Aerial shot: a camera shot filmed in an exterior location from far overhead (from a bird's eye view), as from a helicopter (most common), blimp, balloon, plane, or kite; a variation on the crane shot; if the aerial shot is at the opening of a film, aka an establishing shot.

Allegory: mostly a literary term, but taken in film terms to mean a suggestive resemblance or correspondence between a visible event or character in a film with other more significant or abstract levels of meaning outside of the film; an extended metaphor.

Allusion: a direct or indirect reference - through an image or through dialogue - to the Bible, a classic, a person, a place, an external and/or real-life event, another film, or a well-known cultural idea.

Ambiance: the feeling or mood of a particular scene or setting.

Ambiguity: a situation, story-line, scene, or character, etc. in which there are apparent contradictions; an event (and its outcome) is deliberately left unclear, and there may exist more than one meaning or interpretation; can be either intentional or unintentional, to deliberately provoke imaginative thinking or confusion.

Antagonist:  the main character, person, group, society, nature, force, spirit world, bad guy, or villain of a film or script who is in adversarial conflict with the film's hero, lead character or protagonist; also sometimes termed the heavy.

Anthropomorphism: the tendency in animated films to give creatures or objects human qualities, abilities, and characteristics.

Anti-hero, heroine:  the principal protagonist of a film who lacks the attributes or characteristics of a typical hero archetype, but with whom the audience identifies. The character is often confused or conflicted with ambiguous morals, or character defects and eccentricities, and lacks courage, honesty, or grace. The anti-hero can be tough yet sympathetic, or display vulnerable and weak traits. Specifically, the anti-hero often functions outside the mainstream and challenges it.

Atmosphere: refers to any concrete or nebulous quality or feeling that contributes a dimensional tone to a film's action.

Background music: refers to part of the score that accompanies a scene or action in a film, usually to establish a specific mood or enhance the emotion.

Backlighting: this phenomenon occurs when the lighting for the shot is directed at the camera from behind the subject(s), causing the figures in the foreground to appear in semi-darkness or as silhouettes; with backlighting, the subject is separated from the background.

Blocking a shot (or scene): the process of figuring out where the camera goes, how the lights will be arranged, and what the actors' positions and movements - moment by moment - are for each shot or take; often, the specific staging of a film's movements are worked out by the director, often with stand-ins and the lighting crew before actual shooting.

Camera angle: the point of view (POV) or perspective (including relative height or direction) chosen from which to photograph a subject. Various camera angles, compositions, or positions include: front, behind, side, top, high (looking down), low (looking up), straight-on or eye-level (standard or neutral angle), tilted (canted or oblique), or subjective, etc.; see also framing.

Camera movement:  the use of the camera to obtain various camera angles and perspectives. (See motion picture camera shots below, including the pan, tilt, track, and zoom; also boom/crane shots, Steadicam, or hand-held).

Cinematographer: specifically refers to the art and technique of film photography, the capture of images, and lighting effects, or to the person expert in and responsible for capturing or recording-photographing images for a film, through the selection of visual recording devices, camera angles, film stock, lenses, framing, and arrangement of lighting;. . .

Close-up: a shot taken from a close distance in which the scale of the object is magnified, appears relatively large and fills the entire frame to focus attention and emphasize its importance; i.e., a person's head from the shoulders or neck up is a commonly-filmed close-up; a tight shot makes the subject fill almost the entire frame; also extreme close-up (ECU or XCU) is a shot of a part of a character (e.g., face, head, hands) to emphasize detail; also known as detail shot or close on; contrast to long-shot (LS).

Coming-of-age: a film associated with difficult teen rites of passage (from adolescence to adulthood), the onset of puberty, the loss of naive innocence and childhood dreams, the experience of growing up, achieving sexual identity, etc.

Contrast: refers to the difference between light and shadow, or between maximum and minimum amounts of light, in a particular film image; can be either high contrast (with a sharp delineation between the bright and dark areas) or its opposite low contrast; color can also be contrasted; see also chiaroscuro.

Costume
(or wardrobe) and costume design: refers to the garments or clothing worn by actors/performers in a film; a costume (or wardrobe) designer researches, designs, and selects the costumes to be appropriate to the film's time period, the characters, their location, and their occupations, whereas the costumer (or stylist) is responsible for acquiring, selecting, manufacturing, and/or handling the clothing and accessories; a costume drama is a film set in a particular historical time period, often with elaborate costuming.

Cut: an abrupt or sudden change or jump in camera angle, location, placement, or time, from one shot to another; consists of a transition from one scene to another (a visual cut) or from one soundtrack to another (a sound cut); cutting refers to the selection, splicing and assembly by the film editor of the various shots or sequences for a reel of film, and the process of shortening a scene; also refers to the instructional word 'cut' said at the end of a take by the director to stop the action in front of the camera; cut to refers to the point at which one shot or scene is changed immediately to another; also refers to a complete edited version of a film (e.g., rough cut); also see director's cut; various types of cuts include invisible cut, smooth cut, jump cut, shock cut, etc.

Cutaway shot: a brief shot that momentarily interrupts a continuously-filmed action, by briefly inserting another related action, object, or person (sometimes not part of the principal scene or main action), followed by a cutback to the original shot; often filmed from the POV of the character and used to break up a sequence and provide some visual relief, or to ease the transition from one shot to the next, or to provide additional information, or to hint at an impending change; reaction shots are usually cutaways; cross-cutting is a series of cutaways and cutbacks indicating concurrent action; a cutaway is different from an insert shot.

Dialogue: any spoken lines in a film by an actor/actress; may be considered overlapping if two or more characters speak simultaneously.

Dissolve: a transitional editing technique between two sequences, shots or scenes, in which the visible image of one shot or scene is gradually replaced (by an overlapping fade out or fade in and dissolve) with the image from another shot or scene; for an instant, one image is superimposed on or gradually blended with the other; often used to suggest the passage of time and to transform one scene to the next; lap dissolve is shorthand for 'over'lap dissolve; also known as a soft transition or dissolve to.

Dystopia: an imaginary, wretched, dehumanized, fearful, bad, oppressive place; the opposite of utopia (a state of ideal perfection); see also nihilism.

Epilogue:  a short, concluding scene in a film in which characters (sometimes older) reflect on the preceding events.

Epiphany: a moment of sudden spiritual insight for the protagonist of a film, usually occurs just before or after the climax.

Establishing shot: usually a long (wide-angle or full) shot at the beginning of a scene (or a sequence) that is intended to show things from a distance (often an aerial shot), and to inform the audience with an overview in order to help identify and orient the locale or time for the scene and action that follows; this kind of shot is usually followed by a more detailed shot that brings characters, objects, or other figures closer; a re-establishing shot repeats an establishing shot near the end of a sequence.

 Expressionism: refers to the distortion of reality through lighting, editing, and costumes, to reflect the inner feelings and emotions of the characters and/or the filmmaker; a cinematic style of fantasy film common in post-WWI Germany in the 1920s and 1930s, characterized by dramatic lighting, dark visual images and shadows, grotesque and fantastic shots, distorted sets and angles, heavy makeup, highly stylized acting, and symbolic mime-like action and characters; opposed to realism.