Film genres Film genres Action movies, or sometimes known as actioners, usually involve a fairly straightforward story of good guys versus bad guys, where most disputes are resolved by using physical force. Action films are largely derived from crime films and thrillers, by way of westerns and to some extent war films and disaster movies. Modern Hollywood examples of the genre are usually " high concept" films where the whole movie can be easily summarized (eg. "a scientist brings dinosaurs back to life only to find them trying to dominate earth, again" for Jurassic Park). Who exactly the good guys are differs from film to film, but in Hollywood films they usually are patriotic and rather conservative (though not die-hard) Americans, whereas the bad guys are usually either criminals or agents of foreign powers. In the 1950's and '60s, they were very often Communists, which brings some action films fairly close to propaganda films. Starting in the 1970s, Communists were seen less as the predominant villains (although they were still widely present until the late '80s), and the focus turned instead to drug lords, terrorists, or some other criminal element. Action movies also tend to have a single heroic protagonist and often portray institutions such as the military or police as incompetent and limited by rules and regulations which the protagonist has no regard for. This creates the stereotypical conflict between an action hero and the establishment. ...more on Wikipedia about "Action movie"
The actuality film is a non-fiction film genre that like the documentary film uses footage of real events, places, and things, yet unlike the documentary is not structured into a larger argument, picture of the phenomenon or coherent whole. In practice, actuality films preceded the emergence of the documentary. During the era of early cinema, travelogues, newsreels, reenactments, and other short films depicting current events were just as popular and prominent as their fictional counterparts. In fact, the line between "fact" and "fiction" was not so sharply drawn as would become after the documentary came to serve as the predominant non-fiction filmmaking form. ...more on Wikipedia about "Actuality film"
Adventure films is a genre of films that contain elements of adventure. Unlike modern action films, which often take place in a modern city, often with the hero battling drug cartels or terrorists, an adventure film typically takes place in the past, often with much swordfighting or swashbuckling. The genre probably reached the peak of its popularity in Hollywood in the 1930s and 1940s, when films like Captain Blood, The Adventures of Robin Hood and The Mark of Zorro were regularly being made and a number of the biggest stars, notably Errol Flynn and Tyrone Power, become closely associated with it. At the same time, lower down the scale, Saturday morning serials were often using many of the same thematic elements as adventure films. ...more on Wikipedia about "Adventure film"
Anarchic comedy (or wacky comedy) is a genre of cinema using nonsensical, stream-of-consciousness humor which often lampoons some form of authority. Films of this nature stem from a theatrical history of anarchic comedy on the stage. Jokes and visual gags fly fast and furious, usually in a non sequitur manner that eschews narrative for sheer absurdity. No subject is too sacred; no joke too silly. These movies strive for laugh-a-minute pacing and gut-busting guffaws. Though they may be hit-and-miss, the ultimate success or failure of this type of comedy depends on the overall percentage of jokes that amply tickle a viewer's funny bone. ...more on Wikipedia about "Anarchic comedy film"
An anticompilation movie is a feature film shown in a theater that has the same characters as a television serial, but does not recapitulate the storyline; nor is it a plausible, derivative, stand-alone story arc of its own. It may not have any significant plot at all, and character development is often minimal. These are commonly made in Japan for their anime television shows. ...more on Wikipedia about "Anticompilation movie"
Art film is a film genre with a loose narrative, often experimental, presented as a serious artistic work. Some films that can fall into this catagory are foreign-language films, indepdendent and non-mainstream films, as well as documentaries and short films. The producers of art films seek a niche audience rather than mass appeal and usually present their work at specialty theatres and film festivals in large urban areas. Art film provides similar kinds of cinematic illusion that one finds in classical Hollywood cinema as well as allusions to previous periods in cinematic history. However, by loosening the ties between its style and narrative concerns, it allows for increased subjective realism and authorial expressivity. ...more on Wikipedia about "Art film"
An autoethnography is a variant on the old standard documentary film. As the name suggests, it differs in that its subject is the film maker himself. An autoethnography typically relates the life experiences and thoughts, views and beliefs of the film maker, and as such it is often considered to be rife with bias and image manipulation. Unlike other documentaries, autoethnographies do not aim at objectivity. However they are nowhere near as popular as traditional documentaries. ...more on Wikipedia about "Autoethnography"
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The term B-movie originally referred to a Hollywood motion picture designed to be distributed as the "lower half" of a double feature, often a genre film featuring cowboys, gangsters, or horror. In the days of the major film studios, this was official terminology that also gave rise to the practice of referring to "A-list" or "B-list" stars. (For example, Ronald Reagan, the 40th President of the United States, made a career out of acting in B-movies.) The major studios had "B-units" that made their B-movies, but there were also small studios—such as Republic Pictures and Monogram Pictures—which specialized in making B-movies. Since the "Golden Age of Hollywood" and the studio system have largely broken down, this A grade, B grade, formula has largely died with the end of the double feature and the closure of most drive-in theaters. Roger Corman specialized in producing and/or directing the kind of films which typify B-movies of the 1950s, which were the last to see wide drive-in or independent theater release. ...more on Wikipedia about "B-movie"
"Bad girl movies" are a subcategory of film noir labeled by latter-day movie buffs to describe the dark films of the 1940s and 1950s starring beautiful women who were usually on the wrong side of the law. The movie posters to these films usually featured sexy artwork of the lady in question, posed seductively, and these images today in original posters and reproductions are as collected today, as are the films themselves are on VHS and DVD. ...more on Wikipedia about "Bad girl movies"
A baseball movie refers to a sports film belonging to a genre where the game of baseball features prominently in the plot. ...more on Wikipedia about "Baseball movie"
Bavarian porn is a campy subgenre of softcore porn comedy. The apogee of the genre was the late 1960s and early 1970s, corresponding roughly to the chancelorship of Willy Brandt, but these films continued to be produced up to about 1980. Today they live on as staples of late night European cable and satellite channels. The most famous Bavarian porn actor is Peter Steiner, while the most famous director is Franz Marischka. ...more on Wikipedia about "Bavarian porn"
The storylines typically revolved around boyfriend and girlfriend Frankie and Annette trying to make one another jealous with newcomers, as they and their friends had adventures (on and off the beach), with someone breaking into song every few minutes. The main cast usually had running roles (though their character names sometimes changed from picture to picture), and with the exception of Muscle Beach Party, the usual "villains" of the story were biker Eric Von Zipper (played by comic actor Harvey Lembeck as a parody of Marlon Brando in The Wild One) and his inept gang the "Rat Pack", or "Rats & Mice" (which included Alberta Nelson, of The Andy Griffith Show). ...more on Wikipedia about "Beach Party film"
A biographical film or biopic (from biographical picture) is a film about a particular person or group of people, based on events that actually happened. These may present the events as they actually happened, or may alter the truth for other purposes. ...more on Wikipedia about "Biographical film"
Bizarro is a genre of film and literature. Writers, such as Carlton Mellick III and Kevin L. Donihe, brought about the term Bizarro in 2005, to encompass literature and film that is seen to be offbeat or cult. Bizarro encompasses many writing styles and sub-genres; including splatter punk and absurdism. The work of film maker David Lynch has been embraced by the movement alongside the texts of such writers as John Edward Lawson (Last Burn in Hell, 2005), Mike Philbin (Yôroppa, 2006) and D. Harlan Wilson (Pseudo City, 2005). ...more on Wikipedia about "Bizarro fiction"
Black comedy, also known as black humor, is a subgenre of comedy and satire where topics and events normally treated seriously – death, mass murder, sickness, madness, terror, drug abuse, rape, etc. – are treated in a humorous or satirical manner. Synonyms created to avoid possible racial overtones include dark humor, morbid humor, gallows humor and off-color humor (see also color metaphors for race.) A scene in Samuel Beckett's play Waiting for Godot demonstrates black comedy well: a man takes off his belt to hang himself, and his trousers fall down. ...more on Wikipedia about "Black comedy"
Blaxploitation is a portmanteau, or combination, of the words “black” and “exploitation”. It is a film genre which emerged in the United States in the early 1970s when many exploitation films were made that targeted the urban African American audience. The films featured primarily black actors, and were the first to have soundtracks of funk and soul music. Although criticized by civil-rights groups for their use of stereotypes, they addressed the great and newfound demand for afrocentric entertainment, and were immensely popular among black audiences. ...more on Wikipedia about "Blaxploitation"
The "Buddy Cop" genre of films are action films with plots involving two men of very different and conflicting personalities who are forced to work together to solve a crime and/or defeat criminals, sometimes learning from each other in the process. Frequently, although not always, the two heroes are of different ethnicities or cultures. Even if the two men have a similar ethnic background, one of them is often "wilder" than the other, a hot-tempered iconoclast paired with a more even-tempered partner. Often the "wilder" partner is also the younger of the two, with the even-tempered partner having more patience and experience. Another frequent plot device of this genre is to have one of the men be removed from his natural element, usually by being forced to operate in a different country. When this is done, the other man acts as a guide to the unfamiliar. ...more on Wikipedia about "Buddy cop film"
A buddy film is a film that features two or more characters who exhibit a close relationship. Buddy films are often feature male characters, but there have also been some female buddy films as well. ...more on Wikipedia about "Buddy films"
The term chick flick is slang, sometimes slightly derisive, for a movie which is designed or considered to appeal mainly to women, and generally focusing more on romance or relationships. Many romantic comedies or films with a lots of female characters are likely to be put in this category. Critics of the term have pointed out that movies aimed specifically at men are not labeled so derisively. ...more on Wikipedia about "Chick flick"
In film theory, genre refers to one method of dividing films into groups. Typically, genres are formed of films that share similarities in the narrative elements from which they are constructed. ...more on Wikipedia about "Cinematic genre"
A comedy film is a film laced with humor or that may seek to provoke laughter from the audience. Along with drama, horror and science fiction, comedy is one of the largest genres of the medium. ...more on Wikipedia about "Comedy film" Simply shortopedia!
A compilation movie, or compilation film, is a feature film that is mostly composed of footage from a television serial. These typically compress the plot of a story arc from about eight to thirteen broadcast hours to a bit more than two hours without commercials. This is a term used by reviewers of Japanese anime. Additional animation may be added that is either of a superior quality to that made for television or which changes story details, often making the ending lead to a sequel not suggested in the original show. Such films may be put on video or DVD, recently even without being shown theatrically. ...more on Wikipedia about "Compilation movie"
The beginning of the 20th century saw the arrival of film as a new medium. By and large, what people wanted to watch on the screen did not differ from what they expected to see on the stage or read in short stories and novels: the good and the bad things in life (clearly separated from each other); virtue and vice; human prowess and human weakness; sin and redemption; and, probably more than anything else, poetic justice, or iustitia commutativa, as it is called according to Aristotle, with everyone getting what they deserve. In this respect, the cinema has always served as a means of escape from real life, though a temporary one. This escapist function of both literature and film did not change substantially in the course of the 20th century: One still feels uncomfortable if at the end of a film the " bad guy" gets away with all his evil doings, if order is not restored, if justice does not succeed in the end. Subconsciously, an average human feels that if the wicked character is not punished, the film comes too close to reality and makes the person remember, rather than forget his inadequate life. The crime film has thus been a popular genre in the 20th century. Crime films have been generally adapted from other forms of literature rather than written directly for the screen. ...more on Wikipedia about "Crime film"
A cult film is a movie that attracts a small but devoted group of fans, usually failing to achieve considerable success outside that group. ...more on Wikipedia about "Cult film"
A disaster movie is a movie that has an impending or ongoing disaster (e.g. a major fire, earthquake, shipwreck, or an asteroid collision with Earth) as its subject. They typically feature large casts and multiple plotlines, and focus on the characters' attempts to avert, escape, or cope with the aftermath of the disaster. One major character, several minor characters, and scores of extras typically die before the story is resolved. ...more on Wikipedia about "Disaster movie"
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