Whether mise-en-scène presents authentic places or ingeniously fabricates new worlds, audiences look for and find particular meanings in sets, props, acting styles, blocking, lighting, and other elements. A film’s mise-en-scène has always been the site where viewers measure human, aesthetic, and social values, recognize significant cinematic traditions, and, in those interactions, identify and assign meaning to the changing places of films.

Mise-en-scène as an external condition indicates surfaces, objects, and exteriors that define the material possibilities or limits in a place or space. Mise-en-scène as a measure of character dramatizes how an individual or group establishes an identity through interaction with (or control of) the surrounding setting and sets.

There are two prominent traditions of cinematic mise-en-scène—naturalistic and theatrical. Naturalistic mise-en-scène is a realistic style that appears to correspond to the real world and is recognizable to viewers. Two specific traditions of naturalistic mise-en-scène are historical mise-en-scène and everyday mise-en-scène. In contrast, theatrical mise-en-scène denaturalizes locations and other elements so that they appear unfamiliar, exaggerated, or artificial, like the fantastical settings of Willy Wonka’s factory in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005). Two types of theatrical mise-en-scène are expressive mise-en-scène and constructive mise-en-scène.

Movie spectaculars are films in which the magnitude and intricacy of the mise-en-scène share equal emphasis with or even outshine the story, the actors, and other traditional focal points for a movie. If low-budget independent films usually concentrate on the complexity of character, imagistic style, and narrative, movie spectaculars attend to the stunning effects of sets, lighting, props, costumes, and casts of thousands.