In-text citations
Paraphrasing
Marty McFly is a wonderful film character … (Zemeckis).
Direct quote
Place direct quotes between double quotation marks " " and provide the year and a timestamp to indicate the exact starting point of the quote.
"Wait a minute, Doc. Are you telling me that you built a time machine… out of a DeLorean?" (Zemeckis 29:06).
Works Cited
TEMPLATE
Director's Name, director. Title of Film. Date of release. Version information, film studio or distributor's name, date of version. DVD.
Film
Zemeckis, Robert, director. Back to the Future. Universal Pictures, 1985.
DVD/BLU-RAY release
Snyder, Dr. Zach, director. Man of Steel. Warner Bros, 2013. DVD.
DVD/BLU-RAY re-issue
Hitchcock, Alfred, director. Vertigo. 1958. Universal Home Entertainment, 2003. DVD.
- In case the film version is different from the original (e.g. director's cut), include date of release (e.g. 1958 in the first example above) and date of version (e.g. 2003 in the first example above).
- If version information is not available, omit that portion of the citation.
Online
Affleck, Ben, director. Argo. Warner Bros, 2012. Apple iTunes.
- FILM: Give title (italics), role and name of primary contributor (e.g., director or writer), and studio and year of release. (Various roles have been added to the examples above to show options.)
- DVD/BLU-RAY: If re-issue of an earlier studio version, add original release year.
- ONLINE: Add website name before publication medium (either ‘Web’ or file type, depending on how the work was accessed by you).
- If your essay is focusing on a particular character or actor see page 24 of the MLA handbook for more information.