movie
Americannoun
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movies
plural
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a sequence of consecutive still images recorded in a series to be viewed on a screen in such rapid succession as to give the illusion of natural movement; motion picture.
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a story, event, or the like, presented in this form.
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movies,
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Usually the movies the movie industry.
The movies use MPA ratings to inform patrons about content that may not be suitable for certain audiences.
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all movies as a group, or a specific category of movies, considered as a genre.
gangster movies.
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the exhibition of movies.
an evening at the movies.
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Often the movies a movie theater.
Is there anything good playing at the movies on Main Street?
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noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of movie
First recorded in 1905–10; mov(ing picture) + -ie
Explanation
A movie is a film that you watch at a theater or at home on your TV, laptop, or tablet. Movie is short for "moving picture," which was pretty exciting in the late 1800s. You can rave about your favorite movie — whether it's "Citizen Kane" or "The Lion King" — and you can also talk about "the movies," or films in general and the industry that makes them. You might dream of working in the movies, for example. Before about 1912, movies were called "motion pictures." Movie is a shortened form of the phrase, which some people abbreviate into the more old-fashioned sounding "pictures."
Vocabulary lists containing movie
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
The open space in Culver Steps typically hosts community events and movie nights.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 17, 2026
Jack, a Toy Story fan, responded with his usual "to infinity and beyond," mimicking the catchphrase of the Buzz Lightyear character from the movie.
From BBC ● Oct. 17, 2026
BBC Newsbeat spoke to Street Fighter cast members Noah Centineo, Callina Liang and Andrew Koji to find out why they think the action movie can do the same.
From BBC ● Oct. 16, 2026
Discovery, roping in a multibillion-dollar corpus of film-and-TV studios, streaming services, newsrooms, movie theaters, and book imprints under the aegis of one man, nepo baby David Ellison.
From Slate ● Oct. 16, 2026
It was a movie he’d watched at school, in science . . . the one about that horrible epidemic maybe?
From "Found" by Margaret Peterson Haddix
Back in 1988, after a D.C. journalist obtained and published a list of movies rented by Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork, a scandalized Congress passed the Video Privacy Protection Act.
From Slate ● Oct. 17, 2026
"It's definitely some weird cultural thing where mainstream movies are now mostly fantasy: fantasy, science fiction, horror, comic books, all different kinds of fantasy," Ethan, 69, explained.
From Barron's ● Oct. 16, 2026
The Japanese company has raised full fiscal-year guidance for box office revenue from movies it distributes to 95.0 billion yen-105.0 billion yen from 90.0 billion yen-100.0 billion yen, the analyst notes.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 16, 2026
“New Roadster is beyond movies, beyond imagination, beyond human, yet still made by humans on Earth,” Tesla CEO Musk wrote in a post on X on Thursday.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 15, 2026
The previews for movies coming to theaters this spring.
From "The Sea in Winter" by Christine Day
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Get a wordDefinitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
