Cinematic describes something that looks or feels like it belongs in a movie. When a sunset paints the sky in brilliant oranges and purples, someone might say it looks cinatic because it's as dramatic and beautiful as a scene from a film. When a photographer captures a moment with careful lighting and composition, making an ordinary street look mysterious or magical, that's a cinematic quality.

The word comes from cinema, another name for movies or the movie theater. A cinematic experience has the polish, drama, or visual power you'd expect on a big screen. Video game designers talk about cinematic sequences when the game briefly becomes like watching a movie, with careful camera angles and dramatic music. A writer might describe a novel as cinematic if it's so vivid you can almost see the scenes playing out like a film.

Cinematic also describes things related to the art of filmmaking itself. A cinematic technique might be a special way of moving the camera or editing scenes together. When critics praise a movie's cinematic achievement, they mean the director used the unique tools of filmmaking, like lighting, sound, and camera movement, to create something powerful that only cinema can do.