Example of a Five-Act Film: The Big Lebowski
Screenwriters are usually taught to think in terms of the three-act structure: setup, confrontation, resolution.
And then there are the films that never really quite fit into that mold. It’s not to say that they don’t have a structure, but it seems more drawn-out and episodic. Interesting things keep happening, but there’s not really one key reversal at the midpoint.
One of the clearest examples of a five-act structure screenplay is the Coen Brothers’ masterful The Big Lebowski (1998).
Let’s explore how The Big Lebowski functions as a five-act film and what lessons screenwriters can learn about using structure to mirror the characters’ aimlessness and eccentricity.
How to Tell if a Film Is in Five Acts
It’s worth starting at the beginning. How is a writer to tell that a film is in five acts rather than three? There are a few pretty obvious signs.
Five-Act Territory:
- Each act is its own mini-story
With a clear setup, rising action, and some form of resolution—even if loose. This will usually propel–if weakly–into the next act. - No central midpoint reversal
Three-act stories hinge on a midpoint that dramatically alters the story trajectory. Five-act films often don’t have this clean reversal—instead, tension accumulates and releases within individual segments (and each of these does often have a midpoint reversal). - The final act is more resolution than climax
In three-act films, the climax typically happens late in the story and the rest is just some intergalactic awards ceremony no one cares about.
In five-act films, Act V is often denouement—there is an emotional unwinding, usually with important emphasis on the theme.
- The tone or focus shifts across the film
Shakespearean acts notoriously change dramatically (sorry). You’ll have one about rising conflict, the next about mistaken identity, the next about reconciliation.
Five-Act Breakdown of The Big Lebowski
The Big Lebowski separates cleanly into five distinct acts, each with its own arc, tone, and character focus.
ACT I: The Rug, the Wrong Lebowski, and a New Quest
Key Beats:
- The Dude gets mistaken for a millionaire who also happens to be named Jeffrey Lebowski.
- Because the other gentleman owes someone money, a thug pisses on the Dude’s favorite rug (it really tied the room together).
- Seeking justice, the Dude visits the real Jeffrey Lebowski (the Big Lebowski, that is–did you realize the film’s name doesn’t refer to the Dude?).
- The Big Lebowski initially refuses to help. Later, however, when his wife Bunny disappears and is presumed kidnapped, he hires the Dude to act as bag man for Bunny’s ransom payment.
Arc Summary:
Note how clear this act is unto itself.
It establishes the Dude’s character, his eccentric lifestyle, and lights the fuse on a classic noir case complete with an idiotic young woman and a pissed-off old millionaire. The Big Sleep, anyone?
Conflict is initiated: the Dude takes the job. It is a gig he doesn’t understand for people he doesn’t trust, but why not?
Mini-resolution:
The Dude fools Brandt into giving him a rug. Then, however, we get pulled back in by the “kidnapping” and ransom handoff proposal.
ACT II: The Handoff, the Stolen Car, and the Missing Money
Key Beats:
- Walter tries to steal the money–convinced Bunny is playing the Big Lebowski–and ruins the ransom handoff by throwing out a “ringer” suitcase filled with his own literal (not figurative) dirty underwear.
- The Dude’s car, containing the actual briefcase, is stolen while Walter and the Dude go bowling.
- Once the car is recovered, Walter and the Dude track down Larry Sellers, an epically unintelligent high school kid who stole the car. They believe Larry to have the money.
- Larry stonewalls them. The confrontation leads nowhere but embarrassment as Walter inadvertently destroys a neighbor’s Corvette.
Arc Summary:
This act involves its own suspects, clues, multiple interrogations, and red herrings. Walter insists on controlling the situation (rather than abiding, as the Dude would have it), and his incompetence creates further complications.
The Dude is as pissed off as he is capable of getting (not very). He is becoming agitated and fragmented as normally peaceful day-to-day is ripped to shreds by the problems that come one after another.*
The act resolves with a dead end.
Mini-resolution:
The money is gone. The car is gone. The best they can tell, this idiot kid has it.
*But, notably, these problems don’t exactly escalate.
ACT III: Treehorn’s Threat
Key Beats:
- Jackie Treehorn, the pornographer who sent the original rug-peeing thugs, kidnaps the Dude. Treehorn is convinced that the Dude has the money.
- The Dude explains Walter’s theory that Bunny faked her own kidnapping.
- Treehorn, unimpressed, drugs the Dude. This leads to a hallucinatory sequence that ends with the Dude inexplicably jogging down the highway.
- The Dude is arrested. The Malibu police chief throws a mug at him and forcibly evicts him from Malibu.
Arc Summary:
This act is the height of the film’s weirdness. It contains some of the most classic scenes, like Treehorn’s mansion and the dream sequence. Does the Pope shit in the woods?
The hallucination brings conflicting aspects of the Dude’s world together: Maude, the Nihilists, Saddam Hussein (it is 1991, after all), bowling, and a magic flying rug.
In short, the Dude feels confronted from all directions, yet completely misunderstood by everyone.
Mini-resolution:
The Dude returns to reality. He is disoriented, beaten up, and still has no idea what’s really happening.
ACT IV: Maude’s Truth Leads to Confrontation
Key Beats:
- Maude seduces the Dude. During pillow talk, she informs him there was never any ransom money—the Big Lebowski embezzled and was using the kidnapping to cover this up.
- Walter and the Dude confront the Big Lebowski. They accuse him of faking Bunny’s kidnapping and stealing his charitable foundation’s cash.
- Walter pulls Lebowski from his wheelchair, convinced that the Big Lebowski is faking his disability (he is not).
Arc Summary:
This is where the highly-complicated plot peaks.
We finally understand what happened: the kidnapping was fake–the Nihilists simply used Bunny’s trip as an excuse to shake the Big Lebowski down, while the Big Lebowski (giving zero fucks about Bunny’s wellbeing) used the ransom as a convenient cover for his own embezzlement.
The most obvious climax of the film is here: Walter pulls the Big Lebowski from his wheelchair. Walter of course assumes that if one thing is a scam, everything else is a scam as well.
He is wrong–more importantly, the lesson here is not that “everything is a scam” but rather that Walter is epically, chronically clueless.
Then Bunny arrives, safe and sound.
Mini-resolution:
The Big Lebowski gets to remain powerful. He has successfully hidden his embezzlement. Walter and the Dude are no better off than they ever were.
ACT V: Ashes, Acceptance, and Abiding
Key Beats:
- After a night of bowling, Walter, Donny, and the Dude are confronted by Nihilists at the bowling alley. The Nihilists still think they have the ransom money.
- This confrontation becomes physical. In the fray, Donny dies of a heart attack.
- Walter and the Dude scatter Donny’s ashes.
- Walter gives an inappropriate, fumbling eulogy.
- They return to the bowling alley.
- The Stranger (Sam Elliott) delivers the film’s philosophical coda: “The Dude abides.”
Arc Summary:
This act is pure denouement. All the major conflicts are over.
Even the conflict of the Nihilists is a let-down. These clowns are the last set of idiots not to understand what actually happened with the ransom money (or, more importantly, that there wasn’t any). They settle for literal (not figurative) pocket change.
Donnie, however, becomes an unexpected casualty. As a consequence, we see the Dude and Walter repair their relationship.
Despite the slings and arrows, they remain together as friends. Bowling and abiding.
Mini-resolution:
Cosmic issues have a way of resolving themselves. Abide.
The Big Lebowski is not a Three-Act Film
In a three-act structure:
- Act I would end when the Dude accepts the bag man role.
- Act II would contain a major reversal, e.g. a more epic confrontation with Treehorn.
- Act III would resolve the money mystery and conclude with the final bowling match (not Donny’s funeral sequence).
Witness how much this read compresses the information. It wildly misrepresents the flow of the story.
Problems with the three-act interpretation:
- There is no clean midpoint reversal.
- Each segment has its own self-contained arc—the Larry Sellers saga, Treehorn’s threats, Maude’s reveal. This is flattened with a Three-Act read.
- The ending is low-stakes and reflective, which hardly matches a Three-Act “storming the castle” sort of climax. Instead, we learn the value of friendship and the acceptance of the world’s inherent chaos.*
The Big Lebowski isn’t about escalation—it’s about entropy. The five-act structure captures the gradual unraveling of the plot and the Dude’s philosophy of abiding in the face of meaninglessness.
*Cf. A Serious Man on this note as well.
Lessons for Screenwriters
Consider how five-act structure might serve your story better than forcing it into three acts.
Here are a few practical takeaways:
- Use Acts as Thematic Modules
Allow each act to represent a different facet of the central theme. In Lebowski, each act explores a different type of masculine delusion–all ultimately unimportant. - Let Tone Be Your Guide
Each act in Lebowski has its own tone: parody, absurdism, fever dream, farce, reflection. - Use the Fifth Act as a Mirror
Act V is not about more conflict—it’s about digesting the thematic relevance of what came before. In The Big Lebowski, the final scenes distill the Dude’s worldview. Notably: life is a mess, but the Dude abides. - If Your Climax Happens Too Early… You Might Have Five Acts
If your “big reveal” happens but then there’s, like, a lot of minutes still left in the movie–then you might want to ask what this last segment is really doing. If this is a period of adjustment and recentering, you might be in possession of an Act V. At this point, you can work your way backward to define the other segments more clearly. - Use Structure to Reflect Character
The Dude drifts through life. He abides. Things don’t really climax for him. They just happen. As we can see, this film mirrors the same: it shies away from a Hollywood-style rising action and mega-climax. The structure of the film, in a sense, just drifts along. It abides.
A Slacker Structure
The Big Lebowski isn’t aimless. Rather, its aim is just less obvious than we’re used to. It spirals into absurdity. It raises profound questions. It refuses any easy answers.
In using the structure as a thematically resonant framework, the Coens let structural choices reflect theme and tone.
On one hand, it ties everything up. That is, the mechanics of the noir plot actually work (unlike its namesake The Big Sleep).
On the other hand, however, it refuses any sort of clean resolution: we merely return to stasis. No one has changed (except maybe Walter is a little bit less of an asshole).
Life, like the Dude, simply abides.