5 Best MacGuffins in Movies

A MacGuffin is the object everyone in a movie wants but doesn't really matter to the audience. Sometimes we don't even know what the MacGuffin is, and that's okay.

Either way, it's the thing that drives the plot and motivates characters — and sometimes, that thing becomes even more iconic than the movies they're in.

We put together five of our favorite MacGuffins, but before we get into it, let's go over what MacGuffins are exactly...and what they're not.

What is a MacGuffin?

"MacGuffin" is the term used to describe a basic plot element that drives a film's story forward. It often takes the form of an object, event, or character, one that the good and bad guys in a story want. But it can also be more conceptual, like an idea or knowledge (think Rosebud in Citizen Kane).

The word is often associated with Hitchcock. In a series of interviews with François Truffaut in the 1960s, Hitchcock told the following story to describe the concept (via Quote Investigator):

It might be a Scottish name, taken from a story about two men in a train. One man says, “What’s that package up there in the baggage rack?” And the other answers, “Oh, that’s a MacGuffin.” The first one asks, “What’s a MacGuffin?”

"Well," the other man says, "it's an apparatus for trapping lions in the Scottish Highlands.” The first man says, “But there are no lions in the Scottish Highlands,” and the other one answers, “Well then, that’s no MacGuffin!" So you see that a MacGuffin is actually nothing at all.

That nothing has turned out to be an amazing way to create stories.

What MacGuffins Aren't

The term gets thrown around loosely a lot on these types of lists, which can include some examples that don’t quite work.

The One Ring from The Lord of the Rings, for instance, isn’t a true MacGuffin because, as Tolkien writes it, it's an object with agency, an extension of Sauron, and we absolutely could not apply Hitchcock’s definition of it being “nothing at all.” It's an object that matters very much to the plot and couldn't be replaced by any other object.

Similarly, we couldn't say the same for something like the Death Star plans in Star Wars. They're a specific object with a specific purpose, and they're important enough to drive the plots of Andor, Rogue One, and A New Hope. You couldn't replace the plans and tell the same story.

Indiana Jones is also often used as an example. But the objects he hunts are always very specific and meaningful to the story. The Holy Grail, as we see at the end of The Last Crusade, could not just be any cup. Choose poorly, and you get the life sucked right out of you.

5 Great MacGuffins

The Briefcase in Pulp Fiction

- YouTube www.youtube.com

Tarantino's glowing briefcase is one of film's biggest mysteries. Everyone who opens it gets a look of pure awe, but we never see inside. It's pure MacGuffin.

And the truth is, nobody knows what's in there. Co-writer Roger Avery told Roger Ebert, "Originally the briefcase contained diamonds. But that just seemed too boring and predictable. So it was decided that the contents of the briefcase were never to be seen" (via Snopes).

Tarantino told Charlie Rose it was intentional: "I like the idea that you open up the briefcase in Pulp Fiction, and I don't tell you what's in there, but it's up to you to figure out what's in there, and now that's your movie."

The Rug in The Big Lebowski

The Big Lebowski - Trailer www.youtube.com

The Dude's rug becomes a ridiculous MacGuffin when it gets peed on in a case of mistaken identity. The entire plot spirals from this act of vandalism, as The Dude seeks compensation for something that, as he repeatedly explains, "really tied the room together."

The Coen Brothers told Floor Covering Weekly: "We had a friend with an area rug who told us it tied the room together. That gave us the idea, so the whole movie started with the rug" (via Dudespaper).

This MacGuffin could have been anything in the Dude's house that he wanted replaced. It just happened to be his rug.

The Maltese Falcon in The Maltese Falcon

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Dashiell Hammett's bird statue is the O.G. MacGuffin and what I always think of when the term is brought up. Director John Huston kept close to Hammett's vision and gave us what Library of America calls "one of the greatest MacGuffins in cinema, thanks to the merry-go-round of crooks that spins around it."

This MacGuffin is an object of desire, but it's desirable just because the people in the story focus on it—what it actually is doesn't matter.

Rosebud in Citizen Kane

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Kane's dying word begins the film and drives the entire investigation into his life. It's a MacGuffin because it represents nothing concrete to anyone but Kane himself.

As Orson Welles explained in his 1941 press statement: "'Rosebud' is the trade name of a cheap little sled on which Kane was playing on the day he was taken away from his home and his mother. In his subconscious, it represented the simplicity, the comfort, above all, the lack of responsibility in his home, and also it stood for his mother's love, which Kane never lost."

The word could have been anything from Kane's past. The story works just as well if it were the name of his childhood dog or favorite book.

The $40,000 in Psycho

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In this horror classic, Marion Crane steals $40,000 from her boss and flees to the Bates Motel, setting the entire story in motion. But once Marion meets Norman Bates, the money is forgotten.

Hitchcock described the MacGuffin as "the thing that the characters on the screen worry about, but the audience doesn't care about."

The $40,000 could have been jewelry, bonds, or any valuable item—the story works exactly the same.

Let us know your favorite MacGuffins.