Camera Angles: 12 Types of Camera Angles in Film (With Examples)

For most of E.T., Steven Spielberg kept the lens about four feet, eight inches off the ground. That’s the eye level of a child. Most adults outside Elliott’s family stay faceless until the end. We often see them only from the waist down, the way a kid would.

Nobody in the audience measures it. But everybody feels it. That’s what a camera angle does. Move the camera up, down or sideways, and the same actor feels stronger, weaker, safer or stranger.

In one study, 59% of viewers expected a chess player shot from below to win. Only 10% did when the same player was shot from above.

This guide covers what a camera angle is, how it differs from shot size and camera movement, all 12 types of camera angles in film with a movie example for each, a cheat sheet and how to choose the right one.

What Is a Camera Angle?

Columbia University’s Film Language Glossary keeps it simple: “Camera angle refers to where the camera is placed in relation to the subject of the image.” By default, it says, the camera sits “approximately at eye level, or up to six feet off the ground.”

Every camera angle answers three questions:

• How high is the camera? Eye level, shoulder, hip, knee or on the ground.
• Which way is it pointing? Straight ahead, down, up, straight down, straight up or tilted sideways.
• Whose eyes is it using? Nobody’s, a character’s, or a spot just behind a character’s shoulder.

Film researchers split it the same way. The CineScale2 dataset, which labeled thousands of film frames for computer vision research, treats camera height and camera angle as two separate things.

Camera Angle vs Shot Size vs Camera Movement

These three get mixed up all the time. They’re separate choices, and every shot makes all three.

• Camera angle is where the camera is and where it points. StudioBinder says angle “is used to specify the location where the camera is placed.”
• Shot size is how much of the subject you see, from an extreme close-up to an extreme long shot. Our guide to the types of shots in film covers all of them.
• Camera movement is how the camera travels during the shot, like a pan, a dolly or a crane.

So a “low angle close-up” and a “low angle wide shot” use the same angle with different sizes. Sidney Lumet changed more than one thing in 12 Angry Men. He lowered the camera and moved to longer lenses as the film went on, so the room seems to close in.

Do Camera Angles Really Change How We See a Character?

Yes, though not as much as film school suggests. The clearest test comes from Sevenants and d’Ydewalle (2006). Students saw short picture stories with the camera about 35 degrees above or below eye level. In a story about a chess game, they chose an ending: which player was the best, or whether the two were equally good.

Other research points the same way, with a few twists:

• Power photos are shot from below. In a study in Media Psychology, Giessner and colleagues found 65% of stock photos of powerful groups were shot from below. For powerless groups, it was 43%.
• Eye level wins on trust. Baranowski and Hecht found viewers trusted actors most at eye level. The drop was clearest when the camera was below the actor.
• Story still matters most. In the chess study, the effect disappeared when the pictures were shuffled out of story order.

Camera Height Angles

These five angles keep the camera level. Only the height changes.

1. Eye Level Shot

The camera sits level with the subject’s eyes, looking straight at them.

StudioBinder says the eye level shot “creates equality between subject and viewer.” It’s the default for most films, which is why it feels invisible.

The trick is that “eye level” depends on whose eyes. Spielberg told American Cinematographer the E.T. lens “was usually around four feet, eight inches in the air.” The AFI says that height was chosen “to reinforce the child’s perspective of the story.” Elliott and his friends are at eye level. Most of the grown-ups aren’t.

2. Shoulder Level Shot

The camera sits at the height of the subject’s shoulders, slightly below their eyes.

StudioBinder says shoulder level is at least as common as eye level. One of its guides calls it “much more standard.” It sits just low enough to give actors a little more presence without feeling like a low angle.

StudioBinder’s shoulder level guide points to the Winkie’s diner scene in David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive, where two men talk about a nightmare. The camera stays at shoulder level, and the scene still feels wrong. A BBC poll of critics in 2016 named Mulholland Drive the greatest film of the 21st century.

3. Hip Level Shot

The camera sits at about the height of the subject’s hips.

StudioBinder says hip level draws “attention to the body rather than the face.” That’s why it suits westerns. In a gunfight, the hands matter more than the eyes, until the very last second.

StudioBinder uses Sergio Leone’s The Good, the Bad and the Ugly as its hip level example. Leone and cinematographer Tonino Delli Colli cut between guns, hands and faces in the final standoff. Hip level also helps when one character sits and another stands, so both fit naturally in the frame.

4. Knee Level Shot

The camera sits about as low as the subject’s knees.

StudioBinder says knee level “often emphasizes size, movement, and power.” It uses a shot of Steve Buscemi in Fargo as its example. Paired with a slight tilt up, it can make a character feel superior.

You’ll often see Yasujiro Ozu’s films called “low camera” films. In Tokyo Story, the camera sits roughly three feet off the floor. Roger Ebert said that matched someone sitting on a tatami mat. Film scholar David Bordwell takes the other side. He says it “doesn’t mimic a seated person’s view.” Either way, it shows how much a few feet of height can define a director’s style.

5. Ground Level Shot

The camera sits on or just above the ground.

StudioBinder says a ground level shot “places the camera directly on or just above the floor.” It uses There Will Be Blood as its example, where the camera drops as a character is brought “physically and figuratively lower.”

Ground level is about height, not tilt. The camera can look straight ahead, along the floor. That’s the difference from a worm’s eye view, which points steeply up. Citizen Kane’s Gregg Toland had sets built so he could “place the lens actually at floor level.”

Camera Tilt Angles

These five angles are about where the camera points: down, up, straight down, straight up or sideways.

6. High Angle Shot

The camera sits above eye level and looks down at the subject.

Columbia’s glossary says the camera is “placed above eye level, creating a frame that looks down at the subject.” It often makes a character look small or trapped.

Sidney Lumet planned it across a whole film. “I shot the first third of the movie above eye level,” he wrote about 12 Angry Men. Then he lowered the camera, third by third. Columbia adds a useful warning, though. If a high angle always meant weakness, “Hitchcock’s use of high angles would be illegible.” The story decides what the angle means.

7. Low Angle Shot

The camera sits below eye level and looks up at the subject.

Wikipedia says a low angle “makes the subject look strong and powerful.” It’s the classic hero shot, and the classic villain shot too.

Wikipedia points to The Dark Knight. Batman flips the Joker’s truck. The Joker climbs out and fires at him, and the framing slowly moves into a low angle. The low angle doesn’t tell you who’s good. It tells you who’s dangerous right now.

8. Bird’s Eye View Shot

The camera sits directly above the subject and looks straight down.

Wikipedia defines it as “a shot looking directly down on the subject.” It’s also called an overhead or top-down shot. From up there, people become shapes, and objects become a neat layout.

Wes Anderson uses it more than most directors. In The Grand Budapest Hotel, one top-down insert lays out a camera, photos and notes on a desk, like evidence. In 2019, a video essay by Beyond the Frame collected the overhead shots from every Anderson film up to that point.

9. Worm’s Eye View Shot

The camera sits on or near the ground and looks steeply up.

Wikipedia describes the worm’s eye view as “the view of a scene from a very steep, low angle.” Everything above the camera towers over the audience.

Quentin Tarantino’s trunk shot is the most famous version. In Pulp Fiction, the camera looks up from inside a car trunk as Vincent and Jules pick their guns. Strictly, Wikipedia classes the trunk shot as “a specialized type of low-angle shot,” so it sits right on the line between the two.

10. Dutch Angle

The camera is tilted sideways, so the horizon runs at a slant.

Columbia says the camera is tilted “usually to suggest imbalance, transition, or instability.” It’s also called a Dutch tilt or a canted angle.

Carol Reed tilted shot after shot in The Third Man, set in bombed-out postwar Vienna. “The angle of vision was to suggest that something crooked was going on,” he said. Not everyone loved it. William Wyler sent Reed a spirit level and told him to put it on top of the camera. Robert Krasker still won the Oscar for his cinematography.

Point of View Angles

These two angles are about whose eyes the audience borrows.

11. Over the Shoulder Shot

The camera sits behind one character, with their shoulder and the back of their head in the frame.

Wikipedia says the over the shoulder shot “allows audiences to understand the spatial relationships between two subjects.” Cut between two of them, and you have a shot reverse shot.

You can combine it with height too. Wikipedia points to the scenes between Marty and Biff in Back to the Future. The over the shoulder shots look down on Marty and up at Biff, so the bully stays bigger even in a simple conversation.

12. Point of View Shot (POV)

The camera shows exactly what a character sees, through their eyes.

Wikipedia defines a POV shot as one where “the camera is positioned to show what a certain character is seeing.” The audience stops watching the character and starts being them.

Jonathan Demme pushed it further than almost anyone. “We just started using subjective camera for every dialogue scene,” he told NPR’s Fresh Air about The Silence of the Lambs. When Hannibal Lecter talks to Clarice, he looks almost straight into the lens, and so straight at you. John Carpenter used the same idea for the killer’s point of view that opens Halloween (1978).

Camera Angles Cheat Sheet

Angle	Where the camera is	What it usually says	Try it in
Eye level	Level with the eyes	Equal, honest	E.T.
Shoulder level	Level with the shoulders	Neutral, cinematic	Mulholland Drive
Hip level	Level with the hips	Watch the body	The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
Knee level	Level with the knees	Grounded, bigger	Fargo
Ground level	On the floor, level	Low, unsettling	There Will Be Blood
High angle	Above, tilted down	Weak, watched	12 Angry Men
Low angle	Below, tilted up	Powerful, threatening	The Dark Knight
Bird’s eye view	Directly above	Detached, fate	The Grand Budapest Hotel
Worm’s eye view	On the ground, tilted up	Towering	Pulp Fiction
Dutch angle	Rolled sideways	Uneasy, wrong	The Third Man
Over the shoulder	Behind a character	Inside the conversation	Back to the Future
POV	At a character’s eyes	You are them	The Silence of the Lambs

How to Choose a Camera Angle

1. Start with whose story it is. Wolfcrow suggests asking “whose point of view is the story from?” That tells you where the camera wants to stand.
2. Use angles in pairs. StudioBinder notes a low angle on one character is “often paired with a high angle shot on the other character.” The pair shows who has the power.
3. Change it across the story. Lumet’s camera sank over the whole of 12 Angry Men. A slow shift can do more than one dramatic shot.
4. Tilt with a reason. Roger Ebert said the director of Battlefield Earth had learned that directors tilt their cameras, “but he has not learned why.” Every unusual angle needs a reason the audience can feel.
5. Don’t treat it as a code. A high angle can mean weakness, or watching, or just a clear view of the room. What happens in the scene decides.

FAQs About Camera Angles

The Final Cut on Camera Angles

A camera angle is where the camera sits and which way it points. Change the height, the tilt or whose eyes the audience borrows, and the same actor feels completely different.

The 12 angles here cover almost every shot you’ll see, from E.T.’s child-height lens to Lecter staring down the barrel of the camera. Which angle would change the next scene you shoot the most?

For the full set of framing options, see our guide to the types of shots in film. Then go deeper on the high angle shot, the low angle shot, the bird’s eye view shot and the Dutch angle.