Do You Underline Movie Titles? Not Anymore! 2026 Rules

No, you don't underline movie titles anymore. In modern digital writing, the standard is to use italics, and the Chicago Manual of Style confirmed italics for movie titles in 100% of digital contexts in its 17th edition (2017), while underlining belongs to the older typewriter era.

That question usually comes up in the exact same moment. You're typing a paper, polishing a blog post, writing a Jira ticket, or leaving a code comment, and you stop at the movie title. Do I underline it? Put it in quotes? Italicize it? If you've seen different answers in school, online, and in news articles, your confusion makes sense.

A lot of people learned one rule early and then ran into a different rule later. Students often saw underlining in older materials. Journalists often use quotation marks. Developers run into a stranger problem: the "correct" formatting doesn't always survive plain text, Markdown, or app-to-app copying.

The good news is that the rule becomes simple once you understand why it changed. Underlining wasn't a random grammar preference. It was a workaround for old technology. Once you know that, modern title formatting starts to feel logical instead of arbitrary.

So Do You Underline Movie Titles Anymore

If you're asking do you underline movie titles, the practical answer is almost never.

When you're typing in a document, essay, email, website, or most digital tools, write movie titles in italics. So you would write Inception, Spirited Away, or The Godfather. You generally don't underline them.

Where people get tripped up is that older advice wasn't wrong for its time. It belonged to a different writing environment. Someone who learned on typewriters, early classroom worksheets, or older style handbooks may still remember underlining as the "official" option. That memory sticks.

Practical rule: If your text editor can produce italics, use italics for movie titles.

There is one reason this still feels messy. Not every context behaves like a polished document. A Google Doc handles italics well. A printed essay does too. But plain text fields, copied Slack messages, terminal output, or stripped-down project notes might drop formatting. In those cases, people start looking for a fallback.

Here’s the clean mental model:

• In normal typed writing: use italics
• In old handwritten or formatting-limited situations: underlining can stand in for italics
• In some journalism and tech contexts: quotation marks may be more practical

That last point doesn't replace the general rule. It just explains why you may see "Oppenheimer" in one place and Oppenheimer in another. The format depends on the writing system, the style guide, and sometimes the tool.

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 make letters, numbers, and punctuation. It couldn't easily produce true italic type. So writers needed another signal to show that a title was special. Underlining became that signal.

Think of underlining as a substitute label. It told the reader, "Treat this as a title of a standalone work." In the same way that a handwritten map might use symbols instead of color, a typewriter used underlining instead of italics.

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. Writers could finally use the visual form style guides had always wanted in polished print. Italics look cleaner, take up less visual space, and signal titles more naturally than a line dragged under every word.

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

That historical shift explains why teachers, editors, and older reference books sometimes seem to disagree. They're often echoing rules from different technologies. If you're writing on a laptop, phone, or modern publishing platform, you're in the italics era, not the typewriter 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

A useful analogy is album versus track.

The album is the container. The track lives inside it. In writing, the container usually gets italics, and the item inside it gets quotation marks.

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"

This rule helps with more than movie titles. It gives you a system.

Examples that clear up common mix-ups

Writers often confuse these pairs:

• Movie vs scene name
  Write The Dark Knight for the movie. If you refer to a named segment or chapter-like part, that smaller title would usually take quotation marks.

• TV show vs episode
  Write The Bear for the series, but "Review" for an episode title.

• Book vs chapter
  Write Pride and Prejudice for the book, but "Chapter 1" or a chapter title in quotation marks.

If the work can stand on its own as a complete title, italics are usually the safer choice.

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.

The first echoes the old typewriter habit. The second may fit a different style system, which matters in journalism. The third leaves the title unmarked, which can make your sentence harder to read.

How Major Style Guides Handle Movie Titles

Most of the confusion comes from one fact: style guides don't all make the same choice.

The major academic guides, including MLA, APA, and Chicago, align on the standard most students and formal writers use: movie titles are italicized. If you're writing an essay, research paper, literary analysis, or most long-form professional content, italics are the safe default.

Then there's the exception many readers notice in the wild. AP style, used by newsrooms and many online publications, puts movie titles in quotation marks instead. That's why an entertainment article may refer to "Oppenheimer" while your professor expects Oppenheimer.

Why this difference matters

This isn't a contradiction in the sense of one side being careless. It's a style choice tied to publication context. Academic systems favor the italics convention for major works. News style prioritizes consistency across fast-moving publishing environments and follows its own rules.

The result is simple:

• School and academic writing: use italics
• Journalism and many news articles: use quotation marks
• If you have an assigned style guide: follow that guide first

A practical way to choose

If you're unsure which rule applies, ask one question: Who is this for?

If the audience is a teacher, editor, client with a house style, or publication with formal standards, use their guide. If you're writing Chicago-style citations or notes, a focused guide to Chicago citation rules for writers and students can help you keep title formatting and citation formatting aligned.

The "right" format depends less on personal preference and more on the writing context in front of you.

That's why you may see both forms in reputable writing. The rule hasn't collapsed. You're just crossing between style systems.

Formatting Titles in Code Comments and Digital Tools

The usual advice often proves insufficient. 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 don't always preserve italics consistently. Some developers prefer AP-style quotation marks for titles in documentation because quotes survive copying and stripping more reliably, a pattern noted in a related discussion with over 10,000 views (plain-text title formatting in developer tools).

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 the moment that text gets pasted into a plain text field, exported into a different tool, or passed through a system that strips formatting, the visual cue may disappear or turn inconsistent.

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

This is less about grammar and more about legibility across tools. If you're writing for mixed environments, it's worth thinking the way interface writers do. 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

That means a sentence like this may be the smartest choice in a Jira note:
The onboarding flow borrows ideas from "The Social Network" opening sequence.

In a polished Markdown document, you might prefer:
The onboarding flow borrows ideas from The Social Network.

If you're comparing editors for this kind of work, a guide to choosing the best Markdown editor for cleaner writing workflows can help you avoid formatting surprises before they spread through your docs.

In developer workflows, the best title formatting is the one that survives the toolchain.

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

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"

The goal is clarity. Readers should be able to tell which words are your title and which words are the movie title mentioned inside it.

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.

So you'd normally write Back to the Future, not back to the future. If you're following a publication or school style, use its capitalization rules.

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. If you include an English translation, keep your format consistent and make the wording easy to follow.

A simple rule works well: italicize the official title you're using in the sentence, then add explanation only if your reader needs it.

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