Film Genres
Wanted to look for something based on it's actual content? Well, this is probably the best your going to get on this site, at least. Some genres are universal to all sorts of media, but a few are formulas usually seen in the movie industry or movie-specific ways of organizing things. Now, there is plenty of overlap, and it's difficult to sort through all of this all the time, so bear with me if it's not perfect, but I've tried to sort out my watchlist for you here (this is 10x more difficult to organize than by year, okay!).
Action
Adventure
Adventure is one of the oldest genres. Exciting stories with often exotic or memorable settings, it is often paired with the action genre among others. If not overlapping with action, it focuses less on violence and more on new locations, exploration, and problem solving.
Animation
Any film that's animated, whether it be traditional, claymation, anime, or CGI. Can overlap with literally anything else.
Biopic
Bollywood
The informal term for the huge Hindi-language film industry, Bollywood has become famous and unifying for Indians the world over, at least in part due to the unique co-dependance with the music industry. Unlike some other countries, there's been very little change in style and narrative over the decades, making it enough like a genre itself.
Chick Flick
A genre of movie which is nebulously defined, not by its content so much as its market, namely women. Often romantic, and can be a comedy, drama, or both, stereotypically with sassy, klutzy, twenty-somethings looking for love with charmers, jackasses, and hopeless nice guys - though they don't always have to stick to these formulas.
Comedy
Usually more light-hearted films deliberately and consistently designed to amuse and provoke laughter. Tends to exaggerate situations, language, action, and relationships.
Courtroom and Legal Drama
Crime
Works focusing crime or criminal aspects.
Disaster
Documentary
A nonfictional motion picture intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of education or maintaining a historical record.
Drama
Fantasy
The genre of fiction that uses magic or other supernatural elements as a main plot element, theme, or setting. Not unusually to find otherworld settings or alternate versions of reality.
Film Noir
Historical and Period Pieces
Horror
Romance
Tales that focus on passion, emotion, and the affection between people that develop romantically.
Romantic Comedy
Science Fiction
Works where the setting is based on the technology and tools of a scientifically imaginable world. The majority of technologies presented are not available in the present day and therefore the science is fictional. This incorporates any possible place (planets, space, underwater, you name it).
Silent Movie
A film with no spoken dialogue - exactly what the title suggests. Though originally born from technical limitations, it still crops up from time to time and even in the early days filmmakers made the most of it. Note many of these still include a soundtrack or official score.
Slapstick
Slapstick is a style of humor involving exaggerated physical activity which exceeds the boundaries of normal physical comedy.
Slasher
Near-indestructible serial killers stalking attractive young girls, a combination that allows for buckets of gore and enough flesh to titillate. Though many are considered B-Movies, this is also a staple of the larger horror genre.
Slice of Life
Supernatural
Movies of paranormal subjects. Demons, vampires, ghosts, undead, or the like.
Swashbuckler
A classic take on the adventure story, swashbucklers follow chaotic good gentleman adventurers in idealistic settings, usually vague period pieces with sword fights and love stories.
Teen Movie
Thriller
War
Western
Any story set in the American West during the frontier era, it's heyday as a film genre being around the 1950s and 1960s. Though it's rarer now the genre will probably never die in America. A few other countries have their version of this frontier genre as well.
Wuxia and Martial Arts
One of the oldest genres of story, naturally it's made a niche in movies as well. These films include all sorts of martial arts and fighting. Wuxia in particular often includes more mythological and fantastical elements with noble heros fighting villains with high-flying and potentially supernatural martial arts.
High energy, flashy films - often with big-budget physical stunts, chases, rescues, battles, fights, destruction, and escapades. Expect contstant motion and quick pacing with clear conflict. Designed for pure audience escapism.
Adventure is one of the oldest genres. Exciting stories with often exotic or memorable settings, it is often paired with the action genre among others. If not overlapping with action, it focuses less on violence and more on new locations, exploration, and problem solving.
Any film that's animated, whether it be traditional, claymation, anime, or CGI. Can overlap with literally anything else.
Pick a person and make a film with them as protagonist and you've got a biopic - a movie biography. It takes a real person's life and tries to create drama from the things that the person experienced. The difference between a Biopic and Based On a True Story is that the Biopic takes place under a much longer time-span, years as opposed to, say, a summer.
The informal term for the huge Hindi-language film industry, Bollywood has become famous and unifying for Indians the world over, at least in part due to the unique co-dependance with the music industry. Unlike some other countries, there's been very little change in style and narrative over the decades, making it enough like a genre itself.
A genre of movie which is nebulously defined, not by its content so much as its market, namely women. Often romantic, and can be a comedy, drama, or both, stereotypically with sassy, klutzy, twenty-somethings looking for love with charmers, jackasses, and hopeless nice guys - though they don't always have to stick to these formulas.
Usually more light-hearted films deliberately and consistently designed to amuse and provoke laughter. Tends to exaggerate situations, language, action, and relationships.
A subset of crime fiction that focuses on the law side of the issue, whether it be the lawyers or policemen.
Works focusing crime or criminal aspects.
Films whose plots revolve around something huge, horrible, and natural heading towards the protagonists, and their reactions to it. Some of the characters might be trying to stop the disaster, while others are just trying to get out alive. Expect high casualties, flashy effects, and people just watching it for the pizzaz.
A nonfictional motion picture intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of education or maintaining a historical record.
Stories that often show life or characters through conflict and emotions. In general, the different parts of the story tend to form a whole that is greater than the sum of the parts. In other words, the story has a message that is bigger than just the story line itself.
Epic Movie
Epic Movies are movie movies. These movies are so big they need italic emphasis. These movies are what we think of when we think of the stars getting out of limousines to walk down red carpets while being shot by the paparazzi and entering rooms with grand staircases and lit by chandeliers. The grand, gigantic, sweeping, glossy, flamboyant spectacles that define and are the triumphs of the film industry. These movies have dramatic ambitions and a huge scope. These movies are what make Hollywood Hollywood.
Erotic Film
Euroshlock
European arthouse films build around transgressive material that is often meant to shock or offend audiences. Expect explicit sexual content, over-the-top violence, and a maudlin tone. Don't watch with your mom.
Exploitation
Works that focus and heavily play upon morbid elements like violence and sexuality. Excessiveness is the name of the game, and these aspects are taken to extremes meant to fascinate or excite people the same way driving past a car crash does.
Epic Movies are movie movies. These movies are so big they need italic emphasis. These movies are what we think of when we think of the stars getting out of limousines to walk down red carpets while being shot by the paparazzi and entering rooms with grand staircases and lit by chandeliers. The grand, gigantic, sweeping, glossy, flamboyant spectacles that define and are the triumphs of the film industry. These movies have dramatic ambitions and a huge scope. These movies are what make Hollywood Hollywood.
Films where the focus is on erotic, emotional, and sexual tension between people, which is the majority of the plot. Could focus on arousing the audience, or turn around and try to shock and disgust them instead, but needless to say it's NSFW. Some directors try to use this content in an elevated matter, so there is ongoing argument about whether it's porn without a plot or actual art. Here I am trying to avoid the porn, mind you, and focus on films with historical and artistic merit.
European arthouse films build around transgressive material that is often meant to shock or offend audiences. Expect explicit sexual content, over-the-top violence, and a maudlin tone. Don't watch with your mom.
Works that focus and heavily play upon morbid elements like violence and sexuality. Excessiveness is the name of the game, and these aspects are taken to extremes meant to fascinate or excite people the same way driving past a car crash does.
The genre of fiction that uses magic or other supernatural elements as a main plot element, theme, or setting. Not unusually to find otherworld settings or alternate versions of reality.
The genre of stylish crime dramas, the 1940s and 1950s being the classic era of this iconic style. Known for it's dark artistic sense and hard-boiled detective crimes with double crossing, femme fatale, and chainsmoking.
Found Footage
Works shot to look like film recovered from a real event, with plenty of stylistic suck to look like it was made by unprofessionals and amateurs, and is an easy approach to low-budget film-making. Tend to be horror films, but really any type of story is possible.
French New Wave
A style originating in France after the second World War, these films take cinema to a new place, deconstructing the entire concept of movies and how we approach films, narrative, the relationship between actors and their characters, and the fourth wall.
Works shot to look like film recovered from a real event, with plenty of stylistic suck to look like it was made by unprofessionals and amateurs, and is an easy approach to low-budget film-making. Tend to be horror films, but really any type of story is possible.
A style originating in France after the second World War, these films take cinema to a new place, deconstructing the entire concept of movies and how we approach films, narrative, the relationship between actors and their characters, and the fourth wall.
You know the drill - set in the past, often with high production values and lavish attention to detail (though maybe not always accurately so) in costumes, environments, and even cinematography.
Works whose focus is to scare the audience.
Music and Dance
Works whose central theme revolves around singers, idols, dancers or people involved in music and/or dance.
Musicals
Works whose central theme revolves around singers, idols, dancers or people involved in music and/or dance.
The musical film is a film genre in which songs sung by the characters are interwoven into the narrative, sometimes accompanied by dancing. Many use the numbers to advance or elaborate the story.
Mystery
Stories where characters reveal or uncover secrets that may lead a solution for a great mystery. This is not necessarily solving a crime, but can be a realization after a quest.
Road Trip Films
Stories where characters reveal or uncover secrets that may lead a solution for a great mystery. This is not necessarily solving a crime, but can be a realization after a quest.
Exactly what one expects, these films are characters going from one place to another, making multiple stops on the way. Can overlap with anything, but it's not unusual for these to become comedies.
Tales that focus on passion, emotion, and the affection between people that develop romantically.
The infamous rom-com, where romance leads to comedy, or is impeded by comedy, or usually some combination thereof. Though there is a list of common tropes, the basic requirement of love and laughs leaves a lot of room for variation.
Works where the setting is based on the technology and tools of a scientifically imaginable world. The majority of technologies presented are not available in the present day and therefore the science is fictional. This incorporates any possible place (planets, space, underwater, you name it).
A film with no spoken dialogue - exactly what the title suggests. Though originally born from technical limitations, it still crops up from time to time and even in the early days filmmakers made the most of it. Note many of these still include a soundtrack or official score.
Slapstick is a style of humor involving exaggerated physical activity which exceeds the boundaries of normal physical comedy.
Near-indestructible serial killers stalking attractive young girls, a combination that allows for buckets of gore and enough flesh to titillate. Though many are considered B-Movies, this is also a staple of the larger horror genre.
Life, observed and examined. A cast of characters go about their daily lives, making observations and being themselves. There is an emphasis that every little moment in the character's life is important, rather than large-scale adventures or troubled romances.
Sports
Films whose central theme revolves around sports, examples are football, boxing and basketball.
Spy
A genre that is often a thriller or action, that is about espionage, either realistic or as a stylized fiction.
Superhero
Films whose central theme revolves around sports, examples are football, boxing and basketball.
A genre that is often a thriller or action, that is about espionage, either realistic or as a stylized fiction.
Specific and unique subgenre of sci-fi that has it's roots in American comic books, examining the adventures of (often costumed) characters who posses superhuman powers, and often go against various sorts of villains or criminals.
Movies of paranormal subjects. Demons, vampires, ghosts, undead, or the like.
A classic take on the adventure story, swashbucklers follow chaotic good gentleman adventurers in idealistic settings, usually vague period pieces with sword fights and love stories.
Like the Chick Flick, this group of movies are defined more by target audience rather than story, though this time being aimed at teenagers. Usually dealing with many things very important in adolescence such as identity, image, and friendship, often involving school settings to some degree, though not always.
Defined more by plot and devices rather than by story content, a thriller focuses on action, fast pacing, tension, and suspense. The conflicts are usually between desperate heroes and powerful antagonists who outmatch them by a large margin. Frequent location changes, time shortage, and cliffhangers are extremely common.
War movies are a genre depicting real-life wars from the perspective of those who fought in it (or fictional characters who fought in it).
Any story set in the American West during the frontier era, it's heyday as a film genre being around the 1950s and 1960s. Though it's rarer now the genre will probably never die in America. A few other countries have their version of this frontier genre as well.
One of the oldest genres of story, naturally it's made a niche in movies as well. These films include all sorts of martial arts and fighting. Wuxia in particular often includes more mythological and fantastical elements with noble heros fighting villains with high-flying and potentially supernatural martial arts.
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