Film genre

Blaxploitation is a film genre that emerged in the United States in the early 1970s when many exploitation film were made that targeted the urban black audience; the word itself is a portmanteau of the words “black” and “exploitation.” Blaxploitation films starred...

A Bildungsroman (/, German: "novel of self-cultivation") is a novel form that concentrates on the spiritual, moral, psychological, or social development and growth of the protagonist usually from childhood to maturity. Sometimes it is referred to as a "Coming Of Age...

A cult film is a film that has acquired a highly devoted but relatively small group of fans. Often, cult movies have failed to achieve fame outside of the small fanbases, however, there have been exceptions that have managed to gain fame amongst mainstream audiences,...

A drama film is a film that depends mostly on in-depth development of realistic characters dealing with emotional themes. Dramatic themes such as alcoholism, drug addiction, racial prejudice, religious intolerance, poverty, crime and corruption put the characters in...

Film noir is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize moral ambiguity and sexual motivation. Hollywood's classic film noir period is generally regarded as stretching from the early 1940s to the late...

Horror films originate from the horror genre and are designed to elicit fright, fear, terror, or horror from viewers. In horror film plots, evil forces, events, or characters, sometimes of supernatural origin, intrude into the everyday world. Horror movies usually...

The historical drama is a film genre in which stories are based upon historical events and famous persons. Some historical dramas attempt to accurately portray a historical event or biography, to the degree that the available historical research will allow. Other...

Jiānghú (江湖; Cantonese: gong woo) is the milieu, environment, or sub-community, often fictional, in which many Chinese classical wuxia stories are set. The term can be translated literally as "rivers and lakes". Jianghu is an alternative universe coexisting with the...

Martial arts film is a film genre that originated in the Pacific Rim. This genre is a type of action film characterized by extensive fighting scenes employing various types of martial arts. This genre has mainly been produced in China, peaking in the 1970s, and has...

The musical film is a film genre in which several song sung by the characters are interwoven into the narrative. The songs are used to advance the plot or develop the film's characters. A subgenre of the musical film is the musical comedy, which includes a strong...

A propaganda film is a film, either a documentary-style production or a fictional screenplay, that is produced to convince the viewer of a certain political point or influence the opinions or behavior of people, often by providing deliberately misleading,...

Romantic comedy films are movies with light-hearted, humorous dramatic stories, centered around romantic ideals such as a true love able to surmount most obstacles. Romantic comedy films are a sub-genre of comedy film as well as of romance film. Because of their proven...

The screwball comedy is a subgenre of the comedy film genre. It has proven to be one of the most popular and enduring film genres. It first gained prominence in 1934 with It Happened One Night, and although many film scholars would agree that its classic period ended...

Spaghetti Western is a nickname for a broad sub-genre of Western film that emerged in the mid-1960s, so named because most were produced by Italian studios, usually in coproduction with a Spanish partner, being the typical team an Italian director, Spanish technical...

For the film with Jet Li and Jason Statham, go to War (film). War film is a film genre concerned with war, usually about naval, air or land battles, sometimes focusing instead on prisoners of war, covert operations, military training or other related subjects....

Wuxia or Wǔxiá (, Mandarin , Hanyu Pinyin: Wǔxiá, Cantonese Pinyin: mou5 hap6), literally meaning "martial (arts) heroes", is a distinct quasi-fantasy sub-genre of the martial arts genre in literature, television and cinema. Wǔxiá has figured prominently in the popular...

A zombie is a reanimated corpse. Stories of zombies originated in the Afro-Caribbean spiritual belief system of Vodou, which told of the dead being raised as workers by a powerful sorcerer. Zombies became a popular device in modern horror fiction, largely because of...

The spy film genre deals with the subject of fictional espionage, either in a realistic way or as a basis for fantasy. Many novels in the spy fiction genre have been adapted as films, although in many cases (such as James Bond) the overall tone is changed.The spy film...

A legal drama is a work of dramatic fiction about law, crime, punishment or the legal profession. Subtypes of legal dramas include courtroom dramas and legal thrillers, and come in all forms, including novel, television show, and film. It is widely believed by most...

The Western is a fiction genre seen in film, television, radio, literature, painting and other visual arts. Westerns are devoted to telling stories set primarily in the later half of the 19th century in what became the Western United States (known as the American Old...

A family film is a film genre that, like a children's film, is suitable for young children, but with the difference that a family film has been carefully written, directed, cast and acted so that it will appeal to all members of a typical family (or if not typical, at...

Mockumentary (also known as a pseudo-documentary), a portmanteau of mock and documentary, is a film and TV genre, or a single work of the genre. A mockumentary is one of the comedy genres, although there are serious mockumentaries. The mockumentary is presented as a...

The term B movie originally referred to a motion picture made on a low or modest budget and intended for distribution as the less-publicized, bottom half of a double feature during the so-called Golden Age of Hollywood. Although the U.S. production of movies intended...

The slasher film (sometimes referred to as bodycount films and dead teenager movies) is a sub-genre of horror film typically involving a psychopathic killer (sometimes wearing a mask) who stalks and graphically murders a series of victims in a typically random,...

An anthology film, or omnibus film or portmanteau film is a film consisting of several different short films, often tied together by only a single theme, premise, or brief interlocking event (often a turning point). The term is derived from the Greek ανθολογία ...

The caper story is a subgenre of crime fiction. The typical caper story involves one or more crimes (especially thefts, swindles, or occasionally kidnappings) perpetrated by the main characters in full view of the reader. The actions of police or detectives attempting...

A disaster film is a movie genre that has an impending or ongoing disaster (such as a damaged airliner, fire, shipwreck or an asteroid collision) as its subject. These films typically feature large casts of well-known actors and multiple plotlines, focusing on the...

Ephemeral film, as defined by film archivist Rick Prelinger, is film made for a specific purpose other than as a work of art: the films were designed to serve a specific pragmatic purpose for a limited time. That is, the genre excludes most well-known film genres such...

Social guidance films constitute a genre of film attempting to guide children and adults to behave in certain ways. Typically shown in school classrooms in the USA from the 1950s through the 1970s, the films covered topics including courtesy, responsibility, sexuality,...

Docudrama is mainly understood as being a docufiction with the participation of actors and narrative dramatization. This term is generally used to refer to films in TV programs. It’s incorrectly used when simply referring to docufiction films. It may mean a...