What Is a MacGuffin?

“It’s a thing that the spies are after.” Well, that’s how Alfred Hitchcock defines a MacGuffin anyway.

While that summarizes MacGuffins pretty well, this intriguing plot device doesn’t always concern spies. Sometimes it’s the rug that ties the room together like in The Big Lebowski (1998).

A MacGuffin is a type of plot device, narrative techniques that help advance the plot of a story. These mechanisms often have bad reputations as lazy writing, but plot devices can elevate a narrative if used effectively.

MacGuffin refers to something essential to the plot that motivates the characters but is otherwise unimportant to the overall story.

The History of MacGuffins

The idea of MacGuffins predates the term itself. MacGuffins can be seen in stories throughout human history—the Holy Grail of Arthurian legend is one example, as is the Golden Fleece in Greek mythology.

But, it is Director Alfred Hitchcock who is credited with popularizing the use of MacGuffins, starting with his film, The 39 Steps (1935), and it was Angus MacPhail, the screenwriter of several Hitchcock thrillers who gave the device its name.

But What Is a MacGuffin?

MacGuffins can be anything. That’s the whole point. A MacGuffin could be an object, a person, or even something as intangible as an idea.

The characters themselves may not know what the MacGuffin is—heck, the audience might leave the theater never finding out what the characters were really after.

But, that’s what a MacGuffin is—the thing that all the action of a story hinges on.

It’s the ruby slippers in The Wizard of Oz (1939) the One Ring in the The Lord of the Rings (2001-2003) series, or whatever glowing thing is inside that briefcase in Pulp Fiction (1994).

What makes a MacGuffin a MacGuffin is the fact that it could be switched out for something else with virtually no impact on the story. True MacGuffins are interchangeable—if you can swap it for something else and the story stays the same, it’s a MacGuffin.

For example, swap the Heart of the Ocean necklace in Titanic (1997) for a bracelet or a ring or a tiara (or anything that could conceivably be retrieved from the ocean floor 80 years later) and the plot of the movie stays the same. The emotional impact of Jack and Rose’s story does not hinge on what the MacGuffin is, just that it exists. 

All that matters is that the MacGuffin’s existence propels the characters into action. Without the MacGuffin in the story, the characters would still be on their couch at home, doomscrolling or playing some dumb word game on their phones—which doesn’t sound like a movie I’m going to pay to see.

‘Pulp Fiction’ (1994)

To Care or Not to Care

Hitchcock once described a MacGuffin as “the thing that the spies are after, but the audience doesn’t care [about].”

To the famed director, Hitchcock, the audience didn’t need to care about the MacGuffin at all for it to be effective within a story. Hitchcock didn’t believe that MacGuffins needed to be detailed—as long as the characters cared enough to go after it, the vaguer the MacGuffin was, the better.

But Star Wars director George Lucas views MacGuffins differently. He believes that the audience should care about the MacGuffin almost as much as they care about the characters in the story.

Lucas uses R2-D2 in the original Star Wars (1977) film as an example. The robot carries the Death Star plans central to the plot of the movie, but because R2 is a personable, cute robot, audiences end up truly caring about what happened to him in the end. In this case, if you swapped out the MacGuffin for something else, you would lose the lovable robot.

Whether you agree with Hitchcock’s or Lucas’ take, at its core, the MacGuffin as a plot device is all about driving the plot and motivating characters.

Read More: Navigating Plot and Character in a Screenplay – Part 1

‘Star Wars: A New Hope’ (1977)

Best Examples of MacGuffins

Still not sure what a MacGuffin is? Maybe some examples will help!

Casablanca (1942)

Screenplay by: Murray Burnett, Joan Alison, Julius J. Epstein, Philip G. Epstein, and Howard Koch

In this 1942 classic, the main characters are either trying to hide or obtain the coveted letters of transit, which will allow them passage out of Morocco and away from Nazi rule. But the letters themselves are inconsequential to the larger story, which is about love, patriotism, and sacrifice, and they have nothing to do with the pieces of paper that spend most of the movie hidden inside a piano.

Avatar (2009)

Screenplay by: James Cameron

In James Cameron’s sci-fi epic, a paraplegic former Marine travels to a planet called Pandora and undertakes the task of infiltrating the native Na’vi people using a genetically engineered avatar body. And the whole reason humans are on Pandora in the first place is to mine for a mineral that is… a MacGuffin.

A MacGuffin, brilliantly named unobtanium, as in, it’s totally and completely unobtainable. You get it.

The Hangover (2009)

Screenplay by: Jon Lucas and Scott Moore

One can’t help but feel bad for Doug Billings, not only because he frequently disappears or gets kidnapped but also because he serves as a MacGuffin. The plot of The Hangover uses this device so well—the movie is all about Doug’s friends trying to find him and the crazy antics they get into along the way and not at all about Doug. Poor Doug.

Citizen Kane (1941)

Screenplay by: Herman J. Mankiewicz, Orson Welles, and John Houseman

Probably the best example of an idea MacGuffin is in Orson Welles’ 1941 classic. When newspaper tycoon Charles Foster Kane dies, a reporter tries to piece together the mystery behind his last word — “Rosebud.” While not a physical object like in the examples above, the quest to discover the significance of “Rosebud” drives the entire narrative of the movie.

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MacGuffins often gets criticized as a mark of lazy writing, but in the right stories, when employed correctly and written well, MacGuffins can be incredibly effective.

Read More: 20 Biggest Plot Holes in Cinema