Top 100 Films
by Genre Type

(Top 5 Films Per Genre)

by Filmsite


Genre Sub-Sections
Film Genres Overview | Main Film Genres | Film Sub-Genres | Other Major Film Categories | Film Sub-Genres Types (and Hybrids)
Best Pictures - Genre Biases | Summary of Top Films by Genre | Top 100 Films by Genre | AFI's Top 10 Film Genres
Highest-Grossing Films By Genre Type

Top 100+ Films by Genre Type

Filmsite has selected a Top 100 Films (see further below) comprised of the top 5 films for each of 20 different genres (including some sub-genres and other categories). The links directly below are to Filmsite's essays on Film Genres.

Major Genres and Sub-Genres (or Categories)
Action
Fantasy
Adventure
Film Noir (and Detective/Mystery)
Animated
Horror (and Supernatural)
Biopic
Musical-Dance
Comedy
Romance
Crime/Gangster
Science-Fiction (and Superheroes)
Cult
Sports
Disaster
Suspense-Thriller
Dramas
War
Melo-dramas
Western
Epic-Historical-Period
Silent
Courtroom Dramas
Sexual-Erotic
Christmas
Zombie
Chick Flicks
   

The unranked 100+ film selections (below in chronological order in each category) are based upon popularity, critical reviews and awards, box-office appeal, memorable films with the best screenplays (characters and stories), and classic status in the genre (or sub-genre) category. Some films could have appeared in more than one list or category of genre, due to their hybrid nature, but each film was only allowed one listing.

See also Filmsite's other detailed version of Top Films By Genre, Top 100 Greatest Film Noirs of All-Time, The Guinness Book of Film's outdated Top 100 Films by Genre Type and AFI's somewhat dubious The Top 10 Films in 10 Genres.




Top 100+ Films

by Genre Type


Action

The Road Warrior (1982) (aka Mad Max 2 (1981, Australia))
Aliens (1986)
Die Hard (1988)
Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)

Casino Royale (2006)

Fantasy

E.T. - The Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
The Princess Bride (1987)
Harry Potter Franchise (2001-2011)
The Lord of the Rings Trilogy (2001-2003)
Pan's Labyrinth (2006)

Adventure

King Kong (1933)
The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
Jurassic Park (1993)

Film Noir
See Filmsite's Top 100 Greatest Film Noirs of All-Time

The Maltese Falcon (1941)
Double Indemnity (1944)
Murder, My Sweet (1944)
Sunset Boulevard (1950)
Touch of Evil (1958)

Animated

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
Fantasia (1940)
Beauty and the Beast (1991)
Toy Story (1995)
Spirited Away (2001)

Horror

Psycho (1960)
Rosemary's Baby (1968)
The Exorcist (1973)
Halloween (1978)
The Shining (1980)

Biopic

Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
Patton (1970)
Amadeus (1984)
Malcolm X (1992)
Lincoln (2012)

Musical-Dance

Top Hat (1935)
The Wizard of Oz (1939)

Singin' in the Rain (1952)
My Fair Lady (1964)
The Sound of Music (1965)

Comedy (and Black Comedy)

Duck Soup (1933)
Some Like It Hot (1959)
Dr. Strangelove, Or:... (1964)
Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)
Airplane! (1980)

Romance

Casablanca (1942)
Brief Encounter (1945)
Roman Holiday (1953)
Annie Hall (1977)
When Harry Met Sally... (1989)

Crime/Gangster

Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
The French Connection (1971)
The Godfather (1972) & The Godfather Part II (1974)
GoodFellas (1990)

L.A. Confidential (1997)

Science Fiction (and Superheroes)

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
Star Wars (1977) and Franchise
Blade Runner (1982)
The Matrix (1999)
The Dark Knight (2008)

Cult

Easy Rider (1969)
Harold and Maude (1971)
The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)
Pulp Fiction (1994)
The Big Lebowski (1998)

Sports

Rocky (1976)
Slap Shot (1977)
Raging Bull (1980)
Bull Durham (1988)
Hoop Dreams (1994)

Disaster

The Birds (1963)
Airport (1970)
The Poseidon Adventure (1972) & The Towering Inferno (1974)
Twister (1996)
Titanic (1997)

Suspense-Thriller

Rear Window (1954)
Vertigo (1958)
Jaws (1975)
The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
Se7en (1995)

Drama

Citizen Kane (1941)
All About Eve (1950)
On The Waterfront (1954)
Taxi Driver (1976)
The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

War

Paths of Glory (1957)
The Deer Hunter (1978)
Apocalypse Now (1979)
Platoon (1986)
Saving Private Ryan (1998)

Epic/Historical/Period

Gone With The Wind (1939)
Ben-Hur (1959)
Schindler's List (1993)
Braveheart (1995)
Gladiator (2000)

Western

High Noon (1952)
The Searchers (1956)
Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)
The Wild Bunch (1969)
Unforgiven (1992)

A Few Other Categories:
Silent

The General (1927)
Sunrise (1927)
Metropolis (1927)
City Lights (1931)
Modern Times (1936)

Christmas


It's A Wonderful Life (1946)
Miracle on 34th Street (1947)
A Christmas Story (1983)
National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (1989)
The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)
Melodramas

Stella Dallas (1937)
The Letter (1940)
Now, Voyager (1942)
Imitation of Life (1959)
Far From Heaven (2002)

Courtroom Dramas

12 Angry Men (1957)
Anatomy of a Murder (1959)
To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)

JFK (1991)
A Few Good Men (1992)

Detective-Mystery

The Thin Man (1934)
The Big Sleep (1946)
Dirty Harry (1971)
Chinatown (1974)
Memento (2002)

Supernatural

Don't Look Now (1973)
Poltergeist (1982)
The Sixth Sense (1999)
The Others (2001)
The Ring (2002)

Sexual-Erotic

Body Heat (1981)
9½ Weeks (1986)
Basic Instinct (1992)
Eyes Wide Shut (1999)
Sex and Lucia (2001)

Zombie

I Walked With a Zombie (1943)
Night of the Living Dead (1968)
Dawn of the Dead (1978)
Re-Animator (1985)
28 Days Later (2002)

Chick Flicks

Pretty Woman (1990)
Clueless (1995)
Bridget Jones's Diary (2001)
Love Actually (2003)
The Notebook (2004)

 


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