Screenwriting guide
Logline Examples: 64 Samples by Genre
A good logline names a specific hero, the event that sets the story moving, the goal they chase and what stands in the way, in one or two sentences. Below are 64 original logline examples written for this page, grouped by genre, each with a short note on why it works.
Written and reviewed by ScriptLix Editorial
What is a logline?
A logline is a one or two sentence summary of a film or TV story that tells a reader who it is about, what happens to set the story moving, what they want and what stands in the way. It is the pitch you put on a query letter, a contest form and the first page of a pitch deck, and it should make someone want to read the script.
- Hero
- a specific person, not a type
- Trigger
- the event that starts the story
- Goal
- what they now have to do
- Obstacle
- who or what stands in the way, and the cost of failing
Example: When a motel night auditor finds a room that has been paid for every night since 1987, she has until checkout to learn who is staying in it before it decides to keep her.
Logline examples by genre
Showing 64 examples. All written for this page.
- Thriller
When a hotel night auditor finds a room booked under her own name for tomorrow night, she has twelve hours to learn who plans to become her before they check in.
Why it works: An uncanny hook with the clock built into the premise.
- Thriller
A deaf forensic accountant lip reads a conversation through a glass wall and learns her firm launders money for a cartel, then has to keep showing up to work while she gathers proof.
Why it works: The hero’s specific trait is the way into the plot.
- Thriller
After a ferry breaks down in thick fog, a retired detective realises one of the passengers is the killer he failed to catch thirty years ago.
Why it works: A closed setting plus a personal failure makes the stakes private and urgent.
- Thriller
A broke locksmith is paid in cash to open a safe in an empty mansion, and finds a living man inside.
Why it works: Short and visual, and it ends on the question that sells the film.
- Thriller
When her teenage son is charged with a hit and run he did not commit, a public defender must decide whether to expose the real driver: her husband.
Why it works: The twist sits at the end, where it lands hardest, and forces an impossible choice.
- Thriller
A night bus driver on an empty route notices the same passenger boarding at every stop, each time a little more injured.
Why it works: One eerie image carries the whole premise without explaining it.
- Thriller
A security trainer who teaches executives to spot online scams falls for one and loses her daughter’s college fund, so she sets out to scam the scammers.
Why it works: Irony in the setup and a clear, active goal for the rest of the film.
- Horror
A family that buys a farmhouse at auction learns the previous owners never left: they live inside the walls, and they have rules.
Why it works: The last three words promise set pieces built around breaking them.
- Horror
A hospice nurse starts hearing her dead patients’ last words repeated on her baby monitor, and realises they are warnings about her own family.
Why it works: An everyday object turned wrong, aimed straight at the hero’s home.
- Horror
A wildlife photographer snowed into a remote cabin notices that the animal tracks circling it every night are walking upright.
Why it works: A single detail does the scaring. No monster needs to be named.
- Horror
When a small town bans mirrors overnight with no explanation, a newly arrived teacher breaks the rule and sees what stands behind every resident.
Why it works: An outsider, a strange rule and a clear transgression that starts the plot.
- Horror
A grieving father builds a voice assistant from his daughter’s old messages, until it starts telling him things about her death that only she could know.
Why it works: Grief is the engine, so the horror carries an emotional story too.
- Horror
Six friends on a canoe trip find a lake that is on no map, and the longer they stay, the fewer of them remember there were six.
Why it works: A quiet, original rule for the threat that the audience can track.
- Horror
A night janitor at a children’s museum finds the exhibits rearranged into a message every morning, and each message is more desperate than the last.
Why it works: Escalation is built into the logline, which tells a reader the story has a shape.
- Comedy
A compulsively honest wedding planner has to lie her way through a week when her ex books her to plan his wedding to her best friend.
Why it works: The hero’s defining trait is the exact thing the situation forbids.
- Comedy
A retired hitman joins a suburban book club and discovers its members are far more dangerous than anyone he ever worked for.
Why it works: A fish out of water reversal in one clean sentence.
- Comedy
A self help guru who never follows his own advice loses his voice before a sold out tour, and must hire the cynic who sends him hate mail to stand in.
Why it works: Two opposites forced together, with a deadline and a public stage.
- Comedy
Two rival food truck owners end up handcuffed together by a magician’s prank on the eve of the city’s biggest food festival.
Why it works: A physical comic premise that a reader can picture scene by scene.
- Comedy
A tech billionaire fakes his death to escape his investors, finds that nobody misses him, and crashes his own funeral to win them back.
Why it works: Ego as the comic engine, with a big set piece promised in the logline.
- Comedy
A town’s worst driving instructor has one month to teach the mayor’s ninety year old mother to drive before the election, or lose his job.
Why it works: Specific characters and a deadline make the jokes feel inevitable.
- Comedy
An introverted librarian accidentally goes viral and has to keep a fake party girl persona alive long enough to save the library’s funding.
Why it works: The lie is the plot, and the goal is noble enough to root for.
- Drama
A long haul trucker who walked out on his family offers to drive his estranged daughter’s belongings across the country after her divorce, the only way she will see him.
Why it works: A road trip structure with years of history packed into the cab.
- Drama
A celebrated chef who is losing her sense of taste hides it from her kitchen while training the young cook she suspects will replace her.
Why it works: A secret, a loss and a rival in one line, all pulling against each other.
- Drama
After her farm floods, a widowed beekeeper takes in the teenage son of the developer she blames for the flood.
Why it works: Forced proximity between people with every reason to stay apart.
- Drama
A sign language interpreter at a murder trial must decide whether to report that the deaf defendant just signed a confession only she understood.
Why it works: A moral dilemma that only this hero could face.
- Drama
A former chess prodigy, now a prison janitor, is asked to coach the inmate who killed his brother.
Why it works: Short, with the whole conflict carried by the last five words.
- Drama
When a small town’s only doctor is diagnosed with early dementia, she has one season to train her replacement without her patients finding out.
Why it works: A ticking clock that is also the character’s deepest fear.
- Drama
Two estranged sisters must drive their mother’s ashes to the coast in the car their mother died in.
Why it works: A simple journey with a loaded object at the centre.
- Sci-fi
When a radio message arrives from a nearby star, the only person who can decode it is the linguist the government jailed for leaking its research.
Why it works: A world event filtered through one compromised, specific hero.
- Sci-fi
A maintenance worker on a generation ship discovers the ship reached its destination two hundred years ago and nobody was told.
Why it works: One reveal reframes the whole world, and the logline stops right there.
- Sci-fi
In a future where memories can be sold, a broke student sells her worst one and can no longer remember why she should fear the man who bought it.
Why it works: The sci-fi rule creates the danger directly.
- Sci-fi
A paramedic gets a voicemail from herself, recorded tomorrow, begging her not to go to work.
Why it works: Under twenty words, with an irresistible question.
- Sci-fi
When a colony’s terraforming system decides humans are the invasive species, a botanist must change its mind using the only garden it has not destroyed.
Why it works: A hero whose skill matches the problem, against an opponent with a logic of its own.
- Sci-fi
A time loop traps a hospital’s entire night shift in the same eight hours, and the only way out is to let one patient die.
Why it works: The genre device forces a moral choice, which gives the story a spine.
- Sci-fi
The first human clone, raised in secret, escapes the lab at seventeen to find the woman she was copied from, who has no idea she exists.
Why it works: A big concept made personal through a single relationship.
- Romance
Two radio hosts who feud on air every morning fall for each other off air, under fake names, through a late night call in show.
Why it works: Dramatic irony: the audience knows what the lovers do not.
- Romance
A divorce lawyer and a wedding photographer keep meeting at couples’ best and worst days, until they have to admit they are one too.
Why it works: Opposite jobs give the pair a built in argument about love.
- Romance
After an airport mix up, a cautious botanist and a reckless pilot have to share one rental car across Scotland to reach the same wedding.
Why it works: Forced proximity, opposites and a destination with romantic pressure built in.
- Romance
A widowed baker agrees to fake date her late husband’s best friend so her family will stop setting her up, and both start forgetting it is fake.
Why it works: A familiar trope given weight by grief and loyalty.
- Romance
Two strangers who each find half of a torn love letter in a used bookshop spend a summer hunting for the couple who wrote it.
Why it works: A quest that mirrors the romance the leads are falling into.
- Romance
A matchmaker with a perfect record must find a partner for the one client who refuses every match: the man she secretly loves.
Why it works: The hero’s job and her heart want opposite things.
- Romance
Every year on the same night, two exes meet to split the last of their shared belongings, until nothing is left to divide but the reason they broke up.
Why it works: An unusual structure that a reader can see, year by year.
- Action
When armed men seize a dam during a flood, a park ranger who is terrified of water is the only person inside who knows how the spillway works.
Why it works: The hero’s fear sits right on top of the set piece.
- Action
A getaway driver who has never failed a job must get a witness across the city in one night while every crew she ever drove for hunts her.
Why it works: A simple goal, a single night and an army of opponents.
- Action
A retired stunt double returns to a film set that is cover for a real heist, and only she can tell which explosions are fake.
Why it works: The hero’s expertise is the exact skill the plot needs.
- Action
An avalanche rescue team must reach a stranded tour group before the mercenaries who caused the avalanche get there first.
Why it works: A race with two teams and a clear finish line.
- Action
A bodyguard assigned to a teenage pop star discovers the threat is coming from inside the star’s own management.
Why it works: The twist turns protection into investigation.
- Action
A disgraced sea captain must sail a damaged cargo ship through a storm with a crew of prisoners to stop a toxic spill before it reaches the coast.
Why it works: Redemption, an unreliable team and a ticking clock.
- Action
During a citywide blackout in a heat wave, a bike courier carrying a donor heart has two hours to reach the only hospital still running.
Why it works: Pure momentum: a vehicle, a package, a deadline.
- Family
A shy girl who can talk to lost things helps a forgotten teddy bear cross the city to find its owner before the trash truck comes.
Why it works: A gentle magic rule and an adventure a child can follow.
- Family
Three cousins who cannot stand each other must win the county fair together to save their grandmother’s farm from being sold.
Why it works: A team that has to learn to be a family, with a clear prize.
- Family
A young dragon who is afraid of fire enrolls in a human cooking school to prove she belongs somewhere.
Why it works: A funny contradiction with a heartfelt need underneath.
- Family
A boy who moves to a lighthouse town learns the light keeps the sea monsters away, and the keeper retires tomorrow.
Why it works: A secret world and an instant deadline the hero must step up to meet.
- Family
When her science fair robot comes to life, an eleven year old has to hide it from her parents until the fair.
Why it works: A simple, kid sized goal with endless room for comic set pieces.
- Family
A girl whose family runs a failing roadside zoo sets out to lure a famous wildlife host to visit, using a creature nobody can prove exists.
Why it works: Family stakes and a mystery creature give both kids and adults a hook.
- Family
Two siblings who find a map in their late grandfather’s tackle box spend the summer on a treasure hunt that reveals who he really was.
Why it works: An adventure on the surface and a story about family underneath.
- TV
Dramedy pilot: when a stand up comedian inherits her estranged father’s small town funeral home, she learns it has been burying the town’s secrets for decades.
Why it works: A series engine: every episode brings a new death and a new secret.
- TV
Procedural: a former con artist turned insurance fraud investigator cracks a new scam each week while hiding that she ran the biggest one in the state.
Why it works: Case of the week plus a long running secret that can blow up any episode.
- TV
Half hour comedy: five overqualified adults share one job as the night staff of a twenty four hour laundromat.
Why it works: A workplace, an ensemble and a premise that renews itself every night.
- TV
Limited series: over one winter, the crew of a remote research station learn that one of them is not who they say they are, and the supply plane is not coming.
Why it works: A closed world, a mystery and a clear end point for a limited run.
- TV
Medical drama: a rural air ambulance crew makes life and death calls across a vast territory while their base fights closure.
Why it works: Weekly emergencies plus a season long threat to the whole team.
- TV
Workplace comedy: the staff of the country’s least visited national park scramble to cope when a viral video sends a flood of tourists their way.
Why it works: A sudden change that breaks a comfortable routine, ready for many episodes.
- TV
Family drama: three adult siblings move back into the family hotel to run it after their father’s stroke, each secretly planning to sell it.
Why it works: Competing hidden agendas give every episode built in conflict.
- TV
Anthology: each episode follows a different passenger on the same overnight train, and every story ends with them missing their stop.
Why it works: A repeatable format with a signature ending that ties the season together.
Weak versus strong: five logline rewrites
The same mistakes come up again and again. Here is each one, and a rewrite that fixes it.
Weak 1A detective investigates a murder in a small town.
No specific hero, no stakes and nothing we have not seen.
StrongA small town detective investigating a murder realises every clue points to the night she was too drunk to remember.
Weak 2A teenager goes on a journey of self discovery.
Abstract. There is no goal, no obstacle and nothing to film.
StrongTo win back the scholarship she lost, a teenage runner must finish a desert ultramarathon alongside the coach who cut her.
Weak 3In a world where nothing is as it seems, one man must fight to survive against impossible odds.
Every phrase is a cliché, so the reader learns nothing about this story.
StrongA lighthouse keeper who has not spoken in ten years must radio for help when the only survivor of a wreck turns out to be the man who silenced him.
Weak 4Jack is a thirty five year old accountant from Ohio who always dreamed of being a chef because his grandmother taught him to bake, and when he finally quits his job his wife leaves and his dog gets sick and he has to decide what really matters.
Too long, with backstory where the hook should be and no clear goal.
StrongWhen a burned out accountant wins a run down diner in a poker game, he has one month to make it profitable before the casino owner who lost it comes to take it back.
Weak 5A firefighter has to put out a big fire.
No irony. The job and the problem are the same thing, so there is no tension.
StrongA firefighter with a secret fear of fire must lead the evacuation of her hometown as a wildfire closes in.
How to use it
- 1
Filter by your genre and read a dozen examples out loud.
- 2
Note the pattern: a specific hero, an inciting event, a goal and an obstacle, often with irony.
- 3
Draft your own, then run it through the free logline grader for a score and a rewrite.
What makes a logline work?
Specificity. A deaf forensic accountant tells a reader more than a woman, and a ferry stranded in fog tells them more than a dangerous place. Each specific word lets the reader picture the movie.
Conflict. Somebody wants something and something stands in the way. Many of the strongest examples add irony on top: the hero who fears water stuck inside a flooding dam, the honest planner who has to lie. Irony is what makes a reader say I want to see that.
How long should a logline be?
One sentence where you can, two at most. Most of the examples here run between about twenty and forty words. If yours needs more, it usually carries backstory or a list of subplots that belong in a synopsis instead.
Should a logline name the character?
Usually not. A description like a retired stunt double says more than a name a reader has never heard. Save names for the synopsis and the treatment.
How is a TV logline different?
A film logline sells one story with an ending. A series logline sells an engine: a situation that can produce episode after episode. That is why the TV examples here point to the case of the week, the workplace or the format, not just the pilot’s plot.
Questions writers ask
What is a logline?
A one or two sentence summary of a film or TV story that names the hero, the event that starts the story, their goal and what stands in the way. It is the pitch at the top of a query letter or contest entry.
What is an example of a good logline?
A broke locksmith is paid in cash to open a safe in an empty mansion, and finds a living man inside. It names a specific hero, a situation and a hook in under twenty five words.
Are these loglines from real movies?
No. Every logline on this page was written for it as an example, so you can study and adapt them freely.
What is the logline formula?
When an inciting event happens, a specific hero must pursue a goal before or despite an obstacle. Treat it as a checklist, not a template to fill word for word.
How do I write a logline for my script?
List your hero, the inciting event, the goal and the main obstacle, then join them in one sentence. The free logline generator can draft options and grade your own.
What is the difference between a logline and a tagline?
A logline describes the story for readers and buyers. A tagline is a marketing phrase on a poster, written to tease rather than explain.