Writing a movie review is easy, but writing a good movie review…well, that’s something else entirely, isn’t it? My aim with this article is to provide some insight into how to write a better movie review than average. If you practice, and if you have some talent, you could become a professional movie critic.

The first thing to keep in mind when writing movie reviews is that you shouldn’t spoil the movies. Limit your description of movies’ plots to what happens during the first ten minutes or so of the films. The first ten minutes is the setup, and that’s what’s going to define the characters and the situations in any film.

The next thing to know about reviewing movies is that it’s easier to review movies when you have some context. Writing a good review of Rob Zombie’s Halloween almost requires having seen Zombie’s other movies, like The Devils Rejects and House of 1000 Corpses. It also helps to have seen John Carpenter’s original masterpiece. This isn’t a requirement for a good movie review, but it adds a depth and sophistication to a movie review that can’t be achieved in any other way.

Good movie reviews follow standard rules of grammar, spelling, and style. Mastering these isn’t difficult. Any deviations from the standard distract from the message of your review. And not caring enough about your writing to make sure that it’s grammatically correct demonstrates contempt for your readers, which is never a good idea.

Your movie reviews should always reflect your honest opinion of the movies you’ve seen. Avoiding the appearance of impropriety becomes important. Don’t accept gifts from movie studios, actors, or directors. Your integrity will be questioned.

Review movies that you’ve seen on the big screen. Seeing movies on a home theater is demonstrably different from seeing movies at a real movie theater. If you don’t see the difference, then you have no business reviewing movies to begin with.

Practice, practice, practice. To master any skill, you need to put in 10,000 hours into learning that skill. So if you write movie reviews 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, 50 weeks a year, you’ll get in 2000 hours a year. In 5 years you’ll have mastered the art of reviewing movies. You’ll also have seen all kinds of movies, including good action movies and great horror movies. You’ll have seen plenty of bad movies too, but that comes with the territory.