Do You Underline Movie Titles? Not Anymore! 2026 Rules

No, you usually do not underline movie titles anymore. In essays, articles, and most digital writing, the standard answer is to italicize them: Get Out, The Godfather, Spirited Away. Underlining still works as a fallback in handwriting or in tools that cannot display italics reliably.

The confusion is real because the rule changes by context. In MLA, APA, and Chicago, movie titles in essays are typically italicized, while AP-style journalism commonly uses quotation marks instead, a distinction explained in this style overview from Proofed. So the same film may appear as Oppenheimer in a paper and “Oppenheimer” in a news story without either writer being wrong.

If you are writing an essay and your professor has not said otherwise, use italics for the movie title.

How We Verified the Rules in This Guide

This guide was checked against the style systems that control most real-world uses of movie titles: MLA, APA, Chicago, and AP. I also reviewed common edge cases outside formal essays, including handwriting, Markdown, copied plain text, and code comments where italics may disappear.

For the core italics-versus-quotation-marks rule, I relied on current guidance rather than forum folklore. Grammarly places movies with longer standalone works that take italics, while shorter works such as essays, poems, and songs take quotation marks, as shown in its quotation marks in titles guide.

So Do You Underline Movie Titles Anymore

Short answer: in modern writing, no. If you are typing an essay, article, report, or document, movie titles should usually be italicized, not underlined.

That is the clearest answer to the essay question behind most of this confusion: are movies italicized, or are movies italicized or quoted? In academic writing, they are usually italicized. If you are wondering, “am i supposed to quotation mark movie titles in essyas?”, the answer is generally no. Quotation marks are for shorter works, while a film is treated as a full standalone work.

Newsrooms and formatting-limited tools follow different pressures. AP style often uses quotation marks. Handwritten work and plain-text environments may use underlining as a substitute for italics. So when people ask whether movie titles should be in quotes or italics, the correct choice is italics for essays and most formal writing, with quotation marks used only in specific style systems or tool constraints.

What to do in an essay

If you are writing a school paper, literary analysis, or film essay, use italics for movie titles in MLA, APA, and Chicago. The standard answer to questions like are movie titles underlined, are movies underlined, or are movies underlined or quoted is that they are not underlined in a typical typed essay. Underlining is mainly a backup for handwriting or situations where you cannot format in italics.

Use quotation marks only if one of these is true:

• your instructor explicitly asks for them
• you are following AP style for a journalism assignment
• your writing tool cannot show italics and you need a readable fallback

Here are clear examples using the same film title:

• Correct in an essay: In The Shawshank Redemption, hope functions as a survival strategy.
• Also correct in MLA/APA/Chicago prose: My paper compares The Shawshank Redemption with The Green Mile.
• Usually incorrect for a standard essay: In “The Shawshank Redemption,” hope functions as a survival strategy.
• Acceptable in handwriting: In The Shawshank Redemption, hope functions as a survival strategy.
• Acceptable in formatting-limited plain text: My paper compares "The Shawshank Redemption" with "The Green Mile" when italics will not display.

From Typewriters to Pixels The History of Underlining

Underlining started as a tool problem, not a grammar truth.

In 1922, the Chicago Manual of Style established underlining as the standard for titles in typewritten manuscripts. It later shifted to italics as digital word processors became common, and Chicago formally prioritized italics in its 15th edition in 2003 (Chicago title-formatting history).

Why underlining existed at all

A typewriter could not easily produce true italic type, so writers used underlining to show that a title was special.

That old rule solved a real problem:

• Typewriter limitation: no easy italic formatting
• Need in formal writing: titles had to stand out from regular text
• Workaround: underline the title

Why italics took over

Once word processors became normal, the workaround stopped being necessary. Italics look cleaner and signal titles more naturally than a line dragged under every word.

Underlining wasn't "wrong." It was the best available substitute.

That history explains why older reference books or teachers may seem to disagree. If you're writing on a modern device, you're usually in the italics era.

The Modern Standard Italics vs Quotation Marks

The easiest way to remember title formatting is this: big things get italics, smaller parts get quotation marks.

A movie is a complete, standalone work, so it gets italics. A song on an album is one part of a larger whole, so it gets quotation marks. A TV show gets italics. A single episode gets quotation marks.

The big work and small part rule

Type of title	Format	Example
Movie	Italics	Parasite
TV series	Italics	Bridgerton
Book	Italics	Dune
Play	Italics	Hamlet
TV episode	Quotation marks	"The One with the Embryos"
Song	Quotation marks	"Bohemian Rhapsody"
Article	Quotation marks	"A New Study on Climate Change"

Where movie titles fit

Movie titles sit firmly in the italics category in standard academic and general formal writing. So these are correct:

• I watched Casablanca last night.
• Her essay compares Barbie and Lady Bird.
• The documentary Won't You Be My Neighbor? uses interviews and archival footage.

What you usually should not do in modern writing is this:

• I watched Casablanca last night.
• I watched "Casablanca" last night.
• I watched Casablanca last night.

How to Write a Movie Title in an Essay

For most students, the practical rule is simple: italicize the title in your sentence, and keep your citation style consistent with the rest of the assignment. That is the default in MLA, APA, and Chicago when you mention a film in the body of an essay.

If your assignment sheet says MLA, APA, or Chicago, you do not need to guess whether are movie titles underlined or whether are movies underlined or quoted. Type the title in italics and move on. If your class is journalism-based or your teacher specifically requires AP style, then quotation marks may be expected instead.

Essay examples by context

• MLA-style essay sentence: In Everything Everywhere All at Once, absurd humor becomes a way to discuss grief.
• APA-style paper sentence: The film Everything Everywhere All at Once uses multiverse logic to heighten emotional stakes.
• Chicago-style analysis sentence: Everything Everywhere All at Once blends action choreography with family drama.
• AP-style review sentence: "Everything Everywhere All at Once" became a breakout critical success.

If your teacher's instructions conflict with the usual rule

Follow the assignment first. A professor, department rubric, school handbook, or publication style sheet overrides general internet advice. Style is not a moral issue; it is a consistency issue.

How Major Style Guides Handle Movie Titles

The biggest source of confusion is not grammar; it is that different style guides solve the problem differently. Academic writing mostly agrees on italics, while journalism often does not.

According to Grammarly’s explanation of title formatting, movies belong in the italics category alongside other longer standalone works, while shorter works such as essays and songs take quotation marks; see its titles and quotation marks guidance. That lines up with what most students are taught in formal essays. The contrast between academic styles and AP-style journalism is summarized clearly in this Proofed breakdown.

Here is the practical comparison:

Style guide	Movie title format	Typically used for	Example
MLA	Italics	Literature, humanities, many student essays	In Moonlight, color and silence work together.
APA	Italics	Psychology, education, social sciences	The film Moonlight presents identity as fluid and social.
Chicago	Italics	Publishing, history, some academic writing	Moonlight rewards close attention to visual detail.
AP	Quotation marks	News, magazines, entertainment journalism	"Moonlight" won the Oscar after a historic mix-up.

MLA

MLA is the safest default for many essay questions about movie titles. In regular prose and in works-cited entries, a feature film title is italicized because it is treated as a standalone work.

APA

APA also uses italics for film titles in running text and references.

Chicago

Chicago follows the same broad pattern for major works: movie titles are italicized. If you need help with the mechanics beyond the title itself, this guide to Chicago citation rules for writers and students is useful.

AP

AP is the outlier most readers notice because it often uses quotation marks where academic writers use italics. That is why entertainment coverage may write “The Social Network” even though a professor expects The Social Network.

Formatting Titles in Code Comments and Digital Tools

Traditional style guides tell you what to do in polished prose, but they rarely help when you're writing in a README, a pull request, a Slack thread, a Jira ticket, or a code comment.

In plain-text environments common in software development, Markdown can render formatting, but platforms do not always preserve italics consistently.

What works in Markdown and what breaks elsewhere

In Markdown, you can usually write *Alien* and get italics. That's fine in a GitHub README or a markdown-aware editor. But if that text gets pasted into a plain text field or exported into a different tool, the visual cue may disappear.

A few practical examples:

• README file: *Blade Runner* is usually fine
• Code comment: quotes are often clearer than trying to force special formatting
• Jira ticket copied into email: formatting may not survive
• Slack or terminal output: rendering can vary

Resources on optimizing text legibility in digital environments are useful because title formatting only helps if the reader can still recognize it after the text moves.

A practical decision rule for tech teams

Use this approach:

• If the platform reliably supports italics: use italics for movie titles
• If the text may be stripped or copied into plain text: use quotation marks
• If you're writing in comments or tickets where clarity beats formality: choose the format that stays readable after paste, export, and sync

If you're comparing editors for this kind of work, a guide to choosing the best Markdown editor for cleaner writing workflows can help. And if you need a tool specifically for building citations once your title formatting is settled, this roundup from Digital ToolPad is a practical place to start.

Your Quick Reference for Any Situation

When the rule slips your mind, use this cheat sheet.

Fast answers you can use right away

When typing an essay or document
Use italics: Moonlight

When handwriting
Underline the movie title if you can't produce italics neatly: Moonlight

When writing a news-style article
Use quotation marks if you're following AP style: "Moonlight"

When writing in Markdown
Use asterisks for italics if the platform supports them: *Moonlight*

If you're unsure, choose by context

• Academic paper: Get Out
• Blog post in a rich text editor: Arrival
• Plain text email or stripped formatting field: "Arrival" may be safer
• Code comment or ticket: pick the format that remains clear after copy and paste

A title-case tool can also help with the other half of the problem. If you're formatting a movie title and also want the capitalization cleaned up, a title case prompt for fast cleanup is handy.

Frequently Asked Questions About Title Formatting

Do I put movie titles in quotation marks?

Usually not in essays, research papers, or other academic writing. In MLA, APA, and Chicago, movie titles are typically italicized because a film is treated as a longer standalone work. Quotation marks are more common in AP-style journalism or in plain-text environments where italics will not display reliably.

Do you italicize the title of a movie in an essay?

Yes, in most cases. If you are writing an essay in MLA, APA, or Chicago, italicize the movie title in your sentence: Get Out, The Wizard of Oz, Past Lives. The main exception is when your teacher, school, or publication gives different instructions.

How to quote movies in an essay?

There are three different things people mean by this, and they are not the same.

• Mentioning the film title in your own prose: italicize the title.
  Example: In Whiplash, ambition is shown as both discipline and self-destruction.
• Quoting dialogue from the movie: put the spoken words in quotation marks.
  Example: Andrew is pushed forward by Fletcher’s demand to be “one of the greats.”
• Referring to a scene or citing the film as evidence: mention the scene clearly and format the title according to your style guide.

Are movie titles underlined?

They can be, but mostly as a fallback. Underlining was standard in the typewriter era and still makes sense in handwriting or in systems where italics are unavailable. In modern typed writing, italics are the normal choice.

What if a movie title appears inside another title

Use the formatting that matches the outer title first. Then format the movie title inside it in a way that stays readable.

For example, if an article title uses quotation marks, the movie title inside it is often set off distinctly:
"Why Jaws Still Works"

Where does punctuation go around a movie title

Commas and periods usually belong to the sentence, not the title formatting itself. So you would write:
I rewatched The Matrix, and it still feels sharp.

If the punctuation is part of the official movie title, keep it. For example, Who Framed Roger Rabbit? includes the question mark because it's part of the title.

Do I need title case too

Usually, yes. Formatting and capitalization are separate choices. Italics tell the reader that the words form a title. Title case tells the reader how the words should be capitalized.

What about foreign film titles

Treat them like other movie titles. If you're writing in English prose, italicize the title in the same way you would italicize an English-language film title.

Examples: Roma, Amélie, Spirited Away.

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