What Is a Character Arc? 3 Types and 10 Great Examples

In the first episode of Breaking Bad, a chemistry teacher tells a bored class that his subject is “the study of change”. Sixty-one episodes later the same man stands in a kitchen and admits to his wife that he did all of it for himself.

The distance between those two scenes is a character arc. This guide explains what a character arc is, sets out the 3 types, and counts down 10 character arc examples from film and TV. Number 10 is a weatherman stuck in one day. Number one is Walter White. Spoilers ahead for all 10.

What is a character arc?

Here is the character arc definition we will use. A character arc is the path a character travels from who they are at the start of a story to who they are at the end. The change is internal. A new job, a new city or a new haircut is plot. A new belief is an arc.

Nearly every arc is built from the same four parts:

• A starting point. Who the character is on page one, flaws included.
• A lie. Something false they believe about themselves or the world. It protects them, and it holds them back.
• A turn. The moment the story makes the lie impossible to ignore.
• An end point. Who they are once they have accepted the truth, or refused it for good.

The plot supplies the pressure. Every obstacle in a well-built story is aimed at the lie, which is why arc and conflict in film are so hard to separate. The arc is also one part of a bigger job. Backstory, voice and behaviour all belong to character development, and the arc is the part that moves. To plan one, our free character profile template has start, turning point and end boxes.

You will also hear the phrase “hero arc”. That is a positive arc attached to an adventure. Luke Skywalker leaves the farm as a boy who wants excitement and ends Star Wars as a pilot who trusts something larger than himself.

The 3 types of character arcs

Writers use a dozen names for these. They all reduce to three.

Type	Also called	What happens	Example on this list
Positive arc	Change arc, growth arc, hero arc, redemption arc	The character lets go of the lie and ends the story better than they began	Phil Connors, Tony Stark, Zuko
Negative arc	Fall arc, corruption arc, tragic arc, villain arc	The character holds on to the lie, or trades it for a worse one, and ends the story worse	Harvey Dent, Michael Corleone, Walter White
Flat arc	Steadfast arc, testing arc	The character already knows the truth. The story tests it, and the world changes around them	Paddington, Andy Dufresne

James Bond is the famous flat arc. He is the same man in the last reel as in the first, and nobody asks for their money back.

Each of the 10 entries below has the same four lines in its fact box: starts as, the lie, the turn, ends as. Read only those lines and you will still see the arc. Seven of the eight films are in the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress.

10) Phil Connors, Groundhog Day (1993)

Phil Connors is the positive arc in its cleanest form, because the film takes away everything except the change.

• Release date: 12 February 1993
• Director: Harold Ramis
• Character: Phil Connors (Bill Murray)
• Arc type: Positive
• Starts as: A TV weatherman who thinks he is better than everyone he meets
• The lie he believes: Other people exist to be used
• The turn: An old homeless man dies, and no number of replays can save him
• Ends as: A man who spends his one day on everybody else

The arc:

Phil is sent to Punxsutawney to cover Groundhog Day and wakes up on 2 February again. And again. Nothing he does carries over except his memory.

First he treats the loop as a free pass. He eats, steals and lies his way towards his producer, Rita. It never works. Then he despairs and kills himself, over and over, and still wakes to the same song on the radio.

The old man is the hinge. Phil feeds him, warms him, takes him to hospital, and he dies every time. It is the first problem Phil cannot beat, and it is the first time he is thinking about someone else.

His last 2 February is spent catching a falling boy, fixing a flat tyre, playing piano and carving Rita’s face in ice. He wakes on 3 February. Ramis first said the loop lasted about 10 years, then revised it to 30 or 40.

Why it works: The plot cannot move until the character does. If you want to test an arc, ask whether your ending would still happen to the person from page one.

9) Paddington, Paddington 2 (2017)

Paddington does not change at all in this film, and by the end a prison, a street and a judge have changed to match him.

• Release date: 10 November 2017 (UK), 12 January 2018 (US)
• Director: Paul King
• Character: Paddington Brown (voiced by Ben Whishaw)
• Arc type: Flat
• Starts as: A polite young bear who looks for the good in people
• The truth he holds: If you are kind and polite, the world will be right
• The test: He is framed for theft and sentenced to 10 years
• Ends as: The same bear, with half a prison on his side

The arc:

Paddington wants to buy a pop-up book of London for Aunt Lucy’s 100th birthday. A faded actor, Phoenix Buchanan, steals it and lets the bear take the blame. In prison Paddington meets the feared cook, Knuckles McGinty, and offers him a marmalade sandwich.

Soon the canteen is serving cakes and puddings, and McGinty is his friend. Paddington has done nothing clever. He has behaved in prison exactly as he behaves at home, and the prison has given way.

Paul King has said the bear has no flaw to fix, so the people around him get the arcs.

Why it works: A flat arc needs a hard test. The film puts its gentlest character in the roughest place it can find, and lets him win without bending.

8) Tony Stark, Iron Man (2008)

Tony Stark’s arc starts when one of his own missiles lands next to him with his name on the side.

• Release date: 2 May 2008
• Director: Jon Favreau
• Character: Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.)
• Arc type: Positive
• Starts as: A weapons maker who sells the Jericho missile with a drink in his hand
• The lie he believes: What happens to his weapons after the sale is not his concern
• The turn: He is wounded by a Stark Industries shell, and a fellow prisoner dies getting him out
• Ends as: A man who takes public responsibility, in four words, at a press conference

The arc:

The film opens in Afghanistan. Stark has just demonstrated his new missile when his convoy is ambushed by the Ten Rings. The shrapnel in his chest comes from his own factory.

In a cave, a doctor named Yinsen keeps him alive and helps him build the first suit. Yinsen dies covering the escape. His last request is that Stark should not waste his life.

Stark flies home and shuts down weapons manufacturing on live television. His partner, Obadiah Stane, fights the decision, and turns out to have ordered the ambush.

The final scene is the proof. Stark is handed a cover story on cue cards. He puts them down and says “I am Iron Man.”

Why it works: Make the character pay for the lie in person. Stark had seen the sales figures for years. It took one shell with his logo on it to make the argument.

7) Sarah Connor, The Terminator (1984)

Sarah Connor begins the film unable to balance her own chequebook and ends it driving into a storm to raise a general.

• Release date: 26 October 1984
• Director: James Cameron
• Character: Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton)
• Arc type: Positive
• Starts as: A waitress and student in Los Angeles
• The lie she believes: She is nobody special, and someone else will deal with it
• The turn: Kyle Reese dies, and the machine is still coming
• Ends as: A fighter who has accepted the future and is preparing for it

The arc:

A soldier from 2029, Kyle Reese, tells Sarah that her unborn son will lead the human resistance, and that a machine has been sent back to kill her first. She does not believe him. She tells him she is not the woman he is describing.

For two acts Reese protects her. Then he is killed in a factory, and Sarah, injured, drags herself through the machinery alone. She lures the Terminator into a hydraulic press and crushes it herself.

In the last scene she is pregnant, in Mexico, recording tapes for her son. A boy takes her photograph, the one Reese will carry, and tells her a storm is coming. She knows.

The sequel takes her further. We compare the two films in The Terminator vs Terminator 2.

Why it works: Remove the protector. An arc is only proved when the character has to act with nobody left to do it for them.

6) Andy Dufresne, The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

Andy Dufresne is the lead of the film and the one man in it who does not change, which is exactly why everyone else does.

• Release date: 23 September 1994
• Director: Frank Darabont
• Character: Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins)
• Arc type: Flat
• Starts as: A banker given two life sentences in 1947 for murders he did not commit
• The truth he holds: Hope is the one thing a prison cannot take
• The test: Nineteen years inside, with long spells in solitary
• Ends as: The same man, on a beach in Zihuatanejo

The arc:

Red narrates the film, and Red has the arc. He is the prison’s fixer, a lifer who has been turned down for parole so many times that he has stopped meaning his answers. He tells Andy that hope is a dangerous thing.

Andy keeps proving him wrong. In 1949 he wins his work crew cold beers on a rooftop. He plays an opera record over the loudspeakers, takes solitary for it, and comes out saying the music was in his head the whole time.

Then he is gone, through a tunnel it took him 19 years to dig, with the warden’s money under another name. Red is paroled after 40 years and follows him south. At his last hearing he has finally stopped performing, and the last word of his narration is hope.

Red is number 2 on our list of the best secondary characters in film. For the real prison, see where The Shawshank Redemption was filmed.

What changes is everyone within reach. The library. Tommy’s exam results. Red, above all. A flat arc still has a change in it. You find it in the people standing next to the lead.

Why it works: Give a flat arc lead a narrator or a friend who can do the changing. The audience still gets an arc. It is one seat to the left.

5) Harvey Dent, The Dark Knight (2008)

Harvey Dent falls further in one film than any other character here, and it takes the Joker a single hospital visit to push him.

• Release date: 18 July 2008
• Director: Christopher Nolan
• Character: Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart)
• Arc type: Negative, a fall
• Starts as: Gotham’s district attorney, the city’s “white knight”
• The lie he believes: The world is fair to people who play fair
• The turn: Rachel dies, half his face burns, and the Joker tells him chance is the only justice
• Ends as: Two-Face, deciding who lives on the flip of a coin

The arc:

Dent states his own arc over dinner in the first act. “You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.” He means it as a defence of Batman. The film uses it as a forecast.

His coin starts as a trick, with heads on both sides. The explosion that kills Rachel scars one face of it, and now the odds are real.

He shoots a corrupt detective and a mob driver on the toss. He ends the film holding a gun to the head of Gordon’s young son, and dies in a fall. Batman takes the blame for the killings so that the city can keep the man it believed in.

Dent has a good reason for every step down, which is what separates a fallen hero from an anti villain. For the locations, see where The Dark Knight was filmed.

Why it works: A fall arc needs height. Nolan spends an hour making Dent the best man in Gotham before he takes anything away.

4) Oskar Schindler, Schindler’s List (1993)

Oskar Schindler arrives in Kraków to get rich from the war, and ends it bankrupt, by choice.

• Release date: 15 December 1993
• Director: Steven Spielberg
• Character: Oskar Schindler (Liam Neeson)
• Arc type: Positive
• Starts as: A Nazi Party member and war profiteer who hires Jewish workers because they cost less
• The lie he believes: It is only business, and the war is an opening
• The turn: From a hillside he watches the ghetto being cleared, and his eye follows a small girl in a red coat
• Ends as: A man who has spent his whole fortune buying 1,100 lives

The arc:

Spielberg does not give Schindler a speech about his change of heart. He shows a man’s spending habits change.

At first the money goes on gifts for officers, while his accountant, Itzhak Stern, runs the factory. After the ghetto, the bribes start buying people. Then comes a typed list of names, each one paid for.

His second factory, at Brünnlitz, makes shells that never pass inspection. He makes sure of it.

In the farewell scene the workers hand him a ring engraved with a line from the Talmud: “Whoever saves one life saves the world entire.” He looks at his car and his gold pin, works out how many more people they could have bought, and breaks down. The film won seven Oscars.

Why it works: Track the arc through one visible habit. We never hear Schindler’s thoughts. We watch where his money goes, and that tells us everything.

3) Zuko, Avatar: The Last Airbender (2005 to 2008)

Zuko has the great redemption arc of television, and the smartest thing in it is the moment he gets what he wants and hates it.

• Aired: 21 February 2005 to 19 July 2008, 61 episodes over three Books
• Creators: Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko
• Character: Prince Zuko (voiced by Dante Basco)
• Arc type: Positive, a redemption arc
• Starts as: A scarred, banished prince hunting the Avatar to win back his place
• The lie he believes: His father’s approval is the same thing as his honour
• The turn: He betrays his uncle Iroh, goes home a hero, and does not feel like himself
• Ends as: Fire Lord, and the Avatar’s firebending teacher

The arc:

Zuko’s father, Fire Lord Ozai, burned his face in a duel and threw him out at 13. Capturing the Avatar, Aang, is the one way back.

His uncle Iroh travels with him, makes tea, and waits. At the end of Book Two, in Ba Sing Se, Zuko is offered a choice between Iroh and home. He chooses home. A lesser show would have redeemed him there. This one lets him fail.

Book Three gives him the palace, the title and his father’s respect. In “The Beach” he admits he is angrier than ever, and the person he is angry with is himself. During an eclipse he tells Ozai what he thinks of him and leaves to join Aang.

Near the end he finds Iroh and apologises in tears. Iroh says he was never angry. He was sad, and afraid that Zuko had lost his way. In the final duel Zuko steps in front of lightning meant for Katara.

Why it works: Give the character exactly what they wanted and let it feel wrong. No turn in a redemption arc is stronger, because the character has to find the truth alone.

2) Michael Corleone, The Godfather (1972)

Michael Corleone walks into the film in a Marine’s uniform and ends it behind a closing door, and at no point does he raise his voice.

• Release date: 24 March 1972
• Director: Francis Ford Coppola
• Character: Michael Corleone (Al Pacino)
• Arc type: Negative, a corruption arc
• Starts as: A decorated war hero who keeps out of the family business
• The lie he believes: He can do one thing for the family and stay who he is
• The turn: He shoots Sollozzo and a police captain across a restaurant table
• Ends as: Don Corleone, lying to his wife’s face

The arc:

At his sister’s wedding Michael tells his girlfriend a story about his father, a bandleader and a gun. Then he reassures her: “That’s my family, Kay. It’s not me.” Coppola builds the next three hours on that line.

His father is shot. Michael guards the hospital bed alone. He volunteers for the restaurant killing because he is the one nobody suspects. After it he hides in Sicily, marries, and loses his wife to a car bomb meant for him.

He comes home colder than his brothers ever were. At the baptism of his nephew he stands as godfather and renounces Satan while his men kill the heads of the other families.

Kay asks him whether he had his brother-in-law murdered. He says no. She watches from the hall as men kiss his hand, and the door is shut on her. His inner fight is number 12 on our internal conflict list.

Why it works: Each step down is taken for a reason we accept: a father, a family, survival. A corruption arc works when the audience cannot name the point where they should have got off.

1) Walter White, Breaking Bad (2008 to 2013)

Walter White is the character arc as the whole point of the show: five seasons built to turn one decent man into the villain of his own story.

• Aired: 20 January 2008 to 29 September 2013, 62 episodes over five seasons
• Creator: Vince Gilligan
• Character: Walter White (Bryan Cranston)
• Arc type: Negative
• Starts as: A chemistry teacher with a second job at a car wash, who turns 50 and learns he has lung cancer
• The lie he believes: Everything he does, he does for his family
• The turn: He stands over his partner’s girlfriend as she chokes, and chooses not to help
• Ends as: Heisenberg, dying alone in a meth lab, having finally told the truth

The arc:

Vince Gilligan sold the series on one sentence. He wanted to turn “Mr. Chips into Scarface”.

The pilot gives Walt the best excuse a criminal ever had. He is dying, he is broke, and his family will be left with nothing. So he cooks methamphetamine with a former student, Jesse Pinkman. Early on, wealthy old friends offer to pay for his treatment. He turns them down, and that is the first sign that money was never the whole story.

Then the steps come one at a time. He takes a working name, Heisenberg. He lets Jane die. He has the gentle chemist Gale killed to save his own skin. He poisons a child, who recovers, to win Jesse back, and kills his employer, Gus Fring, with a bomb.

In season four his wife Skyler begs him to go to the police. He answers that he is not in danger. He is the danger: “I am the one who knocks.” Later his brother-in-law Hank is shot in the desert because of him.

In the finale, “Felina”, he visits Skyler one last time. She braces for the family speech. He stops himself and says it plainly. He did it for himself. He liked it, and he was good at it. Then he frees Jesse and dies on the floor of a lab.

Breaking Bad is my favourite series, and this is the scene I go back to. By then the cancer and the money are beside the point. He wants her to know how big he has become, and it is the last thing she wanted to hear.

Cranston won the Emmy for lead actor four times for the part. Is he an anti hero? For a while. We give the verdict in our guide to the anti hero.

Why it works: A negative arc is a lie defended to the end. Walt’s “for my family” survives 61 episodes, and the arc closes the moment he stops saying it.

What is a villain arc?

A villain arc is a negative character arc that ends with the character as the villain of the story. We meet someone we understand, and we leave someone we fear. Numbers 5, 2 and 1 on this list are all villain arcs, and they show the three main routes.

• The fall. One blow breaks a good person. Harvey Dent loses Rachel, and his belief in fairness goes with her.
• The corruption. A good person is drawn in by loyalty, one reasonable step at a time. Michael Corleone never makes a decision we cannot follow.
• The unmasking. The story removes the limits on someone who was never as good as he looked. Walter White does not turn into Heisenberg. He stops hiding him.

Online, people announce their villain arc after a bad week. The screenwriting term means the same thing, with consequences. A finished villain who keeps a code or a good cause is a different creature, and we cover that in anti villain examples.

What is a redemption arc?

A redemption arc is a positive arc that starts from real wrongdoing. The character has hurt people, comes to see it, and pays to put it right. Zuko and Oskar Schindler are the two on this list. Darth Vader gets one in the last ten minutes of Return of the Jedi.

Three things make a redemption arc hold:

• The wrong is real. Zuko burns a village. Schindler profits from forced labour. If the sin is small, the redemption is too.
• The price is paid. Schindler’s fortune. Zuko’s throne, the first time round. Vader’s life. Redemption that costs nothing reads as a pardon from the writer.
• Forgiveness is given, never claimed. Zuko does not decide he is forgiven. Iroh decides, and so do the people Zuko hunted.

Static vs dynamic character: how it fits

These are the classroom terms for the same idea, and they map on to the arc types directly.

Term	Meaning	Arc type	Example
Dynamic character	Changes on the inside during the story	Positive or negative arc	Sarah Connor, Michael Corleone
Static character	Is the same person at the end as at the start	Flat arc, or no arc at all	Andy Dufresne, James Bond

One trap: a flat arc is not a flat character. “Flat character” is E. M. Forster’s term for a simple figure built round one idea, and its opposite is a round character. Andy Dufresne is a round character with a flat arc. A background henchman is a flat character with no arc at all.

How do you write a character arc?

Work backwards from the change. These four steps are the four lines of the fact boxes above, so you can copy that box and use it as a character arc template.

1. Find the lie. Write down the false thing your character believes on page one. “I am nobody special.” “It is only business.” “This is for my family.” A flat arc starts from a truth, and the people around the lead carry the lie.
2. Split want from need. The want is the goal they chase because of the lie. The need is the truth they are avoiding. Zuko wants his father’s approval. He needs his own. The gap between the two is the character’s internal conflict.
3. Put the turn near the middle. The turn is an event that makes the lie expensive. Stark’s own shell. Reese’s death. The girl in the red coat. A negative arc is the story of a character who refuses it anyway.
4. Prove the change with a choice. Audiences do not believe announcements. At the climax, give the character a decision that the person from page one would have made differently. Stark puts down the cue cards. Michael lies to Kay.

Our screenwriting guide covers structure in more depth. To map your character’s change onto the plot, try our hero’s journey template or the Dan Harmon story circle.

FAQ: character arcs

The Final Cut on the character arc

A character arc is a before, an after, and a good reason for the difference. Positive arcs let go of a lie. Negative arcs hold on to one. Flat arcs hold on to a truth while everyone else catches up.

Walter White said it in his first lesson. Chemistry is the study of change, and so is a story. Find the lie your character lives by, and make the plot lean on it until something gives.

Which character arc would you have put at number one? Tell us in the comments.