How to Use MacGuffin in a Sentence

MacGuffin

noun

• Ironically, the one that proved a bridge too far for some was the one Cameron did not invent: The name of the rare metal that served as the film’s MacGuffin.
  — Chris Klimek, Smithsonian Magazine, 22 Dec. 2022
• What happens if that MacGuffin is a group of human beings?
  — David Fear, Rolling Stone, 22 May 2024
• This too is a MacGuffin, as the detectives working the case admit the evidence does not add up.
  — David L. Ulin, Los Angeles Times, 28 July 2022
• In extremis, the chair became the MacGuffin from a sub-Balzac novel of petit bourgeois succession.
  — Matthew Gavin Frank, Harper's Magazine, 12 Aug. 2022
• Many titles took on technology, not just as a MacGuffin or Deus ex machina, but as an extension of us.
  — Thomas Page, CNN, 29 Jan. 2024
• According to Deadline, the film was the MacGuffin in a bidding war between streamers, before landing at Netflix.
  — Vulture, 26 Nov. 2023
• The MacGuffin in question is a shiny orb that’s apparently a map to the location of Thrawn’s exile, or would be if Ahsoka could activate it.
  — Daniel Fienberg, The Hollywood Reporter, 22 Aug. 2023
• Which may explain why several subplots feel half-realized, or why the main villain — there are several — feels more like a MacGuffin than a proper arch-foe.
  — David Fear, Rolling Stone, 31 May 2023
• Its premise may seem mundane as a hunt for magical space rocks, the same MacGuffin plot device that drives most popular science fiction and fantasy today, from Marvel to Zelda.
  — Gene Park, Washington Post, 31 Aug. 2023
• Refusing to concede either the election or the loss of a silver bracelet on which the combination to his safe is printed, the fuming incumbent dispatches his private enforcer (Ving Rhames) to fetch the missing MacGuffin.
  — Peter Debruge, Variety, 1 Aug. 2024
• For those of us allergic to exposition dumps about why some MacGuffin needs to be retrieved or delivered or destroyed, there’s a refreshing meaninglessness to the tasks handed down by Hihi.
  — Inkoo Kang, The New Yorker, 5 Feb. 2024
• The MacGuffin: One cruciform key that the sub’s chief officer has in his possession, and which goes missing; once this item is slotted into an identical counterpart, the composite key will unlock…something.
  — David Fear, Rolling Stone, 5 July 2023
• Some of the machinations are certainly predictable, especially for Westerners experiencing superhero fatigue over films that feature the pieces of some MacGuffin or other being assembled while the hero attempts to fulfill their fate.
  — Courtney Howard, Variety, 8 Sep. 2022

Last Updated: 3 Dec 2024