Films employ words in several basic ways. Silent films usually have title cards; talkies normally rely on dialogue, sometimes with the addition of a narrator, perhaps a character heard in voice-over. The soundtrack may include lyrics. Films may have literary sources, more or less distinguished ones; like theater, in some cases the text may have become so renowned that the audience may know the lines before they are spoken, and in others, the plot may be so conventional that the gist of the lines can be anticipated, or the characters may make allusions or quotations. Words may appear as signs within the mise-en-scene, or on pieces of paper exchanged or noticed by the camera. An actor may mouth words without speaking, or make expressive sounds that approximate words.

Films may or may not enforce on the viewer some sentiment or moral about history, or about human conduct on a personal scale. They may end by resolving a question, whether one of which the characters themselves have been aware, or a puzzle about which only the viewers have been thinking (e.g., to what genre does this film belong?). All films tend to create a degree of suspense as one watches the narrative arc unfurl, knowing that in the space of an hour or two, or three, we will come to know as much as we ever will about the world of the film (as opposed to the world of making the film, which we may subsequently study); the sense of completeness or release of suspense may be achieved either orally or visually, or by some combination.