, the Hero is unsure of following this call — this phase is known as the “refusal of the call” — but is then helped by a mentor figure, who gives him counsel and convinces him to follow the call.

Barthes Narrative Codes – Relying on the textual analysis, it shows that the selected story is tangled by all the five codes i.e. the proairetic, hermeneutic, semantic, symbolic and cultural codes. The story starts with an enigma, is full of suspense where several elements stand for connotative meaning.

Levi-strauss binary oppositions is the idea that the majority of narratives in media forms such as books and film contain opposing main characters.

a theory which suggests that a story goes in three parts, starting with an equilibrium, which is then disturbed, which is then solved

narrative can be described as the structural framework for the movie, essentially being made up of the structure (linear & non-linear) and the plot.

narrative – The structure of a film, going from beginning to middle to end following a plot and story which unfold

Find a good working definition for narrative which connects well to Film Studies

The narrative in a film is the story elements, including narrative structure, character and plot. The narrative tells a story by writers using narrator style, chronological order, a point of view, and other strategies. A good narrative story is one that ensures all actions in your story develop a central idea or argument.

The story/chain of events being told throughout a film and how it is presented to spectators (e.g. linear/timeline order vs non linear/out of timeline order).

Narrative is the structure and framework of a film and how the plot unfolds to tell a story.

A narrative film is a film that tells a cohesive, often fictional, story with cause and effect events through filmmaking technique

a fictional story in films that follow a certain structure of events usually through cause and effect.