Is It a Movie or a Film?

Ever wondered if what you’re watching is a movie or a film? Next time, consider these key differences.

First, all movies are scored by Hans Zimmer. Films are scored by someone who has said, at least once, “I don’t feel challenged by Hans Zimmer’s work.”

Movies are very loud, mostly because someone is screaming, “We’ve got company!” Films are too quiet, because they are in the pocket of Big Subtitle.

Movies are about people fighting with the elements (evil fire, evil water, evil minerals), whereas films are about how it’s O.K. that it’s raining because it tells us something—about society.

Animals in movies can be lovable sidekicks and/or professional athletes. In films, animals must either watch or perform a murder.

Parents in movies need to stop having a job so they can spend more time with their children. In films, it’s totally fine to hate your kids, because they are French, and awful.

If two characters fall in love in a movie, they will kiss at the end, probably in Grand Central Terminal, or at a painfully straight wedding. In films, it is also possible for two characters to kiss at the end, but only if one of them is terminally ill or, ideally, already dead.

Movies have lots of short scenes in quick succession, because phones broke your brain and you can’t pay attention otherwise. Films are all one long, continuous shot, which you know because the guy in the seat next to you is, like, “Did you know that this is one long, continuous shot?”

Visually, movies are incredibly bright and colorful, like a commercial for pills that make your grandkids love you again. Films are dark and candlelit, like a commercial for a cologne that makes you Bradley Cooper.

Movies frequently use C.G.I. to create stunning action sequences and that freaky baby from “Breaking Dawn.” What many people don’t realize is that films also rely heavily on C.G.I. (a.k.a. Charlotte Gainsbourg Is-in-it).

Nudity in movies is limited to the following swaths of skin: side, top, or nexus of breast; genitals under duvet; ass walking away from shower (preferably in a locker room). Nudity in films is about how our bodies are earthly prisons for our deepest desires, but also you can usually see, like, at least some dick.

Awards for movies include Oscars, Golden Globes, and Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Awards, and the prize is a gold statuette or slime. Films can only win awards given out in cities where James Bond might have a sexy car chase, and the prize is a bottle of red wine to be drunk while staring wistfully out a window.

All movies cost approximately twenty-five per cent of the G.D.P. of the United States of America to make. Most films cost between four and eight Swiss francs, and the majority of that budget goes toward hand-rolled cigarettes for sad fathers.

Ultimately, movies are made to entertain, to thrill, and to discuss with a family member with whom they are the only safe topic of conversation. Films are made for you to consume before lying back on an antique loveseat with your mercurial lover as dusk falls, searching for a thirteen-minute YouTube video that you hope will answer the question “Wait, like . . . what happened, though?” ♦