How it works
Three questions.
One test.
A film passes The Terminal Test only if it meets all three criteria. If it fails one, it fails the test.
01
Do they have their own story?
The character with cancer has a life, desires and purpose beyond transforming somebody else.
02
Are they allowed to live?
Cancer is not treated as an automatic death sentence or their death as the only meaningful outcome.
03
Does the medical reality hold up?
Diagnosis, prognosis and treatment aren’t distorted simply to serve the plot.
The test is not asking for a medical textbook or insisting that every character survive. It asks whether people with cancer are treated as full human beings—and whether the story leaves room for lives more complicated than diagnosis, inspiration and death.
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