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Genre Sub-Sections
Film Genres Overview | Main Film Genres | Film Sub-Genres | Film Sub-Genres Types (and Hybrids) | Other Major Film Categories
Best Pictures - Genre Biases | Summary of Top Films by Genre | Top 100 Films by Genre | AFI's Top 10 Film Genres
If you're interested in the chronological history of film by decade - visit the section on Film History or the multi-part section on Milestones in Film History. |
Film
Sub-Genres: Listed (represented by icons) |
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 'Biopics' is a term derived
from the combination of the words "biography" and "pictures."
They are a sub-genre of the larger drama and epic film genres, and although
they reached a hey-day of popularity in the 1930s, they are still
prominent to this day. These films depict the life of an important
historical personage (or group) from the past or present era. Biopics
cross many genre types, since these films might showcase a western
outlaw, a criminal, a musical composer, a religious figure, a war-time
hero, an entertainer, an artist, an inventor or doctor, a politician
or President, or an adventurer. |
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 Often considered an all-encompassing
sub-genre, 'chick' flicks or gal films (slightly derisive terms)
mostly include formulated romantic comedies (with mis-matched lovers or female relationships), tearjerkers and gal-pal films, movies about family crises and emotional carthasis,
some traditional 'weepies' and fantasy-action adventures, sometimes
with foul-mouthed and empowered females, and female bonding situations
involving families, mothers, daughters, children, women, and women's
issues. These films are often told from the female P-O-V, and star
a female protagonist or heroine. This type of film became very prominent
in the mid-80s and into the 90s. See also O Magazine's 50
Greatest Chick Flicks. Their counterpart films for males
are termed 'guy' films (see below).
See also this site's compilation of Greatest
Tearjerker Films, Moments and Scenes. |
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  Detective-mystery films
are usually considered a sub-type or sub-genre of crime/gangster films (or film noir), or suspense
or thriller films that focus on the unsolved crime (usually
the murder or disappearance of one or more of the characters, or
a theft), and on the central character - the hard-boiled detective-hero,
as he/she meets various adventures and challenges in the cold and
methodical pursuit of the criminal or the solution to the crime. |
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 Disaster films, a sub-genre
of action films, hit their
peak in the decade of the 1970s. Big-budget disaster films provided
all-star casts and interlocking, Grand Hotel-type stories,
with suspenseful action and impending crises (man-made or natural)
in locales such as aboard imperiled airliners, trains, dirigibles,
sinking or wrecked ocean-liners, or in towering burning skyscrapers,
crowded stadiums or earthquake zones. Often noted for their visual
and special effects, but not their acting performances. See Greatest
Disaster Film Scenes also. |
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 Fantasy
films, usually considered a sub-genre, are most likely
to overlap with the film genres of science
fiction and horror,
although they are distinct. Fantasies take the audience to
netherworld places (or another dimension) where events are
unlikely to occur in real life - they transcend the bounds
of human possibility and physical laws. They often have an
element of magic, myth, wonder, and the extraordinary. One
of the major categories of fantasy-action films are the
super-hero movies, based quite often on original comic-strip
or comic book character. They may appeal to both children and
adults, depending upon the particular film. |
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 Film noir (meaning
'black film') is a distinct branch of the crime/gangster sagas from the 1930s. Strictly speaking, film noir is not a genre, but rather the mood, style or tone of various American
films that evolved in the 1940s, and lasted in a classic period
until about 1960. However, film noir has not been exclusively confined
to this era, and has re-occurred in cyclical form in other years
in various neo-noirs. Noirs are usually black and white films with
primary moods of melancholy, alienation, bleakness, disillusionment,
disenchantment, pessimism, ambiguity, moral corruption, evil, guilt
and paranoia. And they often feature a cynical, loner hero (anti-hero)
and femme fatale, in a seedy big city. See this site's special tribute to Greatest Femmes Fatales in Classic Film Noir. |
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 Composed of macho films
that are often packed with sophomoric humor, action, cartoon violence,
competition, mean-spirited putdowns and gratuitous nudity and sex.
Gal films or 'chick'
flicks are their counterpart for females. This category of film is highly subject to opinion, although there
are many classic, testosterone-laden 'guy' films that most viewers
would agree upon, as shown in this site's Greatest 'Guy' Movies of All-Time (illustrated). See also the "100
Greatest Guy Movies Ever Made" by Maxim Magazine compiled in 1998 or Men's Journal's 50 Best Guy Movies
of All Time list compiled in 2003. |
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 Melodramas are a sub-type
of drama films, characterized
by a plot to appeal to the emotions of the audience. Often, film
studies criticism used the term 'melodrama' pejoratively to connote
an unrealistic, pathos-filled tales of romance or domestic situations
with stereotypical characters that would directly appeal to feminine
audiences ("weepies" or "woman's films"). See
the post-modern version of the "woman's film" - gal films
or 'chick' flicks. See also
this site's extensive compilation (illustrated) of Greatest
Tearjerker Films, Moments and Scenes. |
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 Road films have been a staple of
American films from the very start, and have ranged in genres
from westerns, comedies, gangster/crime films, dramas,
and action-adventure films. One thing they all have in common: an episodic journey
on the open road (or undiscovered trail), to search for escape
or to engage in a quest for some kind of goal -- either a distinct
destination, or the attainment of love, freedom, mobility, redemption,
the finding or rediscovering of onself, or coming-of-age (psychologically
or spiritually). |
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 A sub-genre for
the most part, this category shares some features with romantic dramas, romantic comedies,
and sexual/erotic films. These
are love stories, or affairs of the heart that center on passion,
emotion, and the romantic, affectionate involvement of the main
characters (usually a leading man and lady), and the journey that
their love takes through courtship or marriage. Romance films make
the love story the main plot focus. See Greatest
and Most Memorable Film Kisses Scenes. |
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 Films that have a sports
setting (football or baseball stadium, arena, or the Olympics, etc.),
event (the 'big game,' 'fight,' 'race,' or 'competition'), and/or
athlete (boxer, racer, surfer, etc.) that are central and predominant
in the story. Sports films may be fictional or non-fictional; and
they are a hybrid sub-genre category, although they are often dramas or comedy films, and occasionally
documentaries or biopics. |
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 Supernatural films, a sub-genre category, may be combined with other genres, including comedy, sci-fi, fantasy or horror.
They have themes including gods or goddesses, ghosts, apparitions,
spirits, miracles, and other similar ideas or depictions of extraordinary
phenomena. Interestingly however, until recently, supernatural films
were usually presented in a comical, whimsical, or a romantic fashion,
and were not designed to frighten the audience. There are also many
hybrids that have combinations of fear, fantasy, horror, romance,
and comedy. |
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  Thrillers are often hybrids
with other genres - there are action-thrillers, crime-caper thrillers, western-thrillers, film-noir thrillers, even romantic
comedy-thrillers. Another closely-related genre is the horror film genre. Thriller and suspense films are virtually synonymous
and interchangeable categorizations. They are types of films known
to promote intense excitement, suspense, a high level of anticipation,
ultra-heightened expectation, uncertainty, anxiety, and nerve-wracking
tension. The acclaimed Master of Suspense is Alfred Hitchcock. Spy
films may be considered a type of thriller/suspense film. |
