Different Types of External Conflict & 10 Examples to Study

All great drama is derived from conflict. Be it light-hearted misunderstandings in comedies to dire earth-threatening catastrophes in action films, conflict lays at the heart of all storytelling. Conflict in movies can be a multi-faceted interconnected web of various forms of conflict acting upon the characters in innumerable ways, or it can be as simple as “not wanting to be someone’s friend no more,” as in The Banshees of Inisherin (2022). 

Of all the various movie conflicts that can be categorized, the main derivation comes from internal vs external conflict. Examples of internal conflict in movies are when different wants/needs/desires of a character mix and prevent each other from manifesting, forcing the character to make a choice. External conflict is when an outside force acts upon our characters, forcing our characters to act or react depending on the type of conflict. 

The Banshees of Inisherin is an external conflict example for man vs man conflict. Two friends who become enemies. Man vs man. 

In addition to man vs man, man vs society, man vs nature, and man vs technology are some of the main external conflict types in movies. 

For more information on how to write scenes, click here: How To Write Scenes: The Anatomy of Scene Structure 

External Conflicts

External conflicts are the bread-and-butter of plot progression. These types of conflicts are great to force urgency. Some examples of external conflict in movies can be that the bomb will blow up in 10 minutes; the partner will get on a plane to start a new job across the country because they think their life here is over unless you stop them in time; the gunslingers arrive at noon. Urgency forces our characters to act. Likewise, maguffins–objects that through the force of the plot demand our characters to act–are agents of external conflict. 

Stories enthrall us for many reasons. Many of those reasons can be boiled down to watching another human being triumph (or fail) through adversity engaging our empathy to vicariously live what the characters are living. Can the character overcome this obstacle, their flaw, this enemy? That’s what rivets us. 

While many stories will employ both internal and external conflict, we will see that different genres favor one type. Internal conflict in movies will be more widespread in character studies. Action, sci-fi, fantasy are examples of external conflict-driven movie genres. That being said, character development is not solely derived from internal conflicts. External conflicts force our characters to have to make a choice, they push our characters to the edge and force them to jump. 

Read more about types of conflict here: Spice Up Your Story With Engaging Conflict 

The Many Types of External Conflict In Film 

Of all the external conflict examples in movies, let’s focus on the main four, as these will cover most types of conflicts in a movie. 

• Man vs Man

• Man vs Society

• Man vs Nature

• Man vs Technology 

 1. Man vs. Man

Protagonist versus Antagonist. A primordial conflict. Our hero wants something while the antagonist wants to stop them or vice versa. Man vs man conflict can be destiny driving two characters toward cross purposes where the characters have no direct animosity toward each other or it can be deep-seated childhood trauma that drove two friends to become enemies. 

Whatever your setup is, man vs man conflict is the epitome of dramatic tension. When faced in such opposition, one character has to fail. Failure doesn’t have to be catastrophic, mind you. The character struggle can be about breaking a friend’s trust because the secret they entrusted you with is too dangerous to keep. Famous storytelling tropes like love triangles are man vs man conflicts. 

Using man vs man conflicts are a tried and true way to push your characters to their limits, to drive tension and push the plot of your story. 

2. Man vs. Society

Struggling against the system is the main crux of man vs. society conflict. Societal norms, tradition, culture, or institutions that our characters see as unjust and fight to amend. In real life, each new generation of young people grow up to see adults accepting the way society is and are left asking themselves, “why does it have to be this way?” In man vs. society stories, our characters fight to change the seemingly impenetrable inertia of tradition and society. 

Anthropologist Margaret Mead is oft-quoted saying, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” Man vs. society stories embody this idea. 

3. Man vs. Nature

Humans have conquered the natural world over the millennia, but a lot of humans also died in the process. Such is the nature of man vs nature conflicts. Characters fight against harsh landscapes and dangerous wildlife just to survive in these deadly tales. The two genres that heavily utilize this type of conflict are disaster movies and westerns. 

The disaster film famously scales the story conflict escalation to community destroying or even Earth destroying consequences. Can we survive as a species? Westerns return to a time before man had fully conquered the land, and brings us to the frontier of society. Many genres and stories have a combination of conflict types. In westerns, society is minimal, and man must fight nature and other dangerous men to survive and build a life. Conflict resolutions in movies featuring nature involve life or death stakes. 

When it comes to forces of nature, society that humans have built can look fragile. And with climate change being ever-more prevalent, expect to see more and more stories using themes of humanity needing to come together to overcome natural disasters.

4. Man vs. Technology

Often paired with fighting societies, man vs technology conflicts involve characters withstanding changes to technology that escape our capacity to control innovation that turns against us. Or such new technologies are used by the state or big corporations to control our characters. 

Themes heavily associated with man vs technology conflicts are change, progress, destiny, and of course power. Humans seeking to control machines or tech that cannot be controlled is a common motif found throughout these stories. 

Man vs technology stories have exploded since the advent of the internet, but with the increasing ubiquity of AI and Large Language Models, the line is gonna keep going up. 

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10 Great External Conflict Examples

Now let's take a concrete look at 10 external conflict examples in movies featuring a galactic empire fighting a rebellion, superheroes facing off against supervillains, and surviving a ravenous bear rampage.

1. “The Hunger Games” (Man vs. Society)

Dystopian worlds are often used to highlight evil aspects about society that left unchecked can unfurl into an even more horrifying future. Societal inequality is stretched to its limits in Panem, the world our protagonist Katniss Everdeen finds herself in. The poor barely surviving districts where Katniss is born feed a wealthy Capitol where the inhabitants live in decadence and casual cruelty, forcing people of the districts to fight to the death for the entertainment of the Capitol. 

The institutional might of Panem seems insurmountable to fight against at the beginning of the Hunger Games (2012). At the beginning, Katniss doesn’t even think to fight against the Capitol, only to protect her sister and herself. In man vs society stories, it takes a single act of courage to lead to the end of the totalitarian society. For mass movements to start, someone has to take the first courageous step toward defiance. Conflict and resolution in movies like The Hunger Games end in the downfall of the regime, or in the destruction of the individual. You can watch the Hunger Games to see which fate lies ahead for Katniss Everdeen.

2. “Moby Dick” (Man vs. Nature)

The vast expanse of ocean is a dangerous place to be acting irrationally. So finds the crew of the Pequod when their mad Captain Ahab puts his vengeance for the titular white whale over their safety. 19th century whaling was a deadly job when going after normal sperm whales. The term “nantucket sleighride” comes from harpooned whales pulling the whalers' boats as if it’s Poseidon’s chariot. 

If your boat is destroyed in the middle of the ocean, there's barely any hope of survival. Another similar conflict example in a movie is In the Heart of the Sea (2015) about a group of whalers who try to survive in their small whaling boats after their main vessel is sunk in the heart of the pacific ocean. 

3. “The Matrix” (Man vs. Technology)

For a technological conflict in a movie example, the best film to showcase this conflict is The Matrix (1999). How can you tell if you’re living in a simulation is an unfalsifiable question, unless you take the red pill in The Matrix. Through it, our hero Neo finds out about machines exploiting humanity and he has to act to stop it. Reality and illusion are key themes in many man vs technology conflicts. 

Freedom is confined without humanity even knowing it has been caged. 

4. “Whiplash” (Man vs. Man)

An example of man vs man conflict in a movie is Whiplash (2014). Tyrant teacher Terence Fletcher pushes student Drummer Andrew Neiman to a breaking point in their combined endeavor to create a legendary drummer. Fletcher sees his abrasive and abusive teaching style as necessary to create the next Charlie Parker. Andrew Neiman practices to the point where his fingers bleed and it's not good enough for Fletcher. The abusive teacher and the defiant student clash in Whiplash, the man vs man drama of unhealthy obsession with greatness. 

5. “The Revenant” (Man vs. Nature)

A Revenant is a person who returns despite being supposedly dead. Such a character is what it took for Leonardo Dicaprio to win an Oscar for playing Hugh Glass, a fur trapper that refuses to die after being left for dead in the wake of a grizzly bear attack. While also overlaying a revenge man vs man story at its end, Hugh Glass must survive the 1820s Dakota wilds after being mauled by a grizzly. Quite the formidable weather for the most able-bodied person, let alone one ravaged and nearly beaten to death. Through sheer force of the human will, Hugh Glass has to use every skill and lesson he’s learned to survive the unforgiving winter hellscape he’s left in. 

6. “The Dark Knight” (Man vs. Man)

Batman is said to be able to beat any foe in a fight if he has a plan, no matter how strong. But when going against the Joker, his ideals and faith in humanity are put to the test as the Joker endeavors to reveal what he thinks is an evil at the heart of humanity. The Joker’s chaotic antics stretch Batman’s morals to their limit.

Can he save Gotham while preserving his ideals of justice? The Joker’s psychological battle he wages upon Batman sets up the perfect foil for the caped crusader.

7. “The Shawshank Redemption” (Man vs. Society)

Andy Dufresne perseveres against the corrupt prison system and the society that has wrongly imprisoned him. Hope and despair are common themes of man vs society stories. Again, the institution in power–here, the prison industrial complex–seems so impenetrable that it’s easy to despair and lose hope. Andy’s friend Red fears exactly that for Andy. But we come to see that as a facade, and Andy’s hope never extinguished as he endlessly endeavored to attain his freedom. 

8. “Jurassic Park” (Man vs. Nature)

Surviving in the wilderness against grizzly bears seems mild compared to towering dinosaurs brought back to life. Man’s hubris knows no bounds in this 1990’s action film. Controlling Earth’s mightiest creatures is easier said than done for entrepreneur John Hammond as he invites a team of scientists to survey his prehistoric zoo before it opens. How do you survive against a Tyrannosaurus? Most people would run, some say to freeze. No matter what you choose, your chances are slim. 

9. “I, Robot” (Man vs. Technology)

Detective Del Spooner investigates a murder possibly committed by a robot, but robots can’t harm humans, though all the evidence points to the robot doing it. This 2004 Isaac Asimov adaptation depicts the conflict of humans reckoning with their creations. The themes of sentience and free will are common in stories centering on robotics and advanced intelligence. Also new forms of bigotry arise with human animosity toward their robotic creations. 

Conflict theory in movies like I, Robot beget questions of free will for humanity that echoes the questions of free will for robots. Are we just following cultural protocols like robots following their coded protocols? What’s it truly mean to be free? 

10. “Star Wars: A New Hope” (Man vs. Society)

Of all the conflict examples in movies, Star Wars (1977) might be the most famous. Let’s scale our society up to the galactic level, featuring 1000s of planets home to countless alien species. That’s where farm boy Luke Skywalker finds himself at the heel of the galactic empire. How do you fight an empire that spans the galaxy? Having access to the mystical force certainly helps, no doubt. But most force users have been systematically taken out by the empire. Most everyone Luke meets in the Rebellion doesn’t have the force. 

They’ve joined to fight tyranny with the audacity to hope for a better future for their families. Fantasy and Science Fiction often scale conflict that we can see in our lives and magnify them to fantastical proportions, but at the core lies conflict that’s universal. 

That groups of humans can create institutions that are harmful to other humans, and it’s up to individuals to stand up to said corrupt institutions. 

Understanding External Conflict and Its Impact in Storytelling

These ten illustrative movie conflict examples highlight the various ways in which writers employ types of external conflict to act on the characters and invoke themes that will move the audience. There are other external conflicts not addressed here such as man vs god, but the four types addressed above make up the bulk of most types of stories. Conflict within a movie can be a multitude, with the various types layered on top of each other, as we see in The Revenant being a combo of man vs nature and man vs man. 

External narrative conflicts excel at pushing our heroes to face their flaws and triumph through adversity… or fail in bleaker stories. Depicting conflict in films is to show a character struggling. Writers love making their character struggle, and using these types of conflict are the main ways to do so.