hero's journey movies examples

The 17 Best Movies That Follow the Hero's Journey

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Everyone who's interested in how stories are made is bound to have heard the term "the Hero's Journey." Also known as the monomyth, it's a story archetype coined and popularized by Joseph Campbell in the mid-1900s when he noticed that heroes in myths typically go through the same 17 stages in their journey, from the call to adventure that gets the character out of their comfort zone, to the freedom to live found at the end of the ordeals in their adventure.

This narrative template has served as the basis and inspiration of countless stories throughout history – including numerous outstanding films. From a grand fantastical story like Star Wars , to something more grounded in reality like O Brother, Where Art Thou? , these movies don't always follow every single one of the steps outlined by Campbell, but they stick to more than enough to call each of them a hero's journey . A tried-and-true way of telling successful stories that resonate with audiences of all ages and nationalities, movies that follow the Hero's Journey, if well-written, are always a delight like no other.

17 'Men in Black' (1997)

Directed by barry sonnenfeld.

One of the most iconic movies you may not know is based on Marvel comics , Men in Black is the story of a cop ( Will Smith ) who, after a chase with an otherworldly being, is recruited by an organization that monitors and polices alien activity on Earth. There's something for every sci-fi fan to enjoy in this movie, from visually stunning special effects to mind-blowing action and just the right amount of humor.

Men in Black follows the Hero's Journey nearly to a tee , from Agent J getting the call to join the mission of protecting the planet from alien threats and initially refusing the call, to him finally learning to master his two worlds and become the hero he was meant to be. The result is a thrilling sci-fi action adventure that doesn't get nearly enough praise nowadays, with a heroic protagonist who's a joy to follow through his journey.

Men In Black

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16 'Kingsman: The Secret Service' (2014)

Directed by matthew vaughn.

Kingsman: The Secret Service , one of the funniest action movies of the 21st century so far , is based on the popular comic books of the same title. It's about a super-secret spy organization that recruits a promising but rough-around-the-edges street kid into their training program, while a twisted tech genius emerges as a global threat. With a star-studded cast and Matthew Vaughn 's colorful direction, it's a delightfully entertaining film with a traditional Hero's Journey narrative.

As traditional and monomythical as protagonist Eggsy's journey toward heroism is, Vaughn and his co-screenwriter Jane Goldman still find ways to make the story feel fresh, exciting, and unpredictable. By the time the explosive third act comes around, audiences are delighted to see how far Eggsy has come and how badass the movie's action sequences can be.

Kingsman: The Secret Service

15 'o brother, where art thou' (2000), directed by joel and ethan coen.

The Coen brothers are masters of making some of the most entertaining crime movies, and O Brother, Where Art Thou? is definitely one of their best. Loosely based on Homer 's The Odyssey , it's about three fugitives roaming the southern U.S. in search of treasure with the law hot on their heels. Unlike the Greek classic, however, the Coens' crime film has great Southern American music, traditional Western tropes, and stars George Clooney , Tim Blake Nelson , and John Turturro .

The characters in O Brother, Where Art Thou? encounter mentors, face challenges, and go through profound transformations , just like the heroes in the monomyth do. The ensuing adventure is as humorous as it is exciting, an offbeat adaptation of a massively important and influential classic. You can't go wrong with a well-written and well-directed Coen brothers movie, so O Brother should easily please all cinephiles' palates.

O Brother, Where Art Thou?

14 'batman begins' (2005), directed by christopher nolan.

Movies with Hero's Journey archetypes are fun enough as they are, but mix those elements with a superhero origin story, and you get one of the best entries in the superhero genre . That's what Batman Begins is, as it reinvents the story of Bruce Wayne's ( Christian Bale ) origins as the vigilante hero Batman, by placing the character on a journey to become the guardian that his beloved Gotham City deserves.

Christopher Nolan's first installment in his Dark Knight Trilogy feels more like a character-driven thriller than a traditional superhero film, in the best sense possible. The director cleverly fits Bruce's process of becoming the Dark Knight into Campbell's monomyth , showing audiences how the hero is eventually able to master his new identity to save his city.

Batman Begins

13 'the northman' (2022), directed by robert eggers.

With his 2015 folk horror gem The Witch , Robert Eggers emerged as one of the most outstanding and exciting new voices in Hollywood. With his third outing, he departed from the horror genre to instead make one of the most barbaric action dramas of the 2020s so far: The Northman , the Hamlet-like tale of an exiled Viking prince on a quest to avenge his father's murder.

The Northman is one of the best R-rated fantasy movies , employing Eggers's unparalleled eye for visual and narrative details to tell a riveting story led by Alexander Skarsgård 's surprisingly nuanced lead performance. As a story inspired by classic tales of old, The Northman sticks close to Hero's Journey tropes, but always elevating them with nail-biting action and thrilling character work.

The Northman

12 'iron man' (2008), directed by jon favreau.

As one of the most famous superheroes in existence and the Marvel Cinematic Universe's anchor being, Iron Man (played by a perfectly cast Robert Downey Jr. ) is now a household name. Back in 2008, however, only hardcore Marvel fans knew who he was. That all changed with Jon Favreau 's Iron Man , the movie that birthed the MCU, about a billionaire who engineers a unique weaponized suit of armor to fight crime.

Whereas the franchise that it spawned would go on to have a sprawling structure spanning many media, Iron Man wisely falls into a traditional heroic journey as it follows Tony Stark into the cave where he meets his mentor and creates his armor, and into his entailing odyssey of self-discovery and heroism. To this day, the result is remembered as one of the MCU's greatest films.

11 'The Matrix' (1999)

Directed by lana and lilly wachowski.

When the Wachowskis released The Matrix before the turn of the century, the world was taken by storm, and the sci-fi genre in films would never be the same again. In the movie that cemented him as an action star, Keanu Reeves plays Neo, a man who joins a group of insurgents in their fight against the powerful computers who rule Earth. To this day, The Matrix still receives praise as one of the best sci-fi movies ever .

With its visual innovations, clever cinematography, and unique philosophical themes that have been endlessly analyzed throughout the years, The Matrix was unlike anything audiences had seen before at the time of its release . Perhaps one of the main reasons why its story clicked so well with viewers around the world was because it closely follows the stages of the Hero's Journey, as Neo goes from an average Joe to an all-powerful hero.

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10 'Kung Fu Panda' (2008)

Directed by mark osborne and john stevenson.

For those that think that family animated movies are exclusively for children, Kung Fu Panda is the perfect mind-changing watch. It follows Po ( Jack Black ), a lazy panda who dreams of being a kung fu hero, as he's thrust into a journey of discovering his destiny as the Chosen One. There are many examples of the Hero's Journey in movies that logically follow the same structure, but the creative things that Kung Fu Panda does with the archetype are entirely its own .

Just like all the compelling heroes of Campbell's model, Po is called to action, goes through several life-threatening ordeals with help from friends and allies, and finds that the power to be the guardian of the Valley of Peace comes from within. Sprinkled with hilarious humor, outstanding voice acting, and some of the best action in any animated film , it's undoubtedly one of DreamWorks Animation's best efforts.

Kung Fu Panda

9 'finding nemo' (2003), directed by andrew stanton.

Hero's Journey movies are usually action-focused epics, and not often family-friendly stories about fish. That only makes Finding Nemo even more special. It's the story of Marlin ( Albert Brooks ), a timid clownfish who, after his son Nemo ( Alexander Gould in one of the best child voice performances in animated cinema) is kidnapped, sets out to find him against all the threats that the deep blue sea has to offer.

Though Finding Nemo isn't your typical kind of hero's journey, where the story is much more intimate and the biggest threats that the characters face are mostly internal, it very much follows the formula . What finds itself transformed in the end is the relationship between Marlin and Nemo, in one of the most touching endings of Pixar's filmography.

Finding Nemo

8 'the truman show' (1998), directed by peter weir.

One of the most creative, smart, subversive, and philosophically profound comedies ever put to film, The Truman Show stars Jim Carrey (in one of the most inspired casting decisions of the '90s) as the titular Truman Burbank, an insurance salesman oblivious to the fact that his entire life is a reality TV show and every single person in his town — including his family and friends — are actors.

The Truman Show proves that any story can follow the Hero's Journey, not only genre action flicks . As he starts uncovering the truth, goes through an existential crisis, and eventually decides to escape his manufactured reality, the story of Truman sticks close to Campbell's stages of a narrative. The result is a fascinating movie that finds the perfect balance between smart humor and poignant drama.

The Truman Show

7 'the wizard of oz' (1939), directed by victor fleming.

An exciting adventure that uses both black-and-white and beautiful color , through a fantastical land that any movie fan would love to live in, The Wizard of Oz follows Dorothy ( Judy Garland ) in her journey through the magical land of Oz, searching for a mysterious wizard who can send her back home.

The movie was an absolute sensation when it came out, and even after more than three-quarters of a century, it's still remembered as one of the greatest American movie masterpieces. The stages of the monomyth are clear in The Wizard of Oz : the ordinary world is Kansas, Dorothy crosses a very literal threshold to a vastly different world, and her journey of transformation is full of faces both friendly and menacing.

The Wizard of Oz

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6 'The Lion King' (1994)

Directed by roger allers and rob minkoff.

1994's The Lion King is a movie that needs no introduction. Many would say that it's the best animated movie to ever come out of Disney, and it's fully understandable, thanks to its timeless songs and the animated film's brilliant depiction of grief . It's the grand and epic story of Simba ( Matthew Broderick ), a lion cub prince who's tricked into exile by his uncle Scar ( Jeremy Irons ), who wishes to have the throne for himself.

The animation is majestic, with some really charming character designs, and the story is compelling from beginning to end. Its philosophical themes of identity and self-discovery are beautiful, and the way they're conveyed through a classic hero's journey structure in The Lion King is simply perfect . The film is in certain ways an adaptation of William Shakespeare 's Hamlet , but its fidelity to Campbell's monomyth is much more interesting to dissect.

The Lion King (1994)

5 'harry potter' saga (2001 - 2011), directed by chris columbus, alfonso cuarón, mike newell, and david yates.

The Harry Potter series features not just one, but eight of the movies that best follow the Hero's Journey. From Chris Columbus 's Sorcerer's Stone to David Yates 's Deathly Hallows — Part 2 , the franchise follows the coming-of-age story of the titular character ( Daniel Radcliffe ) and his two best friends, as they grow to become key players in a war against an evil wizard.

Everyone has a different favorite installment in the series, but every Harry Potter movie plays an equally crucial role in the overarching narrative of the story, which very closely follows the monomyth . Not only that, but each film follows a smaller version of the general model as well. It's probably what makes these movies so easy to enjoy, since they so faithfully walk along the lines laid out by Campbell and so many filmmakers from before 2001.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

4 'seven samurai' (1954), directed by akira kurosawa.

Master Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa is one of the best to ever do it, having inspired and influenced countless directors that came after him. He made many of the best films of all time throughout his career, but his most acclaimed is usually agreed to be Seven Samurai , a 3-and-a-half-hour-long action epic about seven samurai being hired for protection by a village of farmers exploited by bandits.

With Seven Samurai , Kurosawa pretty much invented the cinematic version of the Hero's Journey, which would be imitated and followed by a myriad of filmmakers in the future. Easily the best and most influential samurai film ever made, Seven Samurai expands on Campbell's monomyth and shows the range of enthralling stories that it's able to give a foundation to.

Seven Samurai

3 'the lord of the rings' trilogy (2001 - 2003), directed by peter jackson.

There are countless things that make Peter Jackson 's The Lord of the Rings trilogy one of the best fantasy film franchises of all time, and one of the most important is the fact that all three installments in the trilogy truly feel like part of a greater whole, as they collaborate in telling the story of Frodo ( Elijah Wood ), the Fellowship of the Ring, and their efforts to destroy the greatest tool of an evil tyrant terrorizing Middle-earth.

Of course, the monomyth-following template was already there, set in stone by the legendary J.R.R. Tolkien when he wrote what's undoubtedly one of the best series of fantasy books in history. Even yet, the way Jackson and company built on top of that, telling a story that feels undeniably cinematic, is admirable beyond measure.

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

2 'citizen kane' (1941), directed by orson welles.

When Orson Welles made his passion project Citizen Kane , he probably had no idea that he was making what would in the future be referred to as the single greatest film of all time by thousands of people, as well as one of the most essential movies of the '40s . Inspired by magnate William Randolph Hearst , it's a character study about a group of reporters trying to decipher the last words of Charles Foster Kane (Welles), a powerful newspaper tycoon.

Citizen Kane is an entirely unique picture, and the way it's structured is just as well. Citizen Kane follows Campbell's monomyth formula in a very non-traditional way , which only makes it more of a groundbreaking story. There are plenty of good reasons for its fame, and that's certainly one of the biggest.

Citizen Kane

1 'star wars' (1977), directed by george lucas.

Perhaps no movie more famously follows the Hero's Journey archetype than Star Wars , with George Lucas having taken direct inspiration from Campbell . The hero in this particular story is Luke Skywalker ( Mark Hamill ), a young farm boy who's thrown into an adventure far greater than anything he'd encountered before, joining the Rebellion against the dictatorial Galactic Empire.

One of the best space operas of all time, Star Wars showcases what makes the monomyth such an effective way of telling stories and celebrating the art of storytelling itself. Luke is a deeply compelling hero, his journey is incredibly entertaining, and all the allies and villains that he encounters along the way are equally iconic. As far as modern myths go, Star Wars is certainly one of the best.

Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope

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Movies That Follow The Hero's Journey, Ranked By How Well They Use The Monomyth

Vote up the movies that most effectively use the hero's journey.

While there are always exceptions, nearly every film relies on some kind of narrative structure. In its most simplistic form, this structure has a beginning, middle, and end. There are problems and solutions. The main character changes and grows. Viewers are inherently familiar with these elements, but may not be aware of their inner workings.

One of the most widely-used storytelling methods is the monomyth - better known as the hero's journey - which was described and codified by writer Joseph Campbell. There are 17 stages to this narrative pattern that can be split across three acts: Departure, Initiation, and Return. In a nutshell, a hero's journey movie sees the protagonist embark on an adventure or quest. Along the way, they face obstacles that make them question themselves and their purpose. Even though they inevitably hit rock bottom, the hero perseveres and grows into a new person in the end.

While Campbell's full structure includes 17 stages, let's quickly break down the 7 main ingredients:

The Ordinary World - The hero lives a familiar and simple life

Call to Adventure - The hero is presented with a challenge in the unknown world, but is reluctant

Crossing the Threshold - The hero decides to enter the unknown world to take on the challenge

Trials - While meeting mentors and helpers, the hero must overcome obstacles that lead to the main challenge

The Abyss - Setbacks accumulate and leave the hero with a sense of hopelessness

Atonement - Through reflection and aid from others, the hero regains their way

The Return - The hero resumes their quest, overcomes the main challenge (the climax), then returns to the familiar world as a changed person

With that basic understanding of how the monomyth works, take a look at the biggest movies that follow the hero's journey to storytelling success.

Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope

• 20th Century Fox

What Is The Journey? Luke Skywalker finds out his father was a Jedi and joins Obi-Wan Kenobi, Han Solo, Chewbacca, and two droids to rescue Leia Organa from the Galactic Empire.

What Trials Do They Face?  At first, Luke is unsure if he's worthy of learning how to become a Jedi and wield the magical power called the Force. However, after his aunt and uncle are killed by Stormtroopers, he embarks on a journey with Obi-Wan and begins to learn the ways of the Jedi. He is pulled into a world he knows nothing about, as he's forced to adapt on the fly, survive, and face the seemingly impossible threats of the Empire and Darth Vader. The danger only grows when Obi-Wan is struck down by Vader, leaving Luke without a teacher.

How Do They Overcome?  While Luke hasn't reached the point where he is the Jedi Master everyone knows here, he starts to believe in his own abilities and trust the power of the Force. He successfully taps into the Force to destroy the Empire's world-destroying weapon, the Death Star, and gains the confidence to join the Rebels in the ongoing fight against the Empire.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

What Is The Journey?  11-year-old orphan Harry Potter, who has been mistreated his whole life by his uncaring aunt and uncle, discovers he is a wizard. What's more, he's a legend among wizards for defeating the Dark Lord Voldemort as an infant. Now, as he attends the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, he must live up to the massive expectations on him as "Boy Who Lived” while Voldemort threatens to rise again.

What Trials Do They Face?  For so long, Harry believes himself to be a nobody. Learning of his true heritage is full of joy and uncertainty, as he has great expectations to live up to, but no magic experience whatsoever. He must learn everything about this world from scratch, while withstanding the pressure of everyone watching him more closely because of who he is. Despite the belief and guidance of mentors such as Albus Dumbledore, Rubeus Hagrid, and Minerva McGonagall, he also has a laundry list of people waiting and rooting for him to fail. Harry also doesn't have the luxury of time on his side either, as whispers about Voldemort's return surface.

How Do They Overcome? Harry embraces his natural curiosity and bravery, facing up to unknown challenges even without the certainty that he'll win. He also forms tight bonds with his friends, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, who have his back no matter how grim the situation gets. Together, they navigate past magical traps and secure the Sorcerer's Stone before Voldemort - whose spirit has been lurking inside of one of their teachers, Professor Quirrell - can use it to restore his life. Harry rises to the challenge and accepts that he will likely have to face Voldemort again in the future.

The 'Lord of the Rings' Trilogy

• The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
• New Line Cinema

What Is The Journey?  The young hobbit Frodo Baggins travels to Mount Doom in Mordor to destroy the powerful One Ring and bring an end to the evil reign of the Dark Lord Sauron.

What Trials Do They Face? Frodo embarks on a literal journey of considerable length, spanning three films. Every twist and turn signals a new threat as the forces of evil try to stop him from reaching Mordor. With each step, he must also resist the temptation of power that the One Ring presents - everyone who has carried it before has become corrupted at some point. As Frodo struggles with the belief that his willpower is not strong enough to resist the ring, his friends and allies, in particular his best friend Samwise Gamgee, aid and encourage him on his quest.

How Do They Overcome? Frodo realizes he isn't an island and needs to rely on the help of others. He shows the ultimate act of bravery by letting go of the burden of believing he is the only one who can complete this mission on his own and accepts the importance and assistance of the Fellowship around him. With Sam's help getting him to Mount Doom and pulling him  back from the brink at the last moment, Frodo completes the mission and returns home to the Shire, irrevocably changed by what he's been through. 

What Is The Journey?  Computer hacker Thomas Anderson, AKA Neo, suspects something isn't right in the world around him, and discovers what everyone perceives to be real is simply a facade to conceal what's actually taking place. When a mysterious mentor named Morpheus offers Neo the infamous red pill, Neo must forget everything he knows of the world and embrace a new truth.

What Trials Do They Face?  Neo is told he's the chosen one who needs to liberate humanity from its enslavement by the machines. However, he lacks the knowledge and skills to fight back against the Matrix, which requires him to change his way of thinking and develop the skills to manipulate the Matrix, which can extend to slowing down time and bending bullets. Morpheus opens his eyes to the reality of what's happening, but Neo is in a race against time to fulfill the prophecy while keeping the pesky agents - who could double as Ray-Ban models - at bay.

How Do They Overcome?  Neo accepts the prophecy that he's the chosen one. He lets go of everything he thought was real to ascend to a higher plain of existence and embrace his destiny to show other humans that freedom is possible.

• Sony Pictures Releasing

What Is The Journey? Teen Peter Parker gets bitten by a radioactive spider, giving him superpowers; however, he needs to learn how to use these special - and sticky - abilities for the greater good of mankind.

What Trials Do They Face? The young Peter loses his mentor, Uncle Ben, and questions if he has the inner strength to juggle life as a teenager and fighting crime as the masked superhero known as Spider-Man. At the same time, a highly powered and deadly villain known as the Green Goblin rises in the city and offers Spider-Man a place by his side. Peter feels a moral obligation to his uncle's teachings and declines the offer, but now he needs to dodge the never-ending pumpkin bombs hurled at him by the Goblin, whom he soon discovers is his best friend's father.

How Do They Overcome? Peter finally understands his uncle's teachings: “With great power comes great responsibility.” He fights the Green Goblin, knowing that this battle will change both Spider-Man and Peter in the end. Finally, he accepts that his life will never be the same again because his powers are both a gift and curse that he needs to learn how to use for the benefit of all - yes, even J. Jonah Jameson, who sees him as a menace.

The Lion King

• Buena Vista Pictures

What Is The Journey? After the death of his father Mufasa in a stampede, the young Simba runs away into exile, believing himself to be responsible for the traumatic event. However, he must return to reclaim leadership of the Pride Lands from his uncle, Scar, in order to save the animal kingdom.

What Trials Do They Face?  Due to Scar's manipulation, Simba feels incredible guilt over his father's death. Consequently, he tries to forget who he really is as he lives a carefree life with his pals, Timon and Pumbaa. It takes a combined effort from Nala and Rafiki, plus a message from his father on the other side, to remind Simba of who he is: the rightful king. At the same time, Simba is afraid to return after being away so long, especially due to the danger presented by Scar and his army of hyenas who now control the Pride Lands.

How Do They Overcome? Simba remembers the lessons he learned from his father about the qualities of being a king and how being afraid is never a bad thing. He finds the courage to face his past to create a new future. At the same time, his guilt is unburdened when Scar reveals his role in Mufasa's death, which gives Simba a renewed purpose to fight his uncle. He eventually takes his rightful place as the king of the Pride Lands.

Kung Fu Panda

• Paramount Pictures

What Is The Journey? A bumbling panda and kung fu fan, Po is unwittingly selected as the Dragon Warrior, a prophesied hero. However, neither Po nor others believe it to be true.

What Trials Do They Face?  Po is shocked to be named the Dragon Warrior, since he knows he tumbled into a scenario rather than being intentionally selected. He isn't a natural martial artist and struggles under the training of Master Shifu. It also doesn't help that the Furious Five - a group Po adores - don't believe in the poor panda. To make matters worse, the dangerous snow-leopard Tai Lung is on the loose and Po will need to build his skills quickly in order to face him.

How Do They Overcome? Po uses his lovable personality to win over others, while he develops an unorthodox martial arts style. As he progresses and his heart proves to be his greatest strength, he starts to believe in his potential and realizes he is special in his own way.

What Is The Journey? After escaping evildoers, genius-billionaire-playboy-philanthropist Tony Stark realizes he has used his influence, intelligence, and tech for all the wrong reasons. Now, he plans on using his abilities for the benefit of the world.

What Trials Do They Face? After being captured by terrorists, Tony's heart requires technological intervention from scientist Ho Yinsen to keep on ticking, which acts as both a reminder of the power and danger of his creations. Using a newfound appreciation for life and understanding from Yinsen of how his selfishness caused strife, he needs to learn how to harness all his abilities into fighting the very people he used to do business with. At the same time, he meets resistance from some within his company, like Obadiah Stane, who opposes Stark's desire of ceasing extremely profitable weapons manufacturing.

How Do They Overcome? Tony's cockiness, though initially a flaw, turns out to be his biggest asset, as he refuses to accept the status quo. Redirecting his unrestrained confidence from selfish pursuits towards making the world a better place, he becomes the hero no one believed he could be, putting a stop to Stane's plots to take over Stark Industries sell more and more weapons. In the ultimate showboating act and declaration of defiance, he reveals himself to the world as Iron Man, daring anyone to stop him.

Batman Begins

• Warner Bros. Pictures

What Is The Journey?  After the death of his parents, Bruce Wayne trains his mind and body to become Gotham City's protector and the scourge of every criminal.

What Trials Do They Face? Due to his family's high profile, Bruce is burdened with carrying on the legacy of the Wayne name and being a public figure. Internally, he harbors a strong desire for justice to eradicate the city's corrupt criminal justice system. Knowing he will need to shed the Wayne name and become something else, Bruce embarks on an arduous journey to learn from the greatest masters as he trains his mind and body as a weapon to fight crime. However, his choice to become a symbol of justice rather than executioner results in his former master, Ra's al Ghul, turning into his enemy and threatening to burn Gotham City.

How Do They Overcome?  As Batman, Bruce honors the code of standing for justice and believing his actions can inspire hope, even when it would be easier snapping necks and putting bullet holes in fiends. Despite the adversity he faces and the limits he is pushed to, he remembers the promise he made on his parents's grave to protect Gotham City, carrying that with him as he embraces his new purpose as Batman.

Finding Nemo

• Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

What Is The Journey?  Meek and overprotective clownfish father Marlin must find the courage to embark on an unpredictable quest into the darkest reaches of the ocean to bring his son, Nemo, back home.

What Trials Do They Face?  Marlin fears his own shadow, treating life with the utmost caution and preferring the mundane over adventure. With his son gone, he needs to swim out of his comfort zone in more ways than one. He braves the dangers and uncertainties of the ocean, searching hard and refusing to give up on his son. Joining Marlin is the forgetful Dory, who teaches Marlin more about the importance of living in the moment and experiencing the fun of not knowing what happens next. 

How Do They Overcome? There are two major lessons that Marlin learns in the process of finding Nemo: first, he is brave and doesn't need to live his life in a state of paralyzing fear. Secondly, Nemo is more than capable of looking after himself, so it's up to Marlin to let go and allow his son to live life with all the risks that entails.

Men in Black

What Is The Journey?  After NYPD officer James Darrell Edwards III impresses the mysterious Agent K, he is enlisted into a top-secret organization known as the Men in Black, which is responsible for keeping an eye on extraterrestrial life on Earth.

What Trials Do They Face?  Taking the alias of Agent J, James is thrown into the deep end as he tries to wrap his head around the MIB's rules and dealing with extraterrestrials. K isn't exactly the most fun-loving, friendly mentor, either, so J frequently feels like he's letting himself and everyone else down by not being good enough. Among all this inner turmoil, there is a genuine alien threat to deal with, too, and it's up to J and K to avert a massive inter-species war. 

How Do They Overcome?  J trusts his natural instincts and abilities, while also applying everything he has learned from K to save the day. Ultimately, he discovers that K wasn't training him to be his partner, but his replacement. The student becomes the master in a bittersweet but moving passing-of-the-torch moment.

The Wizard of Oz

• Loew's, Inc.

What Is The Journey?  Dorothy Gale dreams of a better life away from Kansas, “Somewhere Over The Rainbow.” However, when she her dog Toto get swept up in a tornado and land in the magical, colorful world known as Oz, she needs to follow the yellow brick road to the Emerald City and speak to the mysterious Wizard about helping her get back to Kansas.

What Trials Do They Face? From the get-go, Dorothy is in a pickle, as she's stuck in an unknown place. Complicating things more, her house lands on the Wicked Witch of the East, which upsets her sister, the Wicked Witch of the West. Now, not only does Dorothy need to make her way on foot to the Emerald City and find the Wizard of Oz with help from her motley crew of companions, but she also needs to keep looking over her shoulder because the Witch has nefarious plans for her. Then, to top it all off, Dorothy finds out the Wizard is a fraud, and it appears to be like there's no way back to Kansas.

How Do They Overcome? Despite the uncertainty, Dorothy learns to embrace the weird and wonderful land of Oz , and learns a lot from her companions, the Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Cowardly Lion. So, when she finds out she can tap her heels and wish her way back to Kansas, she does so. Once she sees her friends and family again, she realizes that there's truly no place like home.

What Is The Journey?  Paraplegic marine Jake Sully infiltrates the Na'vi tribe of the planet of Pandora through the use of an avatar as part of a mission for the Resources Development Administration (RDA). After he spends some time among the tribe, he begins to question his loyalties, especially as he falls in love with a Na'vi named Neytiri.

What Trials Do They Face?  Sully needs to keep the purpose of his mission a secret to the Na'vi, as they cannot know his real reason for being on Pandora. As he learns more about the nature of Na'vi life and their respect for each other and the world, he becomes torn about what he should do. The RDA promises him they will help walk again if he gives them what they want, while the Na'vi provide a honest way of life. However, the RDA holds all the power here, as they can simply disconnect his body from his avatar.

How Do They Overcome? Sully chooses love and loyalty to the Na'vi over the RDA, revealing the truth to the tribe. While it's a difficult decision that risks his own safety, he finds himself inspired by the Na'vi way of life and chooses to be on the right side of history. Thankfully, the Na'vi come through for him, as well, and he ends up permanently inhabiting his avatar body and becoming a part of their community.

What Is The Journey? As cracks appear in her seemingly idyllic life in Barbieland, Barbie ventures to the real world to find the child playing with her who is connected to her sudden worries about mortality.

What Trials Do They Face?  Barbie's sense of inadequacy kicks off when she starts to feel imperfect in a perfect world. It causes her to have an existential crisis about who she is and what defines her. This isn't exactly helped when she experiences the harshness of the real world, either. Even once she finds her “child” - who turns out to be an adult woman named Gloria - she needs to evade Mattel corporate employees trying to capture her, and also deal with Ken, who comes to believe that turning Barbieland into a patriarchal society is the only way to bring value to who he is.

How Do They Overcome? Barbie learns it's important to form her own self-identity, embracing the messy parts of life that bring meaning. She also shows compassion and empathy toward Ken and his brethren, encouraging the citizens of Barbieland to treat each other equally and in a way that doesn't devalue anyone else. Finally, after a meeting with Mattel co-founder Ruth Handler, Barbie decides to write her own story and become a human rather than an idea.

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Blog Graphic Design What Your 6 Favorite Movies Have in Common [Infographic]

What Your 6 Favorite Movies Have in Common [Infographic]

Written by: Sara McGuire Jun 25, 2018

It’s a story we’ve seen many times over: an unlikely hero embarks on a journey that has been thrust upon them.

Along the way, the hero make some allies and enemies, maybe even fall in love. At the outset, they become stronger and wiser than they were when they embarked on their journey.

No matter what the genre or setting of the story is, the central narrative follows the hero’s journey structure. This is known in literary circles as the “monomyth” or, in pop culture, as the “h ero’s journey” .

Here are 6 iconic movies that follow the hero’s journey:

This infographic shows the progression of the hero’s journey in six iconic movies: Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (2001), Star Wars (1977), The Matrix (1999), Spider-Man (2002), The Lion King (1994) and The Lord of the Rings trilogy (2001-2003). Click to enlarge.

CREATE A TIMELINE INFOGRAPHIC

Want to learn how to create your own timeline infographic ? Scroll to the bottom of this article for a quick timeline design guide.

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A very brief history of the hero’s journey

The monomyth was first conceptualized by Joseph Campbell in his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949).

In Campbell’s monomyth, the hero embarks on a circular journey comprised of seventeen stages. The book identifies a narrative pattern throughout works of mythology (and narrative in general).

The monomyth has since been adapted and condensed into twelve stages by Hollywood executive Christopher Vogler.

Vogler developed his version of the monomyth while working at Disney, and once you recognize the pattern, you’ll be able to identify it in some capacity in almost any film. He’s the one who popularized calling it the “hero’s journey,” and his version focuses specifically on movie narratives.

The 12 stages of Vogler’s hero’s journey

Let’s break down each step in the hero’s journey (warning, many GIFS ahead).

1. The Ordinary World

The hero is introduced in their ordinary world. The mundane ordinary world is presented in stark contrast with the “special world” that the hero will enter when they accept their quest.

In Spider-Man , Peter Parker is introduced as a regular, particularly nerdy teen in Queens–quite the opposite of the kickass crime-stopper he becomes.

2. The Call to Adventure

The initiating incident of the story takes place. The hero is introduced to the challenge or problem that their quest will seek to overcome.

In Star Wars , the call to adventure comes in the form of Princess Leia’s message, delivered by R2-D2.

3. Refusal of the Call

The hero hesitates to accept the call to adventure. This could be because they don’t feel they have the skills to take on the quest or they don’t want to leave the life they know.

In The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Frodo is reluctant to leave his comfortable and familiar life in the Shire in order to face the unknown dangers that await him on his journey.

4. Meeting with the Mentor

The hero meets a wise, usually older, woman or man. The mentor guides the hero in gaining the supplies and knowledge needed to embark on the adventure. However, the mentor can only go so far with the hero.

In The Matrix , this is where Neo meets Morpheus, who tells him to take the red pill or the blue pill.

5. Crossing the First Threshold

The hero commits wholeheartedly to the adventure and integrates into the special world. There is no turning back from this point.

In Spider-Man , Peter crosses the threshold when he catches the thief who killed his Uncle Ben and realizes that he must use his powers to stop crime.

6. Tests, Allies and Enemies

The hero explores the special world, faces trial, and makes friends and enemies along the way.

In Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone , this is the part where Harry adjusts to life in the Wizarding world, makes friends with Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, and becomes enemies with Draco Malfoy.

7. Approach to the Innermost Cave

The hero draws closer to the center of the story and the special world. Often, this “innermost cave” is where the “object” or “elixir” of the quest is hidden. The object of the quest may be an actual treasure or a symbolic achievement.

The innermost cave takes the form of the Death Star in Star Wars ; Luke and his companions must infiltrate the ship to save Leia.

8. The Ordeal

The hero is pushed to the brink of death or loss and faces the greatest challenge yet. It is through this struggle that the hero experiences a process of death and rebirth (figuratively or literally).

In The Lion King , Simba’s ordeal means he must face the guilt he feels for his father’s death and reclaim his right to Pride Rock, which has been taken over by Scar.

9. The Reward

The hero experiences the consequences of surviving death (figuratively or literally) and retrieves the object of their quest. It’s often at this point that the hero has a love scene with their love interest and reconciles with their enemies.

In Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone , Harry passes the obstacles barring the Philosopher’s Stone and discovers that the stone has appeared in his pocket.

10. The Road Back

The hero returns to the ordinary world or continues onward to an ultimate destination, but their trials aren’t over just yet. They are often pursued by a vengeful force that they must face.

In the Lord of the Rings trilogy, this is where Gollum confronts Frodo at the ledge of the volcano and tries to take the Ring back from him.

11. The Resurrection

The hero emerges from the special world fundamentally changed by their experiences.

In The Lion King , Simba learns the truth that it was Scar who orchestrated Mufasa’s death. Simba throws Scar off Pride Rock in order to reclaim his place as king.   

12. Return with the Elixir

The hero brings with them the object of their quest, which they use to better the ordinary world in some way–whether it’s through knowledge, a cure, or some form of protection.

In The Matrix , armed with the knowledge of the truth, Neo delivers a message to the Matrix that he will save humanity.   

What can we learn from the hero’s journey?

Not surprisingly, the hero’s journey has been adopted by content marketers because it acts as a framework for effective storytelling.

The lesson we can take away from the hero’s journey is similar to the lesson we took away from our creepypasta study . The formulas that are recycled again and again in narrative are in place because they work. It’s the same with formulas for design , or any other aspect of creation.

But while a story revolving around a protagonist’s change makes for a solid base plot, there need to be significant variations to the story, characters, and setting to make the story new and exciting.  Otherwise, you end up with empty clichés and forgettable stories.

This is a lesson that extends beyond movie makers and fiction writers to content creators in general.

Whether you want to make an infographic , write an informative blog post , create a marketing plan or even plan a lesson , the hero’s journey can offer you a basis of how an effective “plot” or content strategy progresses.

How to create your own timeline infographic

Do you want to create your own timeline infographic ? You don’t need years of design experience to make one—just start with an infographic template .

Follow these steps to create your own timeline infographic:

• Create an outline for your timeline infographic
• Pick a layout for your timeline infographic
• Create the framework for your timeline
• Add dates, text, and images to your timeline infographic
• Embellish your timeline infographic with colors , fonts , and decorative shapes
• Download and share your timeline infographic

1. Create an outline for your timeline infographic

Before you get started, make an outline of the information that will be in your timeline. Outline the number of events and the order in which they’ll appear your timeline. Include headers and descriptions for each event, and any design notes you want to keep in mind.

For example, here’s part of the outline for the Google I/O timeline infographic we made:

2. Pick a layout for your timeline infographic

Next, plan how you want to lay out your information. There are several basic timeline layouts you can use.

The tree timeline layout , which has one central line with even branching off from it:

USE THIS TIMELINE INFOGRAPHIC

The snake timeline layout , which winds back and forth across the page (great for saving space):

CREATE THIS INFOGRAPHIC TEMPLATE

And the step-by-step layout , which looks like a more traditional process infographic :

3. Create the framework for your timeline

Once you’ve picked which timeline layout you want to use, it’s time to plot out your timeline. Map out each event and figure out how the information will be arranged on the page.

If you’re using a timeline template , then the framework will already be laid out for you. All you have to do is input your information, add or take away events, and customize the design.

4. Add dates, text, and images to your timeline infographic

With a framework in place, start to fill in your timeline dates, text, and any supporting images. Don’t worry too much about style at this point–you can jazz up the design after you’ve laid out all the information.

5. Embellish your timeline infographic with colors, fonts, and icons

Once you’re happy with how your information is laid out, you can spice up your design. Think about what kind of mood you want your timeline infographic to have. Then, pick a color scheme that reflects that mood. Similarly, pick fonts that reflect the theme of your timeline.

You can also embellish your timeline design with icons. Icons are perfect for emphasizing and visualizing important points on your timeline.

You’re done! Download your timeline and share it with your audience.

For more detailed instructions, read our guide How to Create a Timeline Infographic in 6 Steps .

Check out our other pop culture infographics:

Every Betrayal Ever in Game of Thrones 

7 Essential Design Principles We Can Learn From Star Wars

What Netflix’s Top 50 Shows Can Teach Us About Font Psychology

What Disney Villains Can Tell Us About Color Psychology

The Hogwarts Guide to Company Culture

The infographic in this article was created by Joanna Lu.

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10 Movies That Follow the Hero’s Journey

 Discover the most famous examples of movies that follow  the hero’s journey . 

Hollywood offers many outstanding examples of screenwriting and filmmaking. Once you know to look for the hero’s journey , you can find dozens of popular films that use the hero’s journey. Basically, watch for films where an ordinary person hears a call to adventure, meets a mentor of some sort, and team-up with an ally and or a group of friends to defeat a common villain or foe. Along the way, they should acquire some powers, face setbacks, and change fundamentally. They’d be every Marvel and recent superhero movie, then!

1. Star Wars

2. harry potter, 3. iron man, 4. the lion king, 5. the wizard of oz, 6. the lord of the rings , 7. spiderman, 8. the matrix, 9. the goonies, 10. the karate kid, final word on movies that follow the hero’s journey, is there a classic story that heroes are frequently based on, what are the individual stages of the hero’s journey.

Without a doubt, one of the greatest examples of a movie series that follows the hero’s journey is the 1978 movie Star Wars   Episode IV by George Lucas. The follow-up movies also follow this framework.

We meet Luke Skywalker as a young farm boy. After receiving a call to adventure from R2D2, he goes on a journey to rescue Princess Leia and defeats the Empire. He encounters mentors like Obi-Wan Kenobi and villains like Darth Vader. Through this journey, Luke discovers his true identity as a Jedi Knight and returns a hero, albeit fundamentally changed. Similarly, other characters in the Star Wars franchise also experience their versions of the hero’s journey, such as Anakin Skywalker, Rey, and even Finn. The results are somewhat less enjoyable.

Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling follows the hero’s journey to the letter throughout multiple movies . The call to adventure comes in the form of a letter inviting him to attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Once at Hogwarts, Harry faces a series of trials and obstacles as he learns about magic, makes friends or allies, and fights villains or: the dark wizard, Lord Voldemort.

Our hero faces many challenges and tests, like The Chamber of Secrets (a movie of its own), the Triwizard tournament, and the Deathly Hallows (another movie). Throughout the series, Harry Potter evolves from a young 11-year-old prodigy wizard into a hero who saves the Hogwarts Universe. For more, check out our guide to the best British authors .

If you are looking for the perfect archetype of the hero, check out the Iron Man movies… or any Avengers or recent Marvel movie. Tony Stark, in particular, follows the hero’s journey framework.

He starts as a somewhat obnoxious wealthy arms dealer before a near-death experience. He returns with new powers and changes the world for good. The Iron Man movies employ many hero’s journey tropes. Stark meets more than his fair share of villains and allies! In effect, Ironman or Tony Stark becomes a type of mentor in future Marvel movies that also use this framework.  

Most people have a special place in their hearts for Disney, thanks partly to The Lion King . You follow Simba as he grows from a lion cub into the pack’s leader. Even though it is devastating when his father, Mufasa, passes away, watching him grow up is still a fantastic experience. Then, he challenges his uncle, Scar, who spends a lot of time in his cave. The Lion King can also be a great introduction to the world of Disney. It’s also family-friendly.

Not all hero’s journey movies are recent releases. Consider this entry from the world of classic Hollywood. Released in 1939, in The Wizard of Oz , we meet a young heroine, Dorothy, as she seeks to help a bunch of people who each have their personal flaws. You can watch Dorothy fight against evil witches, save her friends, and learn more about herself. Expect classic movie lines like “Follow the yellow brick road” and “Happiness is the most important thing!”

The Lord of the Rings is a classic high fantasy work that follows the hero’s journey throughout three books. We meet Frodo, a Hobbit, seeking to save Middle Earth by destroying the One Ring. He travels with friends and allies like Samwise and Gandalf and faces off against villains and sorcerers like the Saruman and Sauron. The books are somewhat heavier than the movies, but both will lead you on a fantastical adventure. The series is filled with monsters, magic, and more twists and turns than you can count. If you want to see the hero’s many stages unfold, consider following Frodo from the Shire to Mordor. For more, check out our guide to the best fantasy authors .

The Spiderman franchise is another popular Marvel (and Sony) series that repeatedly uses the hero’s journey. There are numerous Spiderman universes, each of which has its own Peter Parker and variations on the hero’s journey. Peter Park, aka Spiderman, gains the ability to shoot amazingly strong webs from his wrists. He also acquires superhuman strength, stamina, and speed.

Throughout the movies, Spiderman teams up with friends and allies (including Tony Stark) to defeat villains like Dr. Octopus, Electro, and the Green Goblin. Spiderman: No Way Home (2021) is the best movie from the franchise as it incorporates all of these elements, heroes, and villains. Check out these essays about films .

Alongside Star Wars , The Matrix is the most popular recent example of a movie using the hero’s journey. Viewers follow Neo as he meets his mentor Morpheus and escapes the matrix. He acquires new powers, defeats a cadre of secret agents, and shows the rest of us that we’ve been living in a dream. The movie series has plenty of action scenes, numerous espionage examples, and an amazing adventure as Neo seeks to learn more about himself, where he came from, and what the future holds. It’s an excellent example of a dystopian work and also compelling science-fiction. It’s just a shame the sequels pale in comparison to the original.

Directed by Richard Donner and released in 1985, this film follows a group of friends, known as the “Goonies,” who live in the “Goon Docks” neighborhood of Astoria, Oregon. They discover an old treasure map in the attic of one of the member’s houses. This call to adventure causes them to seek a treasure to save their neighborhood from being turned into a golf course.

They face many obstacles and challenges along the way, including booby traps set by the treasure’s original owner and a group of criminals searching for the treasure. The Goonies discover an underground cavern and a shipwrecked pirate ship, where the treasure is located. Eventually, the group finds the treasure, but they must also escape the pursuing criminals and a collapsing cavern. The gang returns home to save the neighborhood and bond as a group. One of the stars of The Goonies is Sean Astin, who’s also part of the principal cast in Lord of the Rings .

Released in 1984 and remade years later as a Netflix show, The Karate Kid recounts the story of Daniel LaRusso. He moves with his mother to a new city, where a group of karate students bullies him. He meets a wise and skilled karate master named Mr. Miyagi, who agrees to teach Daniel karate to defend himself.

Mr. Miyagi trains Daniel in the art of karate, both physically and mentally. Mr. Miyagi uses tasks such as painting a fence and sanding the floor to teach Daniel the principles of balance, focus, and discipline. A famous quote from his mentor Mr. Miyagi? “Wax on, wax off.”

Daniel enters a karate tournament to face off against the bullies and the tournament’s reigning champion, Johnny Lawrence. He’s the leader of the group that bullied Daniel. With Mr. Miyagi’s guidance, Daniel defeats Johnny and wins the respect of his peers. Per the classic hero’s journey framework, Daniel learns important life lessons and develops self-confidence and self-worth. 

These are just a few movies that follow the hero’s journey. Even though not all of them perfectly mirror Joseph Campbell’s monomyth , all the heroes mentioned hear a call to adventure, meet mentors and friends and face off against a villain or foe. Through this journey, they become a different person and change the world. Of course, many different characters play a role in the hero’s journey. Check out our article on the different character archetypes.

Whether you are watching a fantasy movie, a science fiction film, a thriller, or a comedy, see if you can identify individual stages along the hero’s journey. The power of myth is everywhere, one you know to look for! For more insights like this, check our list of great essays about heroes.

FAQs About Movies That Follow the Hero’s Journey

Every movie is slightly different, but many mirrors The Odyssey by Homer. This tale is regarded as one of the classics regarding heroes. The story follows Odysseus as he encounters trials and tribulations along the way. Many of the popular hero movies of today have some of the same elements as The Odyssey. 

The individual stages of the hero’s journey in the template include the Ordinary World, The Call to Adventure, the refusal of the call, the meeting with the mentor, the crossing of the first threshold, tests and allies along the road of trials, the innermost cave, and the supreme ordeal.

There are of course many different characters who play a role in the hero’s journey. Check out our article on the different character archetypes .

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Finding the Hero’s Journey in Crowd Favorite Films

By sara mcguire.

Any movie pop culture buff will probably be familiar with the Hero’s Journey. A contemporary version of Joseph Campbell’s Monomyth , the Hero’s Journey is an archetypal plot structure that forms the basis of almost every movie in Hollywood.

Christopher Vogler, the man who condensed the Hero’s Journey into the twelve stages we’re most familiar with, developed the archetype while working at Disney. Christopher Vogler’s Hero’s Journey As a very brief reminder, the twelve stages of Vogler’s Hero’s Journey are:

• The Ordinary World: The hero is introduced in the ordinary world.
• The Call to Adventure: The initiating conflict alerts the hero to the adventure.
• Refusal of the Call: The hero is hesitant to accept the call to adventure in the special world.
• Meeting with the Mentor: The mentor introduces the hero to the special world and guides them in training to embark on the adventure.
• Crossing the First Threshold: The hero passes the point no return and commits wholeheartedly to the adventure.
• Tests, Allies and Enemies: The hero explores the special world and makes friends and enemies along the way.
• Approach to the Innermost Cave: The hero draws closer to both the heart of the special world and the heart of the story.
• The Ordeal: The hero faces their greatest challenge yet and undergoes a process of “death” and “rebirth.”
• The Reward: The hero experiences the consequences of surviving “death” and obtains the object of their quest.
• The Road Back: The hero begins their return to the ordinary world but a final trial faces them.
• The Resurrection: The hero emerges from the special world changed by their experiences and the wisdom they’ve gained.
• Return with the Elixir: The hero returns to the ordinary world with their special object, which they use to make the ordinary world better.

Movies That Follow the Hero’s Journey

One of the most commonly cited examples is Star Wars , which does follow the plot structure very closely, except that Luke encounters his Mentor, Obi-Wan Kenobi, before he refuses the call to adventure. Still, Luke’s classic heroism, the trials he faces against the Dark Side, and the allies he gains along the way are so textbook that Star Wars lends itself very well to the Hero’s Journey. It was the unique setting, compelling characters and other original details that made the story so exciting when it was released--but it’s a combination of these unique elements and the tried and true plot structure that make it a classic. The Hero’s Journey crops up in virtually every iconic movie you can think of over the last fifty years. Take one of Disney’s biggest successes: The Lion King (1994). The movie follows Simba, the young heir to Pride Rock, who is tricked into exile by his uncle Scar. In reality, Scar wants to usurp the throne and become king, but Simba is led to believe that he was the one who caused his father’s death.  When Scar tells Simba he must leave at once, Simba answers the call to adventure and finds himself alone in the unknown desert. He is found by Timon and Pumbaa, his two mentor figures, who introduce him to a “hakuna matata” lifestyle in the jungle (the “Special World”). Simba’s greatest trial is introduced by his reunion with his childhood friend, Nala. She tells Simba about the about Scar’s wrath and encourages him to return to Pride Rock and take back his rightful role as king. This could be seen as a repeating of the call to adventure phase and it also represents the approach to the innermost cave.  His greatest ordeal is facing not only Scar (physical), but also the guilt he feels for the death of his father, Mufasa (emotional). The “elixir” that he ultimately returns to the “Ordinary World” with is his clear conscience and the knowledge that his father will live on within him. Spider-Man (2002) also follows the Hero’s Journey perfectly, despite being in an entirely different story in terms of characters, setting, and genre. Peter Parker is a meek, nerdy boy living in Queens. He receives his call to adventure when a genetically-engineered spider bites him on a school trip to the Oscorp lab and he develops spider-like powers. At first, he uses his powers frivolously to gain money in an underground wrestling ring, a refusal of the “call” to use his powers to fight crime. Uncle Ben is his mentor (a mentor who dies earlier than most mentors), who offers him an iconic piece of advice: “With great power comes great responsibility.” When uncle Ben is killed by a runaway thief outside of Peter’s wrestling venue--the very same thief that Peter allowed to escape--Peter crosses the threshold and enters the symbolic “special world” where he uses his powers to fight crime. After his trials facing the Green Goblin and saving love-interest Mary-Jane, the “elixir” he gains is knowledge of the dark side of life (after all, his best friend’s father, Norman Osborn, turns out to be the Green Goblin) and the resolution that he must use his powers to protect the city and the people he loves. Where the resolution of Simba’s story was a happy one, Peter Parker’s story ends on a bittersweet note--this shows that while a plot may have the same core structure, the stories can still vary greatly between them. The Heroine’s Journey What the infographic above does not include are movies featuring heroines who follow the same plot structure. Such movies exist, popular examples being The Hunger Games and The Wizard of Oz , but they are far fewer than their male-centric counterparts. That’s why, in response to the Hero’s Journey, literary and pop culture theorists have developed the Heroine’s Journey. The most well-known interpretation of the Heroine’s Journey was developed by Maureen Murdock. Like the Hero’s Journey, the Heroine’s Journey is cyclical and takes place between the “Ordinary World” and the “Special World”, however, the stages are focused on the heroine’s process of rejection and re-acceptance of the feminine. This archetypal plot structure is much less known than the Hero’s Journey, but more film enthusiasts are starting to use it as a framework to analyze stories. Movies that follow the Heroine’s Journey include Room (2015), Brave (2012) and Inside Out (2015). As films with female protagonists become more and more prominent in mainstream film, we’re probably going to see more and more films that follow the Heroine’s Journey. I know I’m excited to see what movies are to come. Maybe we’ll also start to see some Heroine’s Journey infographics pop up. For now, the Hero’s Journey is a plot structure that continues to guide crowd favorite films.

About Sara McGuire

Sara McGuire is a Creative Content Specialist at Venngage infographics . In her free time she enjoys baking, reading graphic novels and poetry, and hanging out with her cat.

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The 17 Steps of The Hero’s Journey and Their Manifestations in Film

Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces is a fantastic work of anthropology. In it he outlines the idea of “The Hero’s Journey”, which has 17 “steps”. Campbell postulates that all cultures share these 17 fundamental steps in their mythologies and stories. Storytellers have used Campbell’s ideas to make some of the most iconic literature and film in recent history.

This is not to say that every story features every step. This is also certainly not the only framework with which to analyze stories. The idea of there being a universal way of deciphering stories, and consequently better understanding the human experience, is not new. Italian playwright Carlo Gozzi claimed that there were 36 “dramatic situations”, renowned journalist Christopher Booker published his magnum opus work called The Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories , and even Aristotle was publishing works focusing on how drama should be told and why.

This topic is large and it can get pretty deep. People get doctorates in these sorts of subjects, and it can range from using a simple plot analysis device like this one…

…to discussions of the collective unconscious and Jungian archtypes based in Greek Mythology and our subconscious.

This article will illustrate and explain each step of the Hero’s Journey, as proposed by Campbell, by discussing its manifestations in films. Some of these examples are extremely well known, some are not, and some are curveballs that you may not have thought of before. This article will also compare and contrast movies of different eras and genres to better illustrate these steps, as well as to differentiate between various frameworks. Sometimes The Hero’s Journey doesn’t really apply to a story. That doesn’t make the movie bad, nor does it make it good. Art is a human thing, and often times it cannot be put perfectly into a box.

This list is certainly not meant to be exhaustive, nor is it meant to provide picture perfect examples of each step. There’s always room for interpretation. Being aware of these different steps and different frameworks, however, really makes your film viewing experience that much richer.

1. Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012) and “The Call to Adventure”

It is important to note that Campbell asserts that the steps in the Hero’s Journey correspond to the “journey” we all take in becoming fully functioning members of society. They can be seen as representations of stages we go through while we “grow up”. The first step in the adventure of growing up is having the urge to actually go on this adventure. Why would we want to leave the comfort of our childhood homes? Well there are plenty of reasons.

Maybe there is some threat to our home, and we have to go out to stop it. Maybe there is something we must obtain or do in order to prove ourselves as full grown adults and as worthy recipients of something only adults have; a family of our own for example. Or maybe it is simply the curiosity and desire to grow as people. No matter what the motivation is, it calls us out of our normal lives into something new, mysterious, and wonderful.

The Call to Adventure stage is just that; the part of the story where an ordinary person, living in an ordinary place, is called away for whatever reason to go on a journey and return (or not return) later having accomplished what they set out to do (this is referred to as “the boon” by Campbell).

This stage is not just another word for the “inciting incident”, which is often used in other frameworks of analysis. Often times the inciting incident and the Call to Adventure coincide, but there is certainly a distinct difference that should be explained. An inciting incident is simply the ‘narrative hook’ that gets the story going. While a Call to Adventure is almost always the inciting incident, not all inciting incidents are calls to adventure.

There are hundreds of examples for this delineation. Take John Carpenter’s Halloween. The inciting incident in that story is when Michael Myers escapes from the insane asylum. It is at this point that the audience goes, “Oh snap! He’s gonna go APE on some unsuspecting and lustful teens who are neglecting their duties as babysitters!” Everything else before that was just exposition. This incident, incites the interest of the audience. No one cared that Michael Myers was some troubled kid. No one cared why he murdered his sister, or what his therapy sessions were like (Sorry Rob Zombie).

That scene is not a call to adventure. Michael Myers isn’t called to do anything here. If he was called to do anything it was years ago during his time in the asylum. Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) isn’t called to do anything here either. You could argue she has her own call when Michael shows up to town and starts killing people, but the inciting incident of Halloween has nothing to do with Laurie arming herself with a phallic weapon to overcome a walking nightmare plaguing her town.

Not seen: An average person living an average life

Furthermore, in Star Wars: A New Hope, the inciting incident is the first scene of the movie. We get the fantastic visual storytelling of that space battle. We learn that there is a lopsided war going on between good and evil, and the side of good is in need of “A New Hope” (Ohh…I get the title now…). That first sequence is what gets the story going and the audience hooked. The Call to Adventure happens about a half hour later when Obi Wan asks Luke to come learn about the ways of the force.

We are going to talk about Star Wars later in another step, so let us return now to The Hobbit and discuss how this perfectly illustrates the call to adventure.

The Scene: An Unexpected Party

Bilbo Baggins wants nothing more than to be totally ordinary. His main points of pride are his garden, strict adherence to Hobbit culture, and making up new reasons to have 6 meals per day without being a professional body-builder. Basically, he doesn’t want to grow up and experience the world.

Until one day, a very strange wanderer claiming to be a wizard bids him join a company of dwarves and travel to a far off mountain to help reclaim their kingdom from a man-eating fire-breathing world-destroying megalomaniacal dragon.

Initially, Bilbo, as any sane person would, refuses this call to adventure (see next step), but is later called again when there is an ‘unexpected party’ at his house and he decides to not be a giant wuss, but rather someone who can easily be manipulated and guilted into things…er…I mean be an adventurer.

The dwarves bust in and give Bilbo a much needed dose of culture shock. Bilbo really understands that this proposition is real, and he has feelings of inadequacy. He sees a chance to make a difference not only for these dwarves, but maybe for himself too. He understands what he is setting out to do. His goals are clear, and he is soon off on a life changing and fulfilling journey.

Without this push, he would have just stayed at home and not changed.

Excuse me sir, is this the “Epic Biker Beard Party”?

2. George Lucas’s Star Wars: A New Hope (1977) and “The Refusal of the Call”

In this step of the journey, the hero decides, for whatever convenient reason, not to go on this journey. This is metaphoric for refusing to grow-up or embrace change and the result of which is stagnation in development.

Nobody likes a man-child. Everyone tends to look down on grown adults who refuse to act their age and reject responsibility. We have all had moments though, where we didn’t really want to leave and grow up. Part of us did sure, but some part of us didn’t want to leave our friends and loved ones for the unknown. If we always chose what was easy and safe, we never would have left living in caves. We would have been bogged down in stagnation, complacency, and ignorance. Accepting the call to adventure is accepting the desire for more knowledge and the ability to benefit others around you. Rejecting it is accepting death in our development.

Now, not every refusal of the call is an impetus for a manifestation of death, however, death shows the hero that there can be no life for them where they are now, and they are thus compelled to start their quest.

The Scene: The Destruction of Luke’s Homestead

After Luke is rescued from ISIL Sand People by Obi-Wan, and having refused to join Obi Wan in going to Alderaan to train in the force because he has to “help with the harvest” (ironically the same thing every girl ever said to Luke when explaining why she could not go on a date), Luke comes back home and realizes that everyone he knows and loves is dead. He now accepts the call to adventure, and starts his journey. Initially he wanted to join to learn more about his father (and therefore himself through family history), and learn about this mysterious thing called ‘the force’. He also talks about joining the rebellion and seeking adventure outside the boring life of the farm. Now, he has nothing holding him back. In fact, he might even have more motivation through feelings of revenge.

If this did not happen, Luke would just be a basement dweller at his Aunt’s house…like all of us

Another great example of this is in Sam Rami’s Spiderman (2002) when Peter Parker refuses to fight crime and lets the criminal escape after robbing the sleazy fight promoter. Peter is then hit with the death of his uncle, who was like a father to him. It is very clear that this moment of death, spurs Peter onto the path of fighting for justice and using his powers for good. He learns very quickly that selfish indulgence of his powers leads to death.

You know what is odd…why did they give him a pillow to rest his head on…but nothing to try and stop the bleeding?

3. John Milius’s Conan the Barbarian (1982) and “Supernatural Aid”

This is where our hero is equipped with tools necessary to defeat the evil that they will encounter later on. How could Perseus have defeated the Gorgon monster Medusa without the weapons given to him by the Gods? Or how could James Bond save the world without the amazing gadgets given to him by Q-Branch? Grounded in reality, how can we succeed in the world without gaining knowledge and harnessing skills passed down to us through our society?

The Scene: The Tomb of the Atlantean Sword

Conan has recently been released by his owners and literally sent out into the wild to fend for himself. At first this seems great! Finally, our hero can begin his quest for revenge. Except for one problem; he has no equipment or supplies.

Even though he is fueled with battle hardened combat skills from the gladiator pit to exact revenge on Thulsa Doom for the murder of his family, his first act of freedom includes running for his life from a pack of wild dogs hell bent on making him their next meal.

Our great and powerful hero, seemingly powerless against some mangy mutts, is at a low point. So low in fact, that in an attempt to escape, he accidentally discovers a cave and falls beneath the earth. There he discovers the tomb of an ancient king, perhaps once not unlike himself, and receives the Atlantean sword! He uses this sword to empower himself (as phallic objects normally do in stories), and embark on his quest to solve the riddle of steel and exact revenge. (Note the obvious symbolism in descending beneath the earth and arising again more powerful, this comes up a lot and not just at your local Sunday School.)

4. Chris Columbus’s Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (2001) and “Crossing the First Threshold”

Here our hero journeys outside of his ‘normal’ world and enters the exotic world of his journey. This step often involves magic to cross the threshold between worlds. However, it can be a boat ride from England to Normandy and you can be met by a hail of bullets like in Saving Private Ryan.

Here we, as well as the hero, are introduced to all the players in the new world. We learn the rules of the world, its layout, what is at stake, and so much more information. This is particularly potent in Sci-Fi and Fantasy films, where the hero is often a “Fish out of water”, and things can be explained to him and see for the first time. We, likewise, learn and experience all of it with the hero for the first time.

The Scene: Diagon Alley

Harry and Hagrid have just used magic to cross from the normal world into the bustling world of wizardry. Harry’s jaw is practically on the floor as he looks at all the new sights, sounds, people, animals, and strange shops around him. It truly speaks to the skillful writing of J.K. Rowling. Harry has no idea how any of this works, or where he should go, or who he should associate with, or anything else at all. He and Hagrid, while moving forward through the streets (and thus the plotline where Harry acquires and learns important things), drop a lot of expository dialogue in this scene and it introduces a vast new world for the hero and the audience.

5. Jonathon Demme’s The Silence of the Lambs (1991) and “The Belly of the Whale”

The hero is deep in this new world at this stage. They experience the dangers and mysteries first hand, and learn how to endure them in order to later harness and focus their strengths to accomplish their ultimate goal. Courage and steadfastness are paramount for the hero at this stage. The first threshold is majestic and wonderful, but this stage is often fraught with dread and terror.

The Scene: Clarice in the ‘Belly’ of the Insane Asylum

The whole plot of this movie hinges on Clarice Starling getting advice (supernatural aid) from Hannibal Lecture (mentor) in order to stop Buffalo Bill before he kills again (her boon). To get to this source of great power, she must travel through a rouges’ gallery of the criminally insane. She, and the audience, witness just how different and dark this world is that she must enter, literally and metaphorically. She is now far from the safe FBI training grounds, and stares down the edge of an abyss full of real monsters.

4 Replies to “The 17 Steps of The Hero’s Journey and Their Manifestations in Film”

Great article. Could have wished you had found better examples for a couple, namely Zardoz and Avatar, as both these movies are pretty bad.

Brilliant piece. Love to see Campbell in movie parameters. Thank you.

[…] Versão animada e resumida da jornada do herói. A estrutura narrativa que serve de base para boa parte das histórias fantásticas. O conceito foi criado por Joseph Campbell e é frequentemente encontrado em blockbusters. […]

Zardoz is BAD? Veronica Clarke, it’s clear to me that you are retarded, ignorant piece of shit and you have no taste in movies. Harry Potter is bad, Star Wars are terrible, Hobbit is a pile of cgi crap, Count Monte Christo is abomination, V for Vendetta is watered down shit, Avatar Hook and Narnia are childish and pointless, Last Crusade is a bit silly and instead to pick on any of those steaming lumps of turd, you decided to pick on Zardoz? How dare you, you clueless, useless, brainless piece of shit!!!!!!

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Great adventures: five examples of a hero’s journey.

• March 2, 2020
• TEDxMileHigh Admin
• Art & Design

It’s the common thread woven throughout all storytelling. A lens that can be applied to any film or work of literature where each story will look the same. This arc of character and plot development is called the hero’s journey, and it’s everywhere.

In part one of this series , we learned what the hero’s journey is and the steps a character must take in order to fulfill their quest. We also learned that this story arc is relatable to us because our lives follow a similar pattern. If you still aren’t convinced that the hero’s journey permeates the fictional world, here are five great examples of a hero’s journey from different classics.

Spoiler Alert: If you are unfamiliar with any of these books or movies, skip them! We discuss the entirety of the story, including the end. 

Examples of a Hero’s Journey in Five Stories

This 2009 sci-fi blockbuster became the top-grossing film of all time just 47 days after it premiered. Its success is largely due to the incredible Computer-Generated Imagery (CGI) characters and visual effects that are vibrantly convincing. Underlying messages and morals such as the importance of a peoples’ culture and land conservation accompany the film. While all of these elements play a role in the resounding praise of this film, there’s another reason people loved the film: the main character followed a typical hero’s journey.

Jake Sully starts out as a paraplegic former Marine. He is chosen to be a bodyguard for a research team on a search for a new energy source on the planet Pandora. While on their mission, Sully meets Neytiri, a native of Pandora, and is quickly accepted by her and her people. Sully is then faced with the moral choice to continue his work with the team he came with, and thus destroy the sacred native land, or join the native tribes and fight back against his own people. In the end, he helps save the land and its people and makes a permanent transition from his human body to the able-bodied avatar. 

Sully’s time on Pandora is the perfect example of a hero’s journey: 

• Separation: He is called to his adventure as a bodyguard, separating himself from his otherwise ordinary life
• Initiation: The initiation stage involves his meeting Neytiri and his introduction to her native tribe, and his moral dilemma of helping the natives of Pandora or staying with his team
• Return: His return is marked by the triumph of the natives. He returns to the tribe, physically changed from a human to one of their own, and mentally a new being with a new purpose

2. Marvel’s Spiderman

Another dominating movie franchise is Marvel’s The Avengers and the superhero spin-offs that it consists of. The movies have been a force to be reckoned with in the box office. However, each character had their start as a part of a comic book. Perhaps one of the most classic of this comic-book-hero-turned-movie-star is Spiderman.

The most recent adaptation of this beloved character is in the Marvel Avenger movies and the spin-off hits. In case there is any question that he is a hero, here is his journey in three steps:

• Separation: After the iconic spider bite, Peter Parker discovers his spider-like powers, prompting his new superhero life. He needs to adapt to life as a teenager with superpowers and fight crime at the same time
• Initiation: Tony Stark (a.k.a. Iron Man) and the other Avenger superheroes recruit him to help them in their battle against their extraterrestrial enemies
• Return: In the end, Spiderman returns as Peter Parker to his normal high school life, but is changed by the knowledge of his bigger responsibility as a superhero

Marvel’s Avenger version of Spiderman follows the classic hero’s journey, but we can see a major emphasis on the introduction of a mentor throughout Parker’s adventure. Iron Man serves as a father-like figure and helps Parker not only navigate his newfound superpowers but also how to harness them and use them for good. 

  3. The Wizard of Oz

A beloved novel-turned-film story that includes wicked witches, ruby slippers, and flying monkeys. This film is known for its brilliant use of color to separate real life from the fantasy world of Oz, as well as its iconic song “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” Dorothy’s journey, however, is different from other examples of a hero’s journey because she is a woman. (In part one we learned about the difference between a hero and heroine’s journey, and Dorothy’s yellow-brick-road path embodies a classic example.)

• Separation: After the twister drops her house in the magical land of Oz, and coincidentally on top of the Wicked Witch of the East, all Dorothy wants is to return home to Kansas
• Initiation: On her adventure, she meets three iconic friends, the scarecrow, the tin man, and the lion. They ultimately help her defeat her enemy, the Wicked Witch of the West and find the Emerald City 
• Return: Dorothy returns home to her family in Kansas only to realize she’s been on an incredible independent adventure

Like Spiderman, Dorothy also has a mentor: Glenda. She advises Dorothy to seek the Wizard of Oz at the end of the yellow brick road. 

The key to a heroine’s journey is overcoming society’s expectations of women . Dorothy does this several times throughout the film, like when she longs for adventure when the expectation is that she lives on her family’s farm. Or the expectation that her new, male friends will help her when she ultimately helps them. Finally, when Dorothy returns home on her own, proving she doesn’t need to rely on her uncles or anyone else to get what she wants.

The other stages of Dorothy’s quest make it one of the many examples of a hero’s journey, but it is this power that she finds as a woman that distinguishes her as a heroine.

4. To Kill A Mockingbird

This Pulitzer-Prize winning novel is at once a coming-of-age story and an attack of racism in the depression-ridden South. The main character and heroine, Scout Finch, grows up conflicted between how she feels and how other people think she should feel.

• Separation: When Atticus, Scout’s father, and a prominent lawyer, agrees to defend a black man in court, the implications are felt by the entire family. The two kids are alienated at school for their father’s decision
• Initiation: Their initiation stage takes up the bulk of the story. Atticus remains a prominent mentor to Scout and her conflicted societal views. The elusive Boo Radley remains a friend and helper although never showing his face. The conflict of this novel is woven throughout the story. Scout struggles to understand the racial views of those around her. There is also major discontent from the Maycomb townspeople surrounding Atticus’s decision to defend a black man
• Return: In the end, Scout finally puts a face to the name when Boo Radley saves her and her brother from a man who disapproved of their father’s case in court. She also realizes that regardless of what other people think, it’s better to do the right thing than cave into societal pressures

Scout can be seen as a heroine on her journey because she defies the expectations of her as a young girl. She also disregards what society thinks of her interactions with black people. She sees no problem with her father defending a black man in court. Although she can feel the discontent from those around her, Scout understands that a person deserves equal treatment despite their race, and she spends most of the novel making that point.

Disney characters and movies follow the hero’s journey.

• Separation: Aladdin lives as a poor “street-rat” until he fatefully meets the Genie in the Cave of Wonders. With the Genie’s help, Aladdin is transformed from poor bread-stealer to Prince Ali in order to win the heart of Princess Jasmine
• Initiation: Aladdin is confronted with not only Jafar, the hand to the Sultan but also the moral struggle of living a lie in order to impress the person he loves
• Return: In the end, Aladdin realizes no magical genie power can truly give him what he wants. After defeating Jafar, he admits to lying about who he is and why he felt he needed to be someone he wasn’t

The emphasis of the return in Aladdin’s hero journey is what is important. He met the Genie and was pushed into this magical adventure as Prince Ali. With the Genie at his side as his mentor, he is able to defeat Jafar, but he realizes the Genie can’t help him with everything. The lesson Aladdin learns about being himself in order to get what he wants is important. It proves that he has had what he needed all along—that is all he will ever need.

The Moral of the Story

From comic books to blockbusters, Pulitzer-Prize novels to classic films, these works have seen varying levels of success. Some were the biggest movies of all time and some were classic novels that are still read generations later. Despite the details in each piece, all of these stories follow the same narrative archetype—the arc of the hero’s journey.

These examples of a hero’s journey are five of many, but they are also proof that this story arc can be applied to any piece of film or literature. I encourage you to apply this arc to any and all of your favorite stories—including your own life.

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Hero’s Journey Filmography

1. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

2. The Adventures of Robin Hood

3. The Dirty Dozen

4. Pulp Fiction

5. The African Queen

6. After Midnight

7. The Agony and the Ecstasy

10. American Graffiti

11. Analyze This

12. Anna and the King

13. Annie Hall

14. Arabesque

17. As Good as It Gets

18. Awakenings

19. Raiders of the Lost Ark

20. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

21. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

22. Monty Python and the Holy Grail

23. Close Encounters of the Third Kind

24. Pretty Woman

25. Ordinary People

More to explore, recently viewed.

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• Screenwriting

What is a Monomyth? 5 Films That Play It Out

A lot of people think that there are only a handful of stories out there to tell, and every script falls under one of those plots. One of those stories could be the hero’s journey or the monomyth, a concept developed by writer Joseph Campbell in his work The Hero with a Thousand Faces .

Borrowing the term from James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake , Campbell describes the monomyth as a recurring pattern shared by multiple famous works from different times and cultures. Needless to say, it is a concept with which any student enrolled in screenwriting school would be intimately familiar.

This pattern focuses on a single protagonist following a distinct arc, with many of the same beats on that arc. Figures that follow this epic journey include Moses, Jesus Christ, and the Buddha. But it’s not just classic stories that use the monomyth—it can be found throughout modern pop culture and is the foundation for many of the superhero and Young adult-themed franchises dominating Hollywood right now.

Here, then, are just five famous examples of the omnipresent monomyth:

1.  The Matrix

The first step in the hero’s journey is the call to action, where a seemingly normal person in a normal, mundane life is brought into the larger, more fantastical world.

In this case, cubicle drone Thomas Anderson follows the white rabbit and ends up discovering the Matrix and the Real World. He gains amazing powers and saves both worlds as Neo.

2.  Men in Black

NYPD Officer James Edwards follows the same path as Neo, who finds out that aliens live among us when he joins the MiB as Agent J. A crucial component of the monomyth is supernatural aid in the form of a mentor or guide. Neo had Morpheus, and Agent J had Agent K.

Will Smith’s lead character must enter the Belly of the Whale, the monomyth step where the hero separates from the normal world, never able to return. Edwards does this when his identity and fingerprints are erased, permanently becoming Agent J.

3.  The Hunger Games

Katniss Everdeen is a recent example of the monomyth, a normal girl from humble roots who enters the strange world of the Capital and the Arena and uses her superior skills at archery, hunting, and problem-solving to take down tough competition and an entire evil empire.

While doing so, she must follow the Road of Trials, the first step of the monomythic second major arc, Initiation. This includes winning over sponsors and allies while impressing the Gamemakers during training and then competing in the Hunger Games itself.

4.  The Lion King

While science fiction and fantasy often use the monomyth, it doesn’t mean it can’t be found in genres. One famous example is The Lion King , itself an adaptation of Shakespeare’s Hamlet . After Simba is cast out into the strange jungle world outside of his pride, he makes peace with his new life and surroundings, enjoying the good life with his two mentors, Timon and Pumbaa.

This stage is called the Apotheosis, a period of recharging before the hero’s return arc, often after he or she has even died. In this case, Simba didn’t physically die, but his ties to his Pride have. This step follows Atonement with the Father, which Simba does much more literally while speaking with the ghost of his dad, Mustafa.

5. Star Wars

Not necessarily the entire trilogy (or hexalogy, or soon-to-be ennealogy) but specifically episode IV, A New Hope , is a classic example of the monomyth. In the span of the first film, Luke Skywalker goes from an innocent farmer on a backwater planet to a wielder of the Force and the hero of the empire. He becomes the Master of Two Worlds, the penultimate step of the monomyth, when he joins his material piloting skills with his spiritual Jedi abilities to make a one-in-a-million shot to destroy the Death Star and save the day.

This also becomes Luke’s Freedom to Live, the final step. Luke would have more training and confront his father in the future, but Joseph Campbell wasn’t thinking of the era of never-ending sequels and spin-offs when describing the monomyth. Nobody’s perfect.

Learn the Fundamentals of Screenwriting at NYFA

The monomyth is just one of many formats at a screenwriter’s disposal. In the screenwriting programs at NYFA, students learn fundamental concepts and techniques on how to craft a compelling script. To learn more, please visit our Screenwriting School page.

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The hero’s journey breakdown: ‘star wars’.

By Ken Miyamoto · October 11, 2019

How does Star Wars: A New Hope follow Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey breakdown?

Welcome to the inaugural installment of our new series A Hero’s Journey Breakdown where we explore Joseph Campbell’s mythological storytelling structure and how iconic films fit into that mold.

First up is Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope . Let’s break down the plot and structure of George Lucas’ 1977 space-opera, the first in what would become an epic franchise spanning nearly 40 years, and see how it fits within The Hero’s Journey. You can download the script below to follow along.

But before we do that, let’s make sure we have the basics down, including what the Hero’s Journey is, where it originated, and who created it.

The Hero’s Journey 101

The “hero’s journey” is a common narrative archetype that features the different stages of a protagonist’s journey in a story. It has been studied and analyzed by many scholars from a multitude of disciplines, but one interpretation has found its way into the minds of almost every writer studying the craft.

The Monomyth

In 1949, writer and professor of literature Joseph Campbell wrote one of the most influential works in storytelling, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, in which he theorizes that stories often share a basic structure. Dubbed the “monomyth” or “the hero’s adventure,” Campbell lays out 17 stages of this narrative archetype, from  but some have crafted their own interpretations and renditions that the writing community has used as guides in their own work.

Joseph Campbell’s Monomyth

Vogler: The Writer’s Journey

Christopher Vogler’s approach to Campbell’s structure broke the mythical story structure into 12 stages. For this series, we define the stages in simplified interpretations:

• The Ordinary World : We see the hero’s normal life at the start of the story before the adventure begins.
• Call to Adventure : The hero is faced with an event, conflict, problem, or challenge that makes them begin their adventure.
• Refusal of the Call : The hero initially refuses the adventure because of hesitation, fears, insecurity, or any other number of issues.
• Meeting the Mentor : The hero encounters a mentor that can give them advice, wisdom, information, or items that ready them for the journey ahead.
• Crossing the Threshold : The hero leaves their ordinary world for the first time and crosses the threshold into adventure.
• Tests, Allies, and Enemies : The hero learns the rules of the new world and endures tests, meets friends, and comes face-to-face with enemies.
• The Approach : The initial plan to take on the central conflict begins, but setbacks occur that cause the hero to try a new approach or adopt new ideas.
• The Ordeal: Things go wrong and added conflict is introduced. The hero experiences more difficult hurdles and obstacles, some of which may lead to a life crisis.
• The Reward : After surviving The Ordeal, the hero seizes the sword — a reward that they’ve earned that allows them to take on the biggest conflict. It may be a physical item or piece of knowledge or wisdom that will help them persevere.
• The Road Back : The hero sees the light at the end of the tunnel, but they are about to face even more tests and challenges.
• The Resurrection : The climax. The hero faces a final test, using everything they have learned to take on the conflict once and for all.
• The Return : The hero brings their knowledge or the “elixir” back to the ordinary world.

Breaking Down the Journey: A New Hope

Here we turn to George Lucas’s Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope .

Note: As with any application of story structure or formula, this is just a hindsight interpretation and implementation of The Hero’s Journey to this cinematic tale. There can and will be variances. 

The Ordinary World

Luke Skywalker is living a normal and humble life as a farm boy on his home planet of Tatooine.

Call to Adventure

Luke is called to his adventure by two individuals — R2-D2 and Ben Kenobi. Luke triggers R2-D2’s message from Princess Leia and is intrigued by her and the message.

When R2-D2 escapes to find Ben Kenobi, Luke follows and is later saved by Kenobi, who goes on to tell Luke about his Jedi heritage. Kenobi suggests that he should come with him to Alderaan.

Refusal of the Call

Luke refuses Kenobi, telling him that he can take Kenobi and the droids as far as Mos Eisley Spaceport — but he can’t possibly leave his Aunt and Uncle behind for some space adventure.

Crossing the Threshold

When Luke discovers that the stormtroopers searching for the droids would track them to his farm, he rushes to warn his Aunt and Uncle, only to discover them dead by the hands of the Empire.

When Luke returns to Kenobi, he pledges to go with him to Alderaan and learn the ways of the Force like his father before him.

Tests, Allies, and Enemies

After Luke, Kenobi, and the droids hire Han Solo and Chewbacca to transport them off of Tatooine and onto Alderaan, Kenobi begins Luke’s training in the ways of the Force.

Wielding his father’s lightsaber, Kenobi challenges him to block the shots of a small training remote. At first, he can’t do it. But then Kenobi gives him a helmet to wear that has a blast shield that blocks his view of the remote. Kenobi teaches him to reach out and trust his feelings.

Luke blocks three shots from the remote — blind.

The Approach

The plan to defeat the Galactic Empire is to bring the Death Star plans to Alderaan so that Princess Leia’s father can take them to the Rebellion. However, when they arrive within the system, the planet is destroyed. They come across the Death Star and are pulled in by a tractor beam, now trapped within the metaphorical belly of the beast — The Galactic Empire.

As Kenobi goes off to deactivate the tractor beam so they can escape, Luke, Han, and Chewbacca discover that Princess Leia is being held on the Death Star with them. They rescue her and escape to the Millennium Falcon, hoping that Kenobi has successfully deactivated the tractor beam.

Kenobi later sacrifices himself as Luke watches Darth Vader strike him down. Luke must now avenge his fallen mentor and carry on his teachings.

Luke has saved the princess and retrieved the Death Star plans. They now have the knowledge to destroy the Galactic Empire’s greatest weapon once and for all.

The Road Back

Luke, Leia, Han, Chewbacca, and the droids are headed to the hidden Rebellion base with the Death Star plans. They are suddenly pursued by incoming TIE-Fighters, forcing Han and Luke to take action to defend the ship and escape with their lives — and the plans.

When they are triumphant, they realize that the Galactic Empire must be tracking them. But they have no choice but to race against time to take the plans to the Rebellion and prepare for battle.

The Resurrection

The Rebels — along with Luke as an X-Wing pilot — prepare to take on the Death Star.

The Rebellion and the Galactic Empire wage war in an epic space battle. Luke is the only X-Wing pilot that was able to get within the trenches of the Death Star. But Darth Vader and his wingmen are in hot pursuit. Just as Darth Vader is about to destroy Luke, Han returns and clears the way for Luke.

Luke uses the Force to guide his aiming as he fires upon the sole weak point of the deadly Death Star, destroying it for good.

Luke and Han return to the Rebellion base, triumphant, as they receive medals for the heroic journey. There is peace throughout the galaxy — at least for now.

Hopefully now you have a better idea of what the Hero’s Journey looks like in the wild. Be sure to check out our other Hero’s Journey Breakdowns for more examples from cinema’s greatest films.

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Why the 'Barbie' Movie is the Perfect Example of the Hero’s Journey

Just because she’s blonde and has a perfect smile and an amazing DreamHouse doesn’t mean she can’t also be a Hero. With a capital H. When I saw Greta Gerwig’s masterpiece,  Barbie , for the first time, I left the theater feeling positively thrilled.

Yes, fine, that thrill was partially because of America Ferrera’s rousing speech about what it means to be a woman , that incredible Depression Barbie commercial, and the Ken dance number in Act Three.

But it’d also been a long time since I saw a movie with a good Hero’s Journey structure, and I was thrilled that an unsuspecting movie like  Barbie  so perfectly exemplified this classic storytelling concept.

What is the Hero's Journey?

The Hero’s Journey is a structural storytelling concept known as the “monomyth.” First introduced by Joseph Campbell in a detailed 17-step template in which a Hero ventures from the known to the unknown, deals with some kind of major challenge, and returns home transformed. The Hero’s Journey was eventually popularized by Christopher Vogler, a Hollywood producer who wrote up a company memo that explained and condensed Campbell’s monomyth structure into 12 phases.

For this piece, I have used Vogler’s 12 steps, though I’m confident that this analysis of  Barbie  could be expanded to fit Campbell’s more detailed structural breakdown.

Read More: Breaking Down the Character Archetypes of the Hero’s Journey

Barbie's Hero Journey

Ordinary world.

In the first part of any Hero’s Journey story (any story at all for that matter), the Hero is introduced in their ordinary world. We see the Hero — also known as the Main Character or Protagonist — in their everyday life and are presented with some context and background to get the story going.

Barbie  begins with a voiceover introduction courtesy of Dame Helen Mirren that explains how Barbie came to be. We see that there’s the Real World and there’s Barbie Land, and Helen Mirren tells us that the Barbies believe all problems of feminism and equal rights in the Real World have been solved because of them.

We meet our Hero, the titular blonde doll, Barbie. She floats to the ground from the top floor of her house. Her feet stay on pointed tip toes even when she takes her shoes off. She’s surrounded by incredible, accomplished Barbies in a perfect pink world.

Oh, and Ken’s there too. His job is just beach (NOT lifeguard) and all he really wants is for Barbie to pay attention to him.

The Call to Adventure

So we’ve met our Hero (Barbie) and the Ordinary World has been established (everything is perfect in Barbie Land). Now it’s time for the Call to Adventure.

The Call to Adventure can take many forms depending on the construct of the story, but it can usually be boiled down to… *something important happens* to the Hero. An event occurs that affects the Hero, a conflict or source of tension is introduced, the Hero is confronted with a problem of some kind or makes a decision that will have major consequences later.

In  Barbie , the *something that happens* happens at Barbie’s typical nightly blowout party. During a perfectly choreographed dance number, the Barbies are marveling at how every day in Barbie Land is perfect when Barbie wonders aloud: “Do you guys ever think about dying?”

Refusal of the Call

After the Call, there’s the Refusal. The Hero hesitates to go on the adventure because they’re scared, insecure, intimidated, or confused. They love their Ordinary World and under no circumstances do they want to leave it behind.

Barbie may have interrupted the dance party with her incessant thoughts of death, but that’s not all!

She wakes up the next day to find her perfect pink life in total chaos. Instead of waking up refreshed, she’s tired. Her breath smells bad. Her shower is freezing cold. Her milk is expired and her breakfast waffle burnt to a crisp. When she tries to float to the ground, she falls on her face.

And then, the worst of the worst: Barbie realizes that her feet have gone flat.

Now, in  Barbie , the Refusal of the Call is actually combined with the next step in the Hero’s Journey, the…

Meeting With the Mentor

In this stage of the Hero’s Journey, the Hero is still hesitant, still not 100% committed to the adventure ahead. But thankfully they encounter a Mentor, who gives them some kind of advice, information, or helpful item for what lies ahead.

Contrary to what image has probably been conjured up in your head, the Mentor doesn’t always take the form of someone old and wise. They can, instead, appear as a choppy-haired woman with multi-colored face scribbles who is, for some reason, always in the splits.

In her abstract, weird house up on the hill overlooking Barbie Land, Weird Barbie explains that Barbie’s malfunctions have opened a portal between the Real World and Barbie Land. She then gives Barbie the choice between a high heel (ignorance) and a Birkenstock (enlightenment).

Barbie chooses the high heel (she just wants everything to stay exactly as it is), making this moment the Refusal of the Call during the Meeting with the Mentor.

Weird Barbie forces her to choose the Birkenstock and gives her instructions on how to get to the Real World.

Crossing the Threshold

After Meeting with the Mentor, the Hero has accepted the Call and is going on an adventure. They leave their Ordinary World behind and Cross the Threshold into something new. Structurally, this step in the Hero’s Journey signifies the end of Act One and the beginning of Act Two.

One of the best parts about  Barbie ’s structure is that it features an incredibly literal Crossing the Threshold moment.

Barbie — and Ken, after he stows away in her pink convertible and forces her to let him tag along — literally leave the Ordinary World of Barbie Land behind and Cross the Threshold into the next part of the story.

They travel by car, boat, rocket ship, tandem bicycle, camper van, snowmobile, and finally roller skate into the Real World of Los Angeles, California. But something’s not right…

Tests, Allies, and Enemies

Also known as the Fun and Games if you abide by Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat beats, this part of the Hero’s Journey is all about learning the rules of the New World. The Hero is presented with Tests, meets their Enemies, and figures out who their true Allies are. It’s a crucial step in the Journey, albeit a transitional one.

In the Real World, Barbie can’t seem to concentrate enough to locate whoever is playing with her. She sends Ken off on a walk, closes her eyes, focuses, and finds her girl.

Meanwhile, Ken starts to notice how men are treated in the Real World and the Mattel headquarters gets a call from the FBI about the escaped Barbie and Ken. As the Mattel black suits discuss what needs to be done to contain the dolls, a Mattel assistant named Gloria overhears… a woman who just so happens to be doodling things like Irrepressible Thoughts of Death Barbie.

Barbie goes to a school and finds Sasha, the girl she saw in her visions. But Sasha and her friends aren’t happy to see Barbie at all, in fact, her friends delight in watching as Sasha executes a flawless verbal takedown of the cowboy-hat-clad blonde.

“You’ve been making women feel bad about themselves since you were invented. You represent everything wrong with our culture. Sexualized capitalism. Unrealistic physical ideals,” Sasha says. Barbie protests, but she continues. “You set the feminist movement back 50 years. You destroy girls’ innate sense of worth. And you are killing the planet with your glorification of rampant consumerism.” Then she calls Barbie a fascist and sends her on her way in tears.

The Approach

Once the Hero has learned the rules of their New World, they build up to the first pivotal moment of the story (AKA: the Midpoint). This leadup period is known as the Approach.

In this stage, the Hero plans how they will take on the central conflict, deal with setbacks, adopt new ideas, and generally just take a moment to reflect.

The Mattel black suits catch up with Barbie and she willingly goes with them to headquarters. Gloria, who just so happens to be Sasha’s mom, sees them get in a car but isn’t able to stop them in time to talk to Barbie.

Meanwhile, Ken has done all sorts of research about the patriarchy and decided that he needs to take the idea back to Barbie Land. He heads back without Barbie…

Nowadays we call this part of the plot the Midpoint , but in the Hero’s Journey, it’s known as the Ordeal. Something big happens to the Hero. Things go wrong, there are more obstacles, and the story shifts in a new direction.

At Mattel, Barbie is a little horrified to learn that there are no women in charge at Mattel. The CEO convinces her to get back in her box, and she does… but just as they are about to twist-tie her hands in place, Barbie panics and asks to check her hair in the bathroom. Then she takes off running.

The Mattel black suits pursue Barbie through headquarters, but she loses them. Inside the overlooked room she finds an old woman named Ruth. Barbie confesses that the Real World isn’t what she thought it’d be and Ruth says it never is… and it seems like they’re about to have an important conversation when the black suits close in. Ruth shows Barbie the way out and Barbie rushes outside to find Gloria (and an annoyed Sasha in the passenger seat).

As Gloria leads the Mattel black suits in a crazy car chase, she confesses that she started playing with Barbie again recently out of loneliness and had begun making drawings like she and Sasha used to. She thought it would be joyful, but instead, she got sad and weird and so did her drawings.

And that’s when Barbie realizes the girl she’s come to the Real World to find isn’t Sasha at all… it’s Gloria.

The Ordeal is over, the Hero has survived (though probably not totally unscathed) and can now seize their Reward, the thing that will allow them to take on the big conflict of Act Three.

In  Barbie , this part of the story structure can be a little deceiving because Barbie herself doesn’t actually know she’s seizing the Reward and things look pretty bleak.

After Barbie, Gloria, and Sasha escape the Mattel black suits, Barbie leads them back to Barbie Land. She has seemingly achieved her goal — she went to the Real World, found Gloria, and is now going to fix the rip between the two worlds.

But all is not well in Barbie Land… Ken has taken over and instituted the patriarchy. The other Barbies have been stripped of their positions and accomplishments and made to be subservient, Ken has renamed Barbie’s DreamHouse the “Mojo Dojo Casa House,” and the Kens have banded together and plan to hold a special election to make Barbie Land into an official Kendomland.

Barbie falls to the ground in defeat, declaring that it’s the lowest she’s ever been emotionally and physically.

Cue Depression Barbie commercial.

Read More: Screenwriting Advice from Lady Bird Writer/Director Greta Gerwig

The Road Back

After everything they’ve learned, the Hero decides they must return to their Normal World. But there are more challenges on the horizon, and more conflict to come. The stakes are getting higher, and the Hero takes a moment to regroup before the Final Battle.

Even though this stage is called the Road Back, it doesn’t refer to the sequence in  Barbie  in which she returns to Barbie Land. Because before she can truly be on the Road Back, Barbie must experience the full extent of what’s happened to her home and realize she must make it right again.

In the wake of Barbie’s depressive slump, Gloria and Sasha decide to leave and go back to their world. Alan hijacks their drive and is about to help them escape when, long story short, Sasha realizes they can’t leave Barbie Land in shambles.

Gloria, Sasha, and Alan — god bless Alan — find Barbie at Weird Barbie’s house. She’s still face-down on the floor, upset because she feels like she’s not good enough for anything.

Barbie’s despair leads to Gloria’s incredible speech about the contradictory nature of being a woman. And that speech breaks Pulitzer Barbie out of her patriarchal stupor. “By giving voice to the cognitive dissonance required to be a woman under the patriarchy, you robbed it of its power.”

Together, they formulate a plan to take Barbie Land back. See, Gloria (and her rousing speeches about women) were Barbie’s Reward all along, the key to winning the final battle in Act Three…

The Resurrection

This is it. The Climax. The Final Test. The Resurrection. In this part of the Hero’s Journey, the Hero uses everything they’ve learned along the way to face the central conflict once and for all.

Barbie, Gloria, Sasha, Alan, and Weird Barbie begin their plan to take Barbie Land back by getting the other Barbies away from their Kens long enough to wake them up.

Once all the Barbies have been released from their patriarchal stupors, the final part of the plan commences. Sasha explains: “Now that they think they have power over you, you make them question whether they have enough power over each other.”

Barbie goes to Ken and, playing into his ego, rekindles their relationship. He’s thrilled. That night, the Kens play guitar and sing at their Barbies for hours and hours… and just when the Kens think they have completely conquered the Barbies, the women play on their egos and petty jealousies and turn the Kens against one another with a single faked text message.

In an epic musical number, the Kens go to war. On the beach because, where else? By the time the Kens finally unite and set aside their issues, it’s too late. They forgot about the special election, and while they’ve been hitting each other with lacrosse sticks and showing off their fierce dance moves, the Barbies have reinstated the Constitution and taken Barbie Land back for good.

The Final Battle is over and has been won or lost (in the Barbies’ case, victory!) and now the Hero can return to their Ordinary World with an Elixir of some kind (usually knowledge). The Return is the Ending, the Resolution. It completes the character arc and brings the Hero’s Journey full circle.

Barbie apologizes to a distraught Ken for taking advantage of him and encourages him to figure out who he is without her. “Maybe all the things that you thought made you  you  aren’t really you,” she says, and realizes that the same is true for herself.

The CEO of Mattel — oh right, the black suits have finally caught up to the Barbies — offers to restore everything in Barbie Land, but the Barbies refuse. In a moment of inspiration, Gloria suggests Ordinary Barbie and the Mattel black suits love the idea because their magic tablet says it will make them a ton of money. The End. Happily Ever After.

And then Sasha wonders about Barbie, who laments that she doesn’t think she has an ending.

Out of nowhere, Ruth arrives and reveals herself to be the inventor of Barbie and confesses that Barbie’s lack of an ending was always the point. She takes Barbie’s hand and they walk off together into a colorless void between worlds.

Barbie wonders if maybe she isn’t Barbie anymore and asks for Ruth’s permission to become human. Ruth says she doesn’t need her permission and helps Barbie see a vision of women in the Real World to help her make a final decision.

Barbie closes her eyes, breathes deeply, and sees a vision of women everywhere. Mothers. Daughters. Aunts. Grandmothers. Sisters. Friends. Young and old. In joy and despair, sadness and celebration. Wonderful and flawed and so very human.

And she says yes.

Barbie becomes Barbara and makes a life for herself as a human in the Real World where, with Gloria and Sasha’s encouragement, clad in comfortable pale pink Birkenstocks, she walks confidently into her first gynecologist appointment.

Greta Gerwig’s Mattel masterpiece  Barbie  is one of the best examples of the classic Hero’s Journey story structure in recent years.

Barbie may not truly return to her Ordinary Barbie Land World in the end, but by deciding to become human, by going on her Hero’s Journey and discovering what it means to be a woman — what it means to be human — her story comes beautifully full circle.

Read More: Barbenheimer: Why Are 'Barbie' and 'Oppenheimer Battling at the Box Office?

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Unraveling The Concept of The Hero’s Journey in Filmmaking

This podcast featuring christopher vogler opens up a lot of storytelling ideas..

Many great stories, whether told through the written word or on the silver screen, share a common thread—a hero's journey. The Hero's Journey is a narrative structure that has been a fundamental part of storytelling for centuries, and it continues to be a powerful tool in filmmaking.

One of my favorite screenwriting books is ' The Writer’s Journey ', which details Joseph Campbell's journey through storytelling and takes the writer's POV.

This was the first book I read on screenwriting and one of the best.

Christopher Vogler wrote the book, and he was recently on the Film Crux podcast talking about these concepts. So check out the podcast and we'll talk after.

What is the Hero's Journey?

'Star Wars'

I figured that after the podcast you may need a refresher on Joseph Campbell and his concept of The Hero's Journey. This not a new concept; it dates back to ancient mythology and has been used by countless cultures throughout history.

Campbell was a scholar of comparative mythology and wrote a book called "The Hero with a Thousand Faces." He identified a common pattern in myths and stories from around the world, a pattern he called the monomyth or the Hero's Journey .

The Hero's Journey is a template that outlines the stages a hero typically goes through in a story. While there may be variations and adaptations, the core structure remains consistent.

It begins with the hero's ordinary world, followed by a call to adventure, a journey into the unknown, encounters with allies and enemies, a transformation or revelation, and finally, a return to the ordinary world with newfound wisdom or gifts.

A Diagram of The Hero's Journey

The Hero's Journey Diagram

Wikipedia Commons

The Hero's Journey is often depicted as a circular diagram, with each stage connected to the next in a cycle. there are many different names for the story beats in the circle.

The image above is from Wikipedia.

Here's a linear representation of Campbell's idea with beats I use when writing.

• Ordinary World : The hero's normal life before the adventure begins.
• Call to Adventure : The hero receives a call to leave their ordinary world and embark on a journey.
• Refusal of the Call : The hero hesitates or resists the call initially.
• Meeting the Mentor: The hero encounters a mentor or guide who provides advice or assistance.
• Crossing the Threshold : The hero commits to leaving the ordinary world and entering the unknown.
• Tests, Allies, and Enemies : The hero faces challenges, makes allies, and encounters adversaries.
• Approaching the Cave : The hero gets closer to the central challenge or conflict.
• Ordeal : The hero faces a major test, often their most significant challenge.
• Reward : The hero overcomes the ordeal and gains a reward or insight.
• The Road Back: The hero begins the journey back to the ordinary world.
• Resurrection : The hero faces one final, climactic challenge.
• Return with the Elixir: The hero returns to the ordinary world, transformed, and brings something valuable back.

Examples of The Hero's Journey in Film

'The Matrix'

Warner Bros.

Many iconic films have embraced the Hero's Journey structure to great effect. Here are a few examples:

• Star Wars : George Lucas drew heavily from Joseph Campbell's work when creating the Star Wars saga. Luke Skywalker's journey from a farm boy on Tatooine to a Jedi Knight follows the Hero's Journey pattern closely.
• The Lord of the Rings : J.R.R. Tolkien's epic fantasy trilogy, adapted into films by Peter Jackson, showcases the Hero's Journey through Frodo's quest to destroy the One Ring.
• The Matrix: The Wachowskis used the Hero's Journey to guide Neo's transformation from a computer hacker to "The One" who can save humanity.
• The Wizard of Oz: Dorothy's adventure in the Land of Oz is a classic Hero's Journey, complete with a call to adventure, allies, adversaries, and a return home with newfound wisdom.

How Filmmakers Utilize the Hero's Journey

• Creating Relatable Characters: One of the most significant advantages of the Hero's Journey in filmmaking is its ability to create relatable characters. Audiences connect with heroes who face challenges, make sacrifices, and experience personal growth. By following this narrative structure, filmmakers can craft characters that resonate with viewers on a deep emotional level.
• Building Tension and Conflict: The Hero's Journey provides a built-in framework for tension and conflict. As the hero progresses through the various stages, they encounter obstacles, adversaries, and setbacks, keeping the audience engaged and invested in the story's outcome.
• Engaging Audiences on an Emotional Level: The Hero's Journey is not just about physical challenges; it's also about the hero's internal journey. Filmmakers can use this structure to explore the hero's emotions, fears, and desires, allowing the audience to connect with the character on an emotional level.
• Crafting Memorable Endings: The return of the hero to the ordinary world at the end of their journey often leaves a lasting impact on the audience. Filmmakers can use this moment to deliver powerful messages, resolutions, or open-ended conclusions that leave viewers thinking long after the credits roll.

More Reading on The Hero's Journey

The Lion King (2019)

This is No Film School, of course we've written about this concept many times before. so here are some articles for you to peruse as well...

• What Are the Fundamentals of the Hero's Journey?
• What Is the 'Call to Adventure' in Storytelling?
• Joseph Campbell's Monomyth: A Brief History and Introduction
• Puppets Reenact Your Favorite Movie Moments to Explain Joseph Campbell’s ‘Hero’s Journey’
• The Other Hero's Journey: The Emotional Struggle of Screenwriting
• Over 48 Hours of Joseph Campbell Lectures Released for Free on Spotify
• This Supercut Takes You Through the Hero's Journey of over 50 Iconic Films

The Hero's Journey is a storytelling archetype deeply embedded in our collective consciousness. It provides filmmakers with a powerful tool to engage and captivate audiences.

By understanding and utilizing this narrative structure, filmmakers can create compelling stories with relatable characters, tension, and emotional depth.

Whether you're crafting a space opera or an intimate drama, the Hero's Journey remains a timeless blueprint for successful storytelling in filmmaking.

Let me know what you think in the comments.

• The Other Hero's Journey: The Emotional Struggle of Screenwriting ›
• This Supercut Takes You Through the Hero's Journey of over 50 Iconic Films ›
• What Are the Fundamentals of the Hero's Journey? ›
• ​What Is the 'Call to Adventure'?​ | No Film School ›
• Writing 101: What Is the Hero's Journey? 2 Hero's Journey ... ›
• The Hero's Journey: Joseph Campbell on His Life and Work (The ... ›
• Hero's journey - Wikipedia ›

Check Out SSFF & Asia's Autumn Showcase of Spectacular Shorts

Ssff & asia showcase this year’s award winning shorts and more than 60 shorts online..

Are you a fan of Academy-qualifying short films? What about a myriad of them available online through November? Well, oh baby, do we have a pitch for you.

Short Shorts Film Festival (SSFF) & Asia is one of our favorite, extremely innovative collaborators, and they're offering access to some of their best shorts of the 2024 festival this Fall for their "Screening in Autumn" event. They have several specially coordinated programs hosted for your viewing pleasure, all for $12, dates ranging from now through Nov. 7.

Check out what's in store below! And click here to visit their site directly.

Women in Focus Program

SSFF & Asia

"Maybe Someday"

Director: Praditha Blifa Rahayu/22:08 /Indonesia/2023

Sri and Yanti, two teeange girls who are blind, have been close friends since they lived in a dormitory. They are inseparable and always together. One day, Yanti announce her plan to move out of town to pursue her dream. It makes Sri angry and keep questioning: whether they even deserve to have dreams?

Special Screening

"Haunted by the Sound of the Wind"

Director: Xavier Tera/13:00 /Canada/2023

As Spring blooms, Yuki's disassociation with light and hope is faded by torment. Mourning and trapped by her own house, the impermanence of life is actualized in personal reconnection with an old encounter.

" The Chicken"

Director：Neo Sora/13:31 /U.S.A/2020

As Spring blooms, Yuki's disassociation to light and hope is faded by torment. Mourning and trapped by her own house, the impermanence of life is actualized in personal reconnection through an old encounter.

“CRAFT STORIES AROUND JAPAN” Streaming Schedule

■Sep. 26-Nov.7

CRAFT STORES AROUND JAPAN

6 short films which depicts tradition, crafts, and artisan culture of Japan.

■Sep.26- Oct.10

Comedy & Family Shorts

15 short films including J-WAVE Sound of Cinema Award winner ”Cantata”

■ Oct.11-Oct.24

Animation Shorts

15 short films including “SEPIA NOTES”, a nominee of U-25 Project

■ Oct.25-Nov.7

SSFF&ASIA 2024

Award Winning Program

21 short films including Grand-Prix,

George Lucas Award winner “Sen”

Swiss Shorts: Swiss Eyes on Japan

"Johan, l'épreuve du feu (Johan, Trial by Fire)" is a documentary set in Hiroshima following Johan, a Swiss man who fell in love with Japanese swords and became a swordsmith. "THIRD WHEEL" offers a comedic take on a love triangle, unveiled through psychic powers in the Edo period and "TOKYO RAIN" presents a mysterious story of Tokyo in the near future, where rain continues to fall. This year, which marks the 160th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Switzerland and Japan, we invite you to rediscover the fascinating Japan depicted in these three short films by Swiss directors. After the screening, special guests Johan Leutwiler—Japan's first foreign swordsmith— and director Romain Guélat, who followed his story in the documentary "Johan, l'épreuve du feu", will make a special appearance to discuss the making of the film and Johan's thoughts on his passion as a sword-smith.

Oct. 26 @ Tokyo Photographic Art Museum

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Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey: A Better Screenplay in 17 Steps

• What is The Three Act Structure
• What is Freytag’s Pyramid
• What is a Story Mountain
• Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey
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dds are that if you’ve had any interest in writing a script within the past fifty years you’ve heard of the Hero’s Journey. A writer you got drinks with swore by it, a film professor suggested you read about it.  Or you overheard the barista at your local coffee shop talking about how Die Hard is a picture-perfect template for it. But… what is it? I’ll explain all of the Hero’s Journey’s 17 steps and provide examples in the modern canon. Then you can kick writer’s block and get a strong script into the hands of agents and producers.

• Call to Action
• Refusal of Call
• Supernatural Aid
• Crossing The Threshold
• Belly of the Whale
• The Road of Trials
• Meeting the Goddess
• Atonement With the Father
• The Ultimate Boon
• Refusal of Return
• Magic Flight
• Rescue from Without
• Crossing the Return Threshold
• Master of Two Worlds
• Freedom to Live

Hero’s Journey Examples

The monomyth featuring three of your favorite franchises!

The hero's journey begins, 1. call to action.

Adventure is calling. Will your hero pick up?

The initial step in the first act of the Hero’s Journey - known as the departure - is the “call to action." The Hero is beckoned to go on a journey. Think Frodo Baggins meeting Gandalf. Or the Owl inviting Harry Potter to Hogwarts. 

If having a tall wizard extend a hand may be a little too on the nose for you, don't worry. This comes in all forms. In   Citizen Kane , the mystery surrounding Charles Foster Kane’s final words is the call to action for the reporter, Jerry Thompson, to get to work.

The Hero Hesitates

2. refusal of call.

Next is the Hero’s “refusal of call.” The Hero initially balks at the idea of leaving their lives. The Shire is beautiful, after all, who wants to embark on a dangerous journey across the world? 

This refusal is typically because of a duty or obligation they have at home. Be it family, or work, it’s something our Hero cares deeply about. But, as pressure mounts, they eventually succumb and decide to leave with the help of “supernatural aid.”

The Hero Receives Assistance

3. supernatural aid.

Once the Hero has committed themselves to embarking on whatever that quest may be (keep in mind, a Hero’s Journey can apply to a modern, emotional story, as well), they receive “supernatural aid.”

Individuals give the Hero information or tools at the start of their journey to help their chances of completing the task. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and it definitely wasn’t built alone. Every hero has a set of allies helping them get the job done. From Luke, Han, and Chewie to Harry, Ron, and Hermoine, these teams are iconic and nearly inseparable.

The tools provided come in handy as the Hero begins…

The Hero Commits

4. crossing the threshold.

Now the hero ventures into a new, unfamiliar world where the rules and dangers are unknown. They’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto, and that becomes evidently clear when monkeys start flying. 

This stage often requires a few examples to crystalize the change in environment from familiar to dangerous. The contrast is key to play up how ill-prepared they initially are.

The Hero is Challenged

5. belly of the whale.

Next thing you know, we're in “the belly of the whale.” The first point of real danger in the Hero’s Journey. Taken from the Biblical story of Jonah entering a literal whale’s belly, it’s here that the dangers we’ve been warned about are manifested into tangible characters. Like hungry Orcs with swords.

This is Jonah moments before actually being in the belly of the whale.

Now our Hero must make a decision to continue and, in turn, undergo a personal metamorphosis in the process. 

They will not be the same individual at the end of this tale as they were in the beginning.  This must be made clear while in the belly of the whale, as we enter Initiation, or act two. Which is the longest slice of the Hero’s Journey pie.

This part is filled with the most failure and risk, and ends with the climax. But first, it starts with... 

The Hero is Tested

6. the road of trials.

“Road of trials” is a set of three tests that the Hero must take. Usually they will fail at least one of these tests. This could be a montage. It could also be a series of obstacles leading to a smaller goal in the journey. 

Here is where the Hero learns to use his or her tools and allies while on their way to a...

The Great Advisor

7. meeting the goddess.

At this point in the monomyth, our Hero needs a break to adjust perspective and digest the ways they've changed. It’s here that they meet with an advisor, or a trusted individual, who will help them gain a better insight into the next steps of the journey. Frodo met with Galadriel, an elf who enlightened him with visions of potential futures.

This is Frodo meeting with the goddess

Luke met Leia, and the two formed of a bond of kinship, motivating them to commit more to their cause. This individual doesn’t have to be a woman, but whoever it is our hero will gain something from the wisdom they impart.

But no good deed goes unpunished, and as we reward our Heroes in storytelling, we must also tempt them to failure.

The Hero is Torn

8. temptation.

Much like “road of trials,” “temptation” is a test in the Hero’s Journey. It presents a set of, well… temptations... that our Hero must either overcome or avoid. These temptations pick and pull at the insecurities of the Hero. A microcosm can be found in our own everyday lives with the simple act of getting out of bed.

The temptation to stay in the cozy confines of our comforters (and comfort zones) can be strong and sometimes overwhelming. This must be manifested in our story with some type of a cheap way out. Or an opportunity to throw in the towel. Our Hero must decline and press forward, nobly facing danger.

A Moment of Catharsis

9. atonement with the father.

Once they’ve thrown away their temptations, the Hero enters the “atonement with the father.” This is always an emotional part of the Hero’s Journey. It's a point in the monomyth where our protagonist must confront an aspect of their character from act one that has been slowing them down.

Something that could be fatal to their journey in the coming climactic stages. While this is actuated as a confrontation with a male entity, it doesn’t have to be.

The point here is that the Hero finds within themselves a change from who they were into someone more capable. Harry has to reconcile with the loss of his father figure, Dumbledore. Now take on Voldemort alone, using the lessons he’s learned on the way. Just like Luke...and every other hero ever. This is the emotional climax of the story.

"Tell your sister... you were riiiiiiiiiight..."

Death of the hero, 10. apotheosis.

With a new sense of confidence and clarity we must then make our Hero deal with “apotheosis.” This is the stage of the Hero’s Journey where a greater perspective is achieved. Often embodied by a death of the Hero’s former self; where the old Frodo has died and the new one is born.  

But this is sometimes interpreted as a more “a-ha!” moment — a breakthrough that leads to the narrative’s climax. This, too, can be tied to the death of Dumbledore and Harry’s reconciliation with the loss. This step is usually the final motivator for the Hero, driving the story into...

THe Hero Victorious

11. the ultimate boon.

This monomyth step is the physical climax of the story. This is often considered the MacGuffin of a film — the physical object that drives our Hero’s motivation. But it's a MacGuffin, to use Hitchcock's famous term, because ultimately... it doesn't matter.

In  Pulp Fiction , we never find out what’s in the briefcase, but it’s the briefcase that led them on the wild journey. When we find out what “Rosebud” actually means, it simply forms a lynchpin to help us understand who Charles Foster Kane was. The mission is accomplished and the world can rest easy knowing that it is safe from evil.

The Hero's Journey Home

12. refusal of return.

Upon a successful completion of the Hero’s Journey, and a transformation into a different person, the Hero has a “refusal to return.” The Shire seems so boring now and the last thing Harry wants is to go back to that drawer under the stairs. 

And, oftentimes, the return can be just as dangerous. This is the beginning of the third act of Campbell’s Hero’s Journey (known as the Return) and, while shorter, should still contain conflict. Our next step is an opportunity for that...

The Hero Transported

13. magic flight.

This is the point in the Hero’s Journey where they must get out alive, often requiring the help of individuals they met along the way. Dorothy still has to get back to Kansas, the solution to which may seem like a leap of faith.  

The eagles rescue from without with a magic flight to Frodo and friends

The hero's rescue, 14. rescue from without.

Bringing us to the “rescuers from without” point in the monomyth. Just because Frodo destroyed the one ring to rule them all doesn’t mean he gets a free ride back to the Shire. Remember those giant eagles we met a while back in act two? Well their back just in time!

Homeward Bound

15. crossing the return threshold.

Once the Hero is back home, it’s time to acknowledge their change in character. “Crossing the return threshold” is the stage in the monomyth where the hero has left the chaos of the outer world and return home.

But it's hard to adjust to the old world. Remember that scene where Frodo tried to enjoy a beer back at the shire? Hard to go back to normal when you essentially live with Dark Lord PTSD.

A Triumphant Return

16. master of two worlds.

The hero survived an adventure in the chaos realm, and now survives in the normal order realm. This makes him or her the master of two worlds. Not many people come back and live to tell the tale.  

Frodo and Gandalf wandering off into the sunset post accomplishing their mission

Plus which, throughout the story, they’ve become someone much more capable and resilient than they were in act one. They've learned lessons, and brought what they learned home with them. 

Whatever issues they may have had before embarking on this chaotic tale (often the ones preventing from taking the call to action) now pale in comparison with what they’ve been through.

It’s easier to deal with your annoying cousin, Dudley, after you’ve defeated Voldemort. This, in turn, leads to...

The New Status Quo

17. freedom to live.

In many ways the Hero's Journey is about death and rebirth. The story may manifest as the death of an aspect of character, and the birth of some new way of life. But the metaphor behind any story is one about mortality.

Change is constant. Hero's living through the Hero's Journey are models for us. Models that we can travers the constant change of existence, face our mortality, and continue. In a religious sense, and religions are all part of the monomyth, this is about the eternal spirit. 

Look no farther than the prayer of St. Francis to understand this final step in the Hero's quest. "It is in dying that we are born to eternal life." 

The Hero’s Journey Concludes

Cinematic heroes.

The monomyth is practically ubiquitous in Hollywood. As you’ve read earlier, Harry Potter , Star Wars ,   Lord of the Rings ,  and   Citizen Kane all follow the Hero’s Journey. But, because this concept was built upon the foundations of major mythologies, it's truly a "tale as old as time." 

Because Campbell discovered the Hero's Journey. He didn't make it up. Neither did those older myths. He realized as an anthropologist, that every culture all around the globe had the same story beats in all their myths. 

Sure, some myths, and some movies, use 10 of the 17, or even just 5. But throughout human history, around the world, these story beats keep showing up. In cultures that had nothing to do with one another. 

The Hero's Journey is a concept innate to being human. 

And if remembering these 17 steps may seem a little daunting, fear not. Make sure to check out Dan Harmon's abridged 8-step variation of the Hero's Journey monomyth.  Same structure, just made more digestible.

Dan Harmon’s Story Circle 

Practically speaking, the Hero’s Journey is an excellent tool for structuring an outline in a clear and familiar way. It has the power to make your script much more powerful and emotionally resonant. 

It’s circular, allowing for repeat adventures (which works well if you're learning how to write a TV pilot ) and each aspect drives the hero to the next. From the Goddess, the Hero finds temptation. From reconciling with the father, the Hero is now prepared for the final boon.

Story Circle  •  8 Proven Steps to Better Stories

Using a Hero’s Journey worksheet can help you write a treatment or create a well-structured outline , which is a valuable tool for creating a strong first draft.

By putting in the 17 steps of the Hero’s Journey before building the outline, you can ensure that the writing process will flow smoothly and efficiently. Let us know in the comments how the monomyth has helped you craft a story that escalates with every beat to an exciting climax.  

Up Next: Dan Harmon's Story Circle →

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The Hero’s Journey

What is the Hero's Journey in Literature?

Crafting a heroic character is a crucial aspect of storytelling, and it involves much more than simply sketching out a brave and virtuous figure. The hero's journey definition is not the typical linear narrative but rather a cyclical pattern that encompasses the hero's transformation, trials, and ultimate return, reflecting the profound and timeless aspects of human experience. The writer's journey in this endeavor goes beyond the external actions of the hero and delves into the character's inner world. The hero arc is the heart of the narrative, depicting the character's evolution from an ordinary person to a true hero.

Narratology and Writing Instructions for Heroic Characters

Related to both plot diagram and types of literary conflict , the ”Hero’s Journey” structure is a recurring pattern of stages many heroes undergo over the course of their stories. Joseph Campbell, an American mythologist, writer, and lecturer, articulated this cycle after researching and reviewing numerous myths and stories from a variety of time periods and regions of the world. He found that different writers take us on different journeys, however, they all share fundamental principles. Through the hero's trials, growth, and ultimate triumph, the narrative comes full circle, embodying the timeless pattern of the hero cycle. Literature abounds with examples of the hero cycle, illustrating how this narrative structure transcends cultural boundaries and remains a fundamental element of storytelling. This hero cycle in literature is also known as the Monomyth, archetype . The most basic version of Joseph Campbell's Monomyth has 12 steps, while more detailed versions can have up to 17 steps. His type of hero's journey diagram provides a visual roadmap for understanding the various stages and archetypal elements that protagonists typically encounter in their transformative quests. The wheel to the right is an excellent visual to share with students of how these steps occur. Hero's journey diagram examples provide a visual roadmap for understanding the various stages and archetypal elements that protagonists typically encounter in their transformative quests. Exploring the monomyth steps outlined by Joseph Campbell, we can see how these universal narrative elements have shaped countless stories across cultures and time periods.

Which Story Structure is Right for You?

The choice of story structure depends on various factors, including the type of story you want to tell, your intended audience, and your personal creative style. Here are some popular story structures and when they might be suitable:

• The Hero's Journey: Use this structure when you want to tell a story of personal growth, transformation, and adventure. It works well for epic tales, fantasy, and science fiction, but it can be adapted to other genres as well.
• Three-Act Structure: This is a versatile structure suitable for a wide range of genres, from drama to comedy to action. It's ideal for stories that have a clear beginning, middle, and end, with well-defined turning points.
• Episodic or Serial Structure: If you're creating a long-running series or a story with multiple interconnected arcs, this structure is a good choice. It allows for flexibility in storytelling and can keep audiences engaged over the long term.
• Nonlinear Structure: Experiment with this structure if you want to challenge traditional narrative conventions. It's suitable for stories where timelines are fragmented, revealing information gradually to build intrigue and suspense.
• Circular or Cyclical Structure: This structure is great for stories with recurring themes or for tales that come full circle. It can be particularly effective in literary fiction and philosophical narratives.

Ultimately, the right story structure for you depends on your creative vision, the genre you're working in, and the narrative you want to convey. You may also choose to blend or adapt different structures to suit your story's unique needs. The key is to select a structure that serves your storytelling goals and engages your target audience effectively.

What is a Common Theme in the Hero's Journey?

A common theme in the hero's journey is the concept of personal transformation and growth. Throughout the hero's journey, the protagonist typically undergoes significant change, evolving from an ordinary or flawed individual into a more heroic, self-realized, or enlightened character. This theme of transformation is often accompanied by challenges, trials, and self-discovery, making it a central and universal element of hero's journey narratives.

Structure of the Monomyth: The Hero's Journey Summary

This summary of the different elements of the archetypal hero's journey outlines the main four parts along with the different stages within each part. This can be shared with students and used as a reference along with the hero's journey wheel to analyze literature.

Part One - Call to Adventure

During the exposition, the hero is in the ordinary world , usually the hero’s home or natural habitat. Conflict arises in their everyday life, which calls the hero to adventure , where they are beckoned to leave their familiar world in search of something. They may refuse the call at first, but eventually leave, knowing that something important hangs in the balance and refusal of the call is simply not an option.

Part Two - Supreme Ordeal or Initiation

Once the hero makes the decision to leave the normal world, venture into the unfamiliar world, and has officially begun their mysterious adventure, they will meet a mentor figure (a sidekick in some genres) and together these two will cross the first threshold . This is the point where turning back is not an option, and where the hero must encounter tests, allies and enemies . Obstacles like tests and enemies must be overcome to continue. Helpers aid the hero in their journey.

Part Three - Unification or Transformation

Having overcome initial obstacles, in this part of the heroic cycle, the hero and their allies reach the approach . Here they will prepare for the major challenge in this new or special world. During the approach, the hero undergoes an ordeal , testing them to point near death. Their greatest fear is sometimes exposed, and from the ordeal comes a new life or revival for the hero. This transformation is the final separation from their old life to their new life. For their efforts in overcoming the ordeal, the hero reaches the reward . The hero receives the reward for facing death. There may be a celebration, but there is also danger of losing the reward.

Part Four - Road Back or Hero's Return

Once the hero achieves their goal and the reward is won, the hero and companions start on the road back . The hero wants to complete the adventure and return to their ordinary world with their treasure. This stage is often referred to as either the resurrections or atonement . Hero's journey examples that showcase the atonement stage often highlight the protagonist's inner turmoil and the difficult decisions they must make to reconcile with their past and fully embrace their heroic destiny. The hero becomes "at one" with themselves. As the hero crosses the threshold (returning from the unknown to their ordinary world), the reader arrives at the climax of the story. Here, the hero is severely tested one last time. This test is an attempt to undo their previous achievements. At this point, the hero has come full circle, and the major conflict at the beginning of the journey is finally resolved. In the return home, the hero has now resumed life in his/her original world, and things are restored to ordinary.

Popular Hero's Journey Examples

Monomyth example: homer's odyssey.

Monomyth examples typically involve a hero who embarks on an adventure, faces trials and challenges, undergoes personal transformation, and returns home or to society with newfound wisdom or a significant achievement, making this storytelling structure a powerful and timeless tool for crafting compelling narratives.

The hero's journey chart below for Homer’s Odyssey uses the abridged ninth grade version of the epic. The Heroic Journey in the original story of the Odyssey is not linear, beginning in media res , Latin for “in the middle of things”.)

To Kill a Mockingbird Heroic Journey

Did you know that many popular movies have heroes that follow this type of journey? It is true! In the "Star Wars" movies, Hollywood film producer George Lucas creates a journey for Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia. In "The Lion King", Simba goes on quite the adventure that ends in a final battle with his uncle Scar, a major turning point in the film before the hero returns to save his land. In "The Wizard of Oz", Dorothy takes on the role of the epic hero as she teeters between the two worlds of Kansas and Oz. These are just a few of the many examples of Campbell's theory in the cinematic realm.

Classroom Applications and Uses

Example exercises.

Create your own hero's journey examples using the Storyboard That Creator! Customize the level of detail and number of cells required for projects based on available class time and resources.

• Students identify the stages of the heroic journey in a piece of literature by creating one cell depicting each of the twelve steps.
• Students create storyboards that show and explain each stage found in the work of literature, using specific quotes from the text which highlight each part of the journey.
• Students create an outline of their own original story that follows the monomyth stages.

Common Core

• ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.3 : Analyze how complex characters (e.g., those with multiple or conflicting motivations) develop over the course of a text, interact with other characters, and advance the plot or develop the theme
• ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.7 : Analyze the representation of a subject or a key scene in two different artistic mediums, including what is emphasized or absent in each treatment (e.g., Auden’s “Musée des Beaux Arts” and Breughel’s Landscape with the Fall of Icarus)
• ELA-Literacy.W.9-10.6 : Use technology, including the Internet, to produce, publish, and update individual or shared writing products, taking advantage of technology’s capacity to link to other information and to display information flexibly and dynamically
• ELA-Literacy.SL.9-10.2 : Integrate multiple sources of information presented in diverse media or formats (e.g., visually, quantitatively, orally) evaluating the credibility and accuracy of each source
• ELA-Literacy.RL.11-12.3 : Analyze the impact of the author’s choices regarding how to develop and relate elements of a story or drama (e.g., where a story is set, how the action is ordered, how the characters are introduced and developed)
• ELA-Literacy.RL.11-12.7 : Analyze multiple interpretations of a story, drama, or poem (e.g., recorded or live production of a play or recorded novel or poetry), evaluating how each version interprets the source text. (Include at least one play by Shakespeare and one play by an American dramatist.)
• ELA-Literacy.W.11-12.6 : Use technology, including the Internet, to produce, publish, and update individual or shared writing products in response to ongoing feedback, including new arguments or information
• ELA-Literacy.SL.11-12.2 : Integrate multiple sources of information presented in diverse formats and media (e.g., visually, quantitatively, orally) in order to make informed decisions and solve problems, evaluating the credibility and accuracy of each source and noting any discrepancies among the data

Related Resources

• Plot Diagram and Narrative Arc
• Types of Conflict In Literature
• What is an Archetype?
• The Odyssey Teacher Guide
• Types of Heroes in Literature

How Teachers Can Use The Concept of The Heroic Journey To Help Students Better Understand Character Development In Literature

Introduce the concept of the heroic journey.

Teachers can introduce the concept of the heroic journey to students and explain the different stages involved in the journey. This will provide a framework for students to better understand how characters develop throughout the story.

Analyze Characters Using the Heroic Journey

Teachers can guide students through the stages of the heroic journey and ask them to identify where the character is in the journey. This will help students to understand the character's development and how their actions and decisions are influenced by the different stages of the journey.

Compare and Contrast Character Journeys

Teachers can ask students to compare and contrast the journeys of different characters within a story or across multiple stories. This will help students to gain a deeper understanding of how the heroic journey is used to develop characters in literature and how it can be applied across different genres and cultures.

Discuss the Role of Character Motivation

Teachers can encourage students to think critically about the motivations of characters at each stage of the journey. This will help students to understand why characters make certain decisions and how their motivations contribute to their development.

Apply the Concept to Real-Life Situations

Teachers can encourage students to apply the concept of the heroic journey to real-life situations. This will help students to see how the journey applies not only to literature, but also to their own lives and experiences.

Frequently Asked Questions about the Hero's Journey

What is a "monomyth" or the "hero's journey" in literature.

In comparative mythology, the monomyth, or the hero's journey, is the series of stages that can be applied to a variety of stories from all genres. It involves a hero who is called to pursue an adventure, undergoes an ordeal, achieves their goal and returns home transformed.

What are the 12 Stages of the Hero's Journey in literature?

• Ordinary World
• Call to Adventure
• Meeting the Mentor / Helper
• Crossing the Threshold
• Test / Allies / Enemies

What is a common theme in the hero's journey?

The Hero's Journey usually follows the path of the main character from childhood or young adulthood through maturity. It is about the common human experiences of growth, challenges and change that are relatable to us all.

Why should students learn about the hero's journey?

The hero's journey is relevant for students in that it demonstrates the possibility of overcoming adversity and the potential for growth and change that is within us all. It is a common theme of literature and movies that once students understand, they will be able to identify over and over again. It is helpful for students to make the text-to-self connection and apply this thinking to their own life as a "growth mindset" . They can see that they are on their own hero's journey and that everyone has the ability to overcome obstacles to achieve their goals and affect positive change in their lives and the lives of others.

What are some of the best examples of the hero's journey?

The hero's journey stages appear in more books than students may realize! Here are just a few examples of popular books that contain the monomyth structure:

• The Graveyard Book
• The Hunger Games
• To Kill a Mockingbird
• The Odyssey
• The Lions of Little Rock
• Wednesday Wars
• One Crazy Summer
• Out of My Mind
• Brown Girl Dreaming
• The Lightning Thief
• The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane
• The Stars Beneath Our Feet
• Fish in a Tree

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Hero's Journey 101: How to Use the Hero's Journey to Plot Your Story

By Dan Schriever

How many times have you heard this story? A protagonist is suddenly whisked away from their ordinary life and embarks on a grand adventure. Along the way they make new friends, confront perils, and face tests of character. In the end, evil is defeated, and the hero returns home a changed person.

That’s the Hero’s Journey in a nutshell. It probably sounds very familiar—and rightly so: the Hero’s Journey aspires to be the universal story, or monomyth, a narrative pattern deeply ingrained in literature and culture. Whether in books, movies, television, or folklore, chances are you’ve encountered many examples of the Hero’s Journey in the wild.

In this post, we’ll walk through the elements of the Hero’s Journey step by step. We’ll also study an archetypal example from the movie The Matrix (1999). Once you have mastered the beats of this narrative template, you’ll be ready to put your very own spin on it.

Sound good? Then let’s cross the threshold and let the journey begin.

What Is the Hero’s Journey?

The 12 stages of the hero’s journey, writing your own hero’s journey.

The Hero’s Journey is a common story structure for modeling both plot points and character development. A protagonist embarks on an adventure into the unknown. They learn lessons, overcome adversity, defeat evil, and return home transformed.

Joseph Campbell , a scholar of literature, popularized the monomyth in his influential work The Hero With a Thousand Faces (1949). Looking for common patterns in mythological narratives, Campbell described a character arc with 17 total stages, overlaid on a more traditional three-act structure. Not all need be present in every myth or in the same order.

The three stages, or acts, of Campbell’s Hero’s Journey are as follows:

1. Departure. The hero leaves the ordinary world behind.

2. Initiation. The hero ventures into the unknown ("the Special World") and overcomes various obstacles and challenges.

3. Return. The hero returns in triumph to the familiar world.

Hollywood has embraced Campbell’s structure, most famously in George Lucas’s Star Wars movies. There are countless examples in books, music, and video games, from fantasy epics and Disney films to sports movies.

In The Writer’s Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers (1992), screenwriter Christopher Vogler adapted Campbell’s three phases into the "12 Stages of the Hero’s Journey." This is the version we’ll analyze in the next section.

For writers, the purpose of the Hero’s Journey is to act as a template and guide. It’s not a rigid formula that your plot must follow beat by beat. Indeed, there are good reasons to deviate—not least of which is that this structure has become so ubiquitous.

Still, it’s helpful to master the rules before deciding when and how to break them. The 12 steps of the Hero's Journey are as follows :

• The Ordinary World
• The Call of Adventure
• Refusal of the Call
• Meeting the Mentor
• Crossing the First Threshold
• Tests, Allies, and Enemies
• Approach to the Inmost Cave
• Reward (Seizing the Sword)
• The Road Back
• Resurrection
• Return with the Elixir

Let’s take a look at each stage in more detail. To show you how the Hero’s Journey works in practice, we’ll also consider an example from the movie The Matrix (1999). After all, what blog has not been improved by a little Keanu Reeves?

#1: The Ordinary World

This is where we meet our hero, although the journey has not yet begun: first, we need to establish the status quo by showing the hero living their ordinary, mundane life.

It’s important to lay the groundwork in this opening stage, before the journey begins. It lets readers identify with the hero as just a regular person, “normal” like the rest of us. Yes, there may be a big problem somewhere out there, but the hero at this stage has very limited awareness of it.

The Ordinary World in The Matrix :

We are introduced to Thomas A. Anderson, aka Neo, programmer by day, hacker by night. While Neo runs a side operation selling illicit software, Thomas Anderson lives the most mundane life imaginable: he works at his cubicle, pays his taxes, and helps the landlady carry out her garbage.

#2: The Call to Adventure

The journey proper begins with a call to adventure—something that disrupts the hero’s ordinary life and confronts them with a problem or challenge they can’t ignore. This can take many different forms.

While readers may already understand the stakes, the hero is realizing them for the first time. They must make a choice: will they shrink from the call, or rise to the challenge?

The Call to Adventure in The Matrix :

A mysterious message arrives in Neo’s computer, warning him that things are not as they seem. He is urged to “follow the white rabbit.” At a nightclub, he meets Trinity, who tells him to seek Morpheus.

#3: Refusal of the Call

Oops! The hero chooses option A and attempts to refuse the call to adventure. This could be for any number of reasons: fear, disbelief, a sense of inadequacy, or plain unwillingness to make the sacrifices that are required.

A little reluctance here is understandable. If you were asked to trade the comforts of home for a life-and-death journey fraught with peril, wouldn’t you give pause?

Refusal of the Call in The Matrix :

Agents arrive at Neo’s office to arrest him. Morpheus urges Neo to escape by climbing out a skyscraper window. “I can’t do this… This is crazy!” Neo protests as he backs off the ledge.

#4: Meeting the Mentor

Okay, so the hero got cold feet. Nothing a little pep talk can’t fix! The mentor figure appears at this point to give the hero some much needed counsel, coaching, and perhaps a kick out the door.

After all, the hero is very inexperienced at this point. They’re going to need help to avoid disaster or, worse, death. The mentor’s role is to overcome the hero’s reluctance and prepare them for what lies ahead.

Meeting the Mentor in The Matrix :

Neo meets with Morpheus, who reveals a terrifying truth: that the ordinary world as we know it is a computer simulation designed to enslave humanity to machines.

#5: Crossing the First Threshold

At this juncture, the hero is ready to leave their ordinary world for the first time. With the mentor’s help, they are committed to the journey and ready to step across the threshold into the special world . This marks the end of the departure act and the beginning of the adventure in earnest.

This may seem inevitable, but for the hero it represents an important choice. Once the threshold is crossed, there’s no going back. Bilbo Baggins put it nicely: “It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to.”

Crossing the First Threshold in The Matrix :

Neo is offered a stark choice: take the blue pill and return to his ordinary life none the wiser, or take the red pill and “see how deep the rabbit hole goes.” Neo takes the red pill and is extracted from the Matrix, entering the real world .

#6: Tests, Allies, and Enemies

Now we are getting into the meat of the adventure. The hero steps into the special world and must learn the new rules of an unfamiliar setting while navigating trials, tribulations, and tests of will. New characters are often introduced here, and the hero must navigate their relationships with them. Will they be friend, foe, or something in between?

Broadly speaking, this is a time of experimentation and growth. It is also one of the longest stages of the journey, as the hero learns the lay of the land and defines their relationship to other characters.

Wondering how to create captivating characters? Read our guide , which explains how to shape characters that readers will love—or hate.

Tests, Allies, and Enemies in The Matrix :

Neo is introduced to the vagabond crew of the Nebuchadnezzar . Morpheus informs Neo that he is The One , a savior destined to liberate humanity. He learns jiu jitsu and other useful skills.

#7: Approach to the Inmost Cave

Time to get a little metaphorical. The inmost cave isn’t a physical cave, but rather a place of great danger—indeed, the most dangerous place in the special world . It could be a villain’s lair, an impending battle, or even a mental barrier. No spelunking required.

Broadly speaking, the approach is marked by a setback in the quest. It becomes a lesson in persistence, where the hero must reckon with failure, change their mindset, or try new ideas.

Note that the hero hasn’t entered the cave just yet. This stage is about the approach itself, which the hero must navigate to get closer to their ultimate goal. The stakes are rising, and failure is no longer an option.

Approach to the Inmost Cave in The Matrix :

Neo pays a visit to The Oracle. She challenges Neo to “know thyself”—does he believe, deep down, that he is The One ? Or does he fear that he is “just another guy”? She warns him that the fate of humanity hangs in the balance.

#8: The Ordeal

The ordeal marks the hero’s greatest test thus far. This is a dark time for them: indeed, Campbell refers to it as the “belly of the whale.” The hero experiences a major hurdle or obstacle, which causes them to hit rock bottom.

This is a pivotal moment in the story, the main event of the second act. It is time for the hero to come face to face with their greatest fear. It will take all their skills to survive this life-or-death crisis. Should they succeed, they will emerge from the ordeal transformed.

Keep in mind: the story isn’t over yet! Rather, the ordeal is the moment when the protagonist overcomes their weaknesses and truly steps into the title of hero .

The Ordeal in The Matrix :

When Cipher betrays the crew to the agents, Morpheus sacrifices himself to protect Neo. In turn, Neo makes his own choice: to risk his life in a daring rescue attempt.

#9: Reward (Seizing the Sword)

The ordeal was a major level-up moment for the hero. Now that it's been overcome, the hero can reap the reward of success. This reward could be an object, a skill, or knowledge—whatever it is that the hero has been struggling toward. At last, the sword is within their grasp.

From this moment on, the hero is a changed person. They are now equipped for the final conflict, even if they don’t fully realize it yet.

Reward (Seizing the Sword) in The Matrix :

Neo’s reward is helpfully narrated by Morpheus during the rescue effort: “He is beginning to believe.” Neo has gained confidence that he can fight the machines, and he won’t back down from his destiny.

#10: The Road Back

We’re now at the beginning of act three, the return . With the reward in hand, it’s time to exit the inmost cave and head home. But the story isn’t over yet.

In this stage, the hero reckons with the consequences of act two. The ordeal was a success, but things have changed now. Perhaps the dragon, robbed of his treasure, sets off for revenge. Perhaps there are more enemies to fight. Whatever the obstacle, the hero must face them before their journey is complete.

The Road Back in The Matrix :

The rescue of Morpheus has enraged Agent Smith, who intercepts Neo before he can return to the Nebuchadnezzar . The two foes battle in a subway station, where Neo’s skills are pushed to their limit.

#11: Resurrection

Now comes the true climax of the story. This is the hero’s final test, when everything is at stake: the battle for the soul of Gotham, the final chance for evil to triumph. The hero is also at the peak of their powers. A happy ending is within sight, should they succeed.

Vogler calls the resurrection stage the hero’s “final exam.” They must draw on everything they have learned and prove again that they have really internalized the lessons of the ordeal . Near-death escapes are not uncommon here, or even literal deaths and resurrections.

Resurrection in The Matrix :

Despite fighting valiantly, Neo is defeated by Agent Smith and killed. But with Trinity’s help, he is resurrected, activating his full powers as The One . Isn’t it wonderful how literal The Matrix can be?

#12: Return with the Elixir

Hooray! Evil has been defeated and the hero is transformed. It’s time for the protagonist to return home in triumph, and share their hard-won prize with the ordinary world . This prize is the elixir —the object, skill, or insight that was the hero’s true reward for their journey and transformation.

Return with the Elixir in The Matrix :

Neo has defeated the agents and embraced his destiny. He returns to the simulated world of the Matrix, this time armed with god-like powers and a resolve to open humanity’s eyes to the truth.

If you’re writing your own adventure, you may be wondering: should I follow the Hero’s Journey structure?

The good news is, it’s totally up to you. Joseph Campbell conceived of the monomyth as a way to understand universal story structure, but there are many ways to outline a novel. Feel free to play around within its confines, adapt it across different media, and disrupt reader expectations. It’s like Morpheus says: “Some of these rules can be bent. Others can be broken.”

Think of the Hero’s Journey as a tool. If you’re not sure where your story should go next, it can help to refer back to the basics. From there, you’re free to choose your own adventure.

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Dan Schriever

Dan holds a PhD from Yale University and CEO of FaithlessMTG

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