Logline Examples: 20 Loglines by Genre, With Notes on Why They Work

These 20 logline examples are invented for this page and sorted by genre, each paired with a one-line note on why it works or how it was rebuilt from a weak version. Every one names a specific protagonist, a goal a camera can film, and an obstacle that comes from who the character is.

Updated 2026-09-22 · About 8 sections · 5 answered questions

How to read these logline examples

Every logline below is invented for this page, so you can borrow the shape without borrowing the story. Each one was checked against the same four questions: who is it about, what happens to them, what must they do, and what stops them. Where a logline started life as a weak draft, the note shows the weak version so you can see what changed.

If you want the reasoning behind those four questions, what a logline is covers the definition and how to write a logline walks through the method step by step.

All twenty sit between 25 and 50 words. None names a character, ends with a question or mentions a theme. Those three rules alone would fix most loglines in a reader's inbox.

Thriller and crime logline examples

Logline	Why it works
When a court stenographer realises the transcript she is typing has been altered to convict an innocent man, she must smuggle the original out of a sealed courtroom before the judge who ordered the change notices the pages are missing.	The job is the plot. She is the only person in the building positioned to notice, and the antagonist is the person with the most power over her.
A getaway driver who has never been caught must complete one last job with a passenger who is a police informant, and both of them know it.	Fixed from "A getaway driver takes one last job that goes wrong." The rewrite says how it goes wrong, and the final clause turns a chase into a two-hander.
After a hospital pharmacist discovers a batch of counterfeit chemotherapy drugs, she has until the next shipment arrives to prove her own supplier is poisoning patients, while the hospital that would lose everything works to discredit her.	The deadline is built into the world rather than bolted on, and the institution she works for is the second antagonist.
A retired forensic accountant hired to trace forty million missing dollars must decide whether to report that the thief is the grandson she raised.	Fixed from "A retired accountant investigates a theft with personal ties." Name the tie. The dilemma is the logline.

Thriller loglines earn their length with mechanism: the obstacle clause is usually the longest part, so keep the protagonist description short to pay for it.

Comedy and romantic comedy logline examples

Logline	Why it works
A wedding planner who has never been in love must plan the wedding of the only man she ever ghosted, and he has requested her by name.	Irony in the first clause, engine in the last. "Requested her by name" tells you he has a plan, which is the second act.
A failed stand-up comic who inherits his estranged father's funeral home must keep the business alive by becoming the only funeral director in town who makes mourners laugh.	Fixed from "A comedian inherits a funeral home and hilarity ensues." The rewrite says what the hilarity is and why he cannot avoid it.
When a small-town mayor accidentally declares independence from the United States on live television, she has one week to either reverse it or make the country work before the federal government arrives.	High concept with a clock. The two options in the goal are the two halves of the story, and the reader can guess which she picks.
Two rival food-truck owners forced to share a single parking permit must survive a summer of mutual sabotage without admitting they have fallen for each other.	"Without admitting" is the romantic comedy engine in two words. The permit is the specific, filmable reason they cannot walk away.

Comedy loglines should read like the pitch you would make across a table. If the listener does not smile by the end of the sentence, the premise is not yet comic.

Horror and science fiction logline examples

Logline	Why it works
A night-shift 911 operator begins receiving calls from her own address describing a break-in that has not happened yet, and must work out who is calling before the time stamped on the recording arrives.	The rule of the haunting is in the first clause and the deadline is in the second. Nothing else is needed.
A grief counsellor at a remote retreat realises the guests are being replaced one by one, and the only way to tell who is still human is that the copies cannot cry.	Fixed from "People at a retreat are being replaced by something." The rewrite gives the monster a rule and the protagonist a skill that fits it.
When the first crew to wake from a two-hundred-year sleeper voyage finds the ship arrived decades ago and the colony below has no record of them, the navigator must learn who erased them before the colony decides to do it again.	The premise turns on a single reveal, and the goal comes straight out of it. "Do it again" implies the antagonist without naming one.
In a city where every citizen's memories are audited once a year, a memory auditor discovers her own last year has been deleted, and must find out what she saw before the next audit erases the search itself.	Fixed from "In a dystopian future, a woman fights the system." The system is now a specific job, and she is the person who runs it.

Genre loglines live or die on the rule. A haunting, a monster or a technology needs one constraint the protagonist can act against, stated in a clause.

Drama and coming-of-age logline examples

Logline	Why it works
A sixteen-year-old who runs her parents' corner shop and files all their paperwork must decide whether to report the landlord's fraud when doing so would expose her father's immigration status.	The goal is a decision, but it is a decision with a filmable action on either side, and the cost is named in the sentence.
A concert pianist who lost two fingers in a car crash must learn to play the piece that was on the stereo at the moment of impact, for the daughter who was driving.	Fixed from "A pianist deals with the aftermath of an accident." The rewrite gives the recovery a concrete task and a person it is for.
A public defender returns to the coal town he escaped to defend the brother who stayed, against a mine that signs the pay cheque of every juror in the county.	Fixed from "A man returns to his hometown and confronts his past." The past is now a brother, a case and a jury, and all three can be shot.
When her seventy-year-old mother announces she is hiking the Pacific Crest Trail alone, a control-obsessed daughter joins the walk to bring her home, and finds she is the one being walked out of her life.	The final clause reverses the goal, which is what dramas do. The reader sees the arc without being told the ending.

Drama loglines are the hardest to write because the stakes are internal. The fix is always the same: attach the internal stakes to an external task with a visible outcome, so the reader knows what winning looks like on screen.

Action, adventure and family logline examples

Logline	Why it works
A disgraced avalanche forecaster must lead a rescue up the mountain she was blamed for, with the surviving members of the family she failed as her only team.	The protagonist's history is the obstacle, and the supporting cast is chosen to keep it in every scene.
A twelve-year-old who runs a banned-book library out of a school storage cupboard must smuggle the books out before the inspection, with the help of the principal's son, who may be the informer.	Family adventure with a real antagonist and a real doubt. "May be the informer" gives the friendship a question to answer.
With the president's motorcade trapped in a tunnel by a collapse that was no accident, a maintenance engineer with no security clearance must get him out through the one service route the attackers never mapped, because she built it.	Fixed from "A team must stop a terrorist attack." One protagonist, one reason she is the only person who can do this, one route.
After the circus that employed him for forty years closes, an elephant keeper must walk his last animal four hundred miles to a sanctuary with a repossession crew two days behind them.	A road movie needs a destination, a clock and a pursuer. This has all three in one sentence, and the relationship is the emotional spine.

Action loglines go generic fastest. The defence is an unlikely protagonist with a specific reason to be the one who acts.

What the strong loglines have in common

Look back across the twenty and the same moves repeat.

The protagonist's description creates the obstacle. The agoraphobic, the disgraced forecaster, the planner who has never been in love. Well-known films do the same: the police chief in the famous shark film is afraid of the water.
The goal is a verb with an object. Smuggle the transcript, walk the elephant, get the president out. Never "find herself".
The stakes or clock are in the sentence. Before the judge notices, before the next audit, two days behind.
The antagonist is specific and often close to home. A grandson, a brother's jury, a hospital she works for. Distance kills tension.
The final clause turns. Many of the best examples save a reversal for the last few words: "and both of them know it", "because she built it", "being walked out of her life".

Every weak version on this page failed the same way: it described a situation and stopped. The fix was never cleverer wording. It was a decision the writer had not yet made about what the character actually does.

Run your own draft through the free logline builder and pitch grader to check the parts are present, then put it in front of a stranger. When it survives both, it is ready for the query letter and the one-page synopsis that go with it.

Using a logline example as a template for your own

Pick the example closest to your genre. Strip out its nouns and keep the skeleton: who, what happened, what they must do, what stops them, what turns at the end. Fill it with your own story and read it aloud. If a slot stays empty, that slot is the note: no stakes clause means no clock, no turn means no irony.

Keep the finished sentence in front of you while you write. Zen Writer's scene navigator gives every scene a synopsis field, and a logline pasted into scene one's synopsis is a cheap way to check, each time you open the script, that the pages still serve the sentence. Zen Writer for iPhone keeps the same navigator in your pocket, offline.

The treatment expands the same sentence to several pages and the outline expands it to scenes, so a logline that works gives the longer documents their shape. The screenwriting guides cover each of those documents in turn.

Frequently asked questions

Are these logline examples from real movies?

No. Every logline on this page is invented so you can copy the structure freely. Where a well-known film is mentioned, its premise is paraphrased rather than quoted, because official loglines are marketing copy and often break the rules a spec logline should follow.

What is the most common fault in a weak logline?

Describing a situation and stopping. "A woman fights the system" or "a man confronts his past" has a protagonist and a mood but no filmable goal, no specific antagonist and no stakes. Every fix on this page adds those three things.

How long are the logline examples on this page?

Each one is between 25 and 50 words, in a single sentence. That range is the working standard for a spec logline: long enough to hold a protagonist, goal, obstacle and stakes, short enough to say aloud in one breath.

Can I include the film's title in a logline?

Keep the title out of the sentence itself. In a query letter the title goes on its own line above the logline, in caps or italics, followed by genre and page count. The logline then does its job without a name attached to it.

Should a logline reveal the twist?

Reveal the premise, not the resolution. If the twist is the setup, as with the memory auditor example, it belongs in the logline; if the twist is the ending, keep it for the synopsis, which always includes the ending, and let the logline pose the question.

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Screenwriting Education

Logline Examples: 20 Loglines by Genre, With Notes on Why They Work

How to read these logline examples

Thriller and crime logline examples

Comedy and romantic comedy logline examples

Horror and science fiction logline examples

Drama and coming-of-age logline examples

Action, adventure and family logline examples

What the strong loglines have in common

Using a logline example as a template for your own

Frequently asked questions

Ready to turn this idea into a screenplay?

Continue reading

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