What is a Maguffin?
A Maguffin is a plot element that catches viewers' attention. A Maguffin is that the major players in the story are willing to sacrifice almost anything to obtain it, regardless of what the Maguffin is.
The specific nature of the Maguffin may be ambiguous, unidentified, generic, left open to interpretation or otherwise completely unimportant to the plot.
Common examples are money, victory, glory, survival, a source of power, or a potential threat or it may simply be something entirely unexplained.
The Maguffin is very popular in films, especially thrillers. Sometimes the Maguffin is the central focus of the film in the first act, and then declines in importance as the struggles and motivations of characters play out.
Examples in film include the meaning of rosebud in Citizen Kane (1941), the titular Maltese Falcon, the Rabbit's Foot in Mission: Impossible III (2006),the briefcases in Pulp Fiction and Ronin, the Letters of Transit in Casablanca, the Heart of the Ocean necklace in Titanic, and the mineral unobtainium in Avatar (2009).
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