There are many genres that movies we watch fit into.
These movie categories are derived by looking at the similarities in the form of the movie’s subject matter.
While there are a large number of genres and subgenres, there is a solid main core group that all movies will fall into which can then be broken down further in the subcategories as many films are hybrids with three or four categories that may apply.
While genres aren’t always singular due to cross over themes, you can usually name a single main genre before heading into the analysis of subgenres and hybrid movies.
Types of Movie Genres
Movie genres are listed differently by various film schools and critics. However, there are a set of genres that are agreed on by most. Here are the top 9.
Action Movies
Action movies are one genre that encompasses a lot of subgenres.
This type of movie classification usually includes adventure films as well.
These movies tend to use normal storytelling techniques and plot lines.
This genre includes the following subgenres:
- Epic – Protagonist tries over a long period of time to reach an important objective.The character grows personally along the way. (Gone with the Wind)
- Spy – An agent goes on a secret mission often into enemy territory with special tools to help them. (James Bond)
- Disaster – These can by hybrids with sci-fi or the thriller genre.The story moves around a man-made or natural disaster. (The Day After Tomorrow, Towering Inferno)
- Superhero Movies – Characters have supernatural abilities and fight the antagonists. (The Avengers)
- Thriller – Race against time to reach a goal. (Die Hard, Bourne Movies)
- Martial Arts – Highlighted by physical fight scenes (Mortal Combat, The Karate Kid)
- Video Game – Scripts based on popular video games (Tomb Raider)
Crime Movies
In these movies, the plot is based on crime and criminal actions. Here are the subgenres:
- Detective – detective tries to solve a crime and name the culprit while the audience learns key details as the movie progresses. (Lady on a Train)
- Gangster – Looks at gangs and what they do and how they fight against law enforcement. (Gangs of New York)
- Courtroom/Legal – Legal proceedings of a crime. (Philadelphia, A Few Good Men)
Fantasy Movies
A movie with a fantastical or speculative element that affects those in the movie or the world around them.
- Contemporary – Occurs in the real world with fanatical things coming into it (Harry Potter, Neverending Story)
- Dark – Hybrid with horror/thriller. Dark in tone and disturbing. (Pan’s Labyrinth)
- Fairy Tale – Folklore tales (Maleficent, Into the Woods)
- Epic – Serious films based on literature with mythical beings and invented language. Heroic fantasy. (Lord of the Rings, Narnia)
Western Movies
Movies based on the 19th century American west with subgenres that can be more contemporary in style.
- Spaghetti – Made by Italian filmmakers during high popularity. (The Good, the Bad, The Ugly)
- Epic – Story takes place over large are of the west and longer timeline. (Red River)
- Outlaw – Follow the life of those on the wrong side of the law but likeable. (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid)
- Marshal – The Marshal solving the problem and handing out justice. (Lone Ranger)
- Revisionist – Question values by older westerns. (Dances with Wolves)
- Revenge – Searching to get back at another person. (The Quick and the Dead)
Historical Movies
Plots based on the fact that cover events and stories about real people and history. Not all content is true.
- Biopic – Life of a person or a key event. These can come under other genres as well. (Lincoln, Ali)
- Historical Drama – Looks at a real-life event but the actual characters or story is fictional. (Titanic)
- Biblical – Showing biblical times and stories. It doesn’t have to be part of the bible, just the era. (Ben Hur, Noah)
- Period – Set in a specific era. It doesn’t have to be real events. (Gone with the Wind, Sense and Sensibility)
Romance
Stories of love with both happy and sad endings.
Romantic Drama – Two people date and overcome things for true love. Happy endings are prevalent. (The English Patient)
- Rom-Com – Romance and comedy together. Love interests in odd circumstances. Usually a happy ending. (When Harry Met Sally)
- Chick Flick – Romance created specifically for a female audience. (The Notebook)
Animation
A movie that doesn’t use a lot of live-action content. It is an umbrella genre that covers some hybrids along with traditional films.
- Traditional – frame by frame hand-drawn content. (Cinderella)
- Puppet – Puppets and marionettes with stop motion style. It is also used with live-action actors. (The Muppets)
- Claymation – Uses models created out of clay or Plasticine and posed then shot. (Wallace and Gromit)
- Live-Action – This is a blend of traditional animation and live-action. (Space Jam)
- CGI 2D & 3D – These are movies that use software to create the movie footage. They use polygonal models for the movie that are made to live through rigging and keyframing. (Toy Story)
Horror
Movies that are dark and macabre that aim to catch our deep fears.
- Slasher – Murderer kills victims in a gory way. Takes them out one by one with one character defeating them at the end. (Halloween)
- Psychological – Focus on impending doom and psychological affects it has. (Silence of the Lambs)
- Survival – Protagonist must overcome a threat. (28 Days Later)
- Found Footage – Film taken and then found by the characters. (Blair Witch Project)
- Paranormal – Antagonist is a supernatural force. It can be a hybrid with fantasy or Sci-Fi. (Poltergeist)
- Monster – Characters set against monsters. This can be hybrid with horror, action and disasters. (Alien)
Sci-Fi Movies
This genre is similar to fantasy, but the worlds are tied to technology and science rather than mysticism.
Hard – These movies offer stories that could be plausible using real-world scientific content like the laws of physics. They are aiming for scientific accuracy. (Gravity)
Apocalyptic – The protagonist or a group of people survive after the destruction of life as they know it. Could be based on nuclear war or natural disaster that happened before the movie or at the beginning of the story. (Planet of the Apes)
Future Noir – This looks at future societies that may be more advanced technologically than ours are. However, they tend to be in the style of film noir. (Blade Runner)
Space Opera – These are usually set in space and covered large areas through space travel and exploration. (Star Trek)
Military – Looks at the journey of an army or solider that takes on battles with other races that are technologically advanced. (Alien)
Punk – Focuses on a dystopian future and offers technological advances that are steampunk, nanopunk, cyberpunk or around the cold war and atomic age. Characters may have cybernetic advancements. (Demolition Man)
Speculative – These are the movies that ask, “what if?”. The screenplay speculates about time travel, parallel universes and breaking the known scientific laws. (Source Code)
Science Fiction Movies (Sc-Fi) are based on science-like thought and tend to be visionary and full of imaginative content.
They are usually set in places that are interesting and they tend to show the use of technological gadgets and discussion.
The movies include scientific developments and often have great special effects.
Content often has heroes, extraterrestrials, aliens, planets, quests, fantastic settings and villains with a focus on futuristic technology.
Some include time travel and outer space journeys and others are on earth dealing with the future.
They are can also focus on political and social themes along with a look at the overall human condition.
While Sci-Fi movies of the past often were an imaginative look at what people thought the future might hold such as in A Trip to the Moon (1902), current ones are often fantasy (Star Wars) along with a commentary on how the human race is destroying itself (Planet of the Apes).
Fantasy Movies
Fantasy films are ones that have fantastic themes that include magical events and creatures, supernatural times, myths, folklore and worlds that are different and imaginative.
They often show worlds full of medieval settings, wizards and creatures of magic.
They offer a sense of being able to escape the real world into a realm that is extraordinary and full of things that we have no sense of in our reality.
Some are based on literature such as Lord of the Rings, Alice in Wonderland or Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
Films like these create artistic worlds of imagination putting words into a realistic format and while they are not worlds we know; they are worlds we would love to know and be part of.
Fantasy movies are for people of any age.
The Harry Potter series by JK Rowling is a perfect example of literature being turned into fantasy films and enjoyed by people of all ages.
Crime and Detective Movies
Crime and detective movies are based on crime and solving the crimes committed.
They can be hybrid films that flow into dramas and gangster-style films but can also include mystery and suspense.
There are styles that range around “whodunnit” that take the viewer through the finding of clues and solving of a mystery to movies that look at gangs and their activities.
There is also a subgenre called Hardboiled in which is where the detective is someone who becomes the antihero as they deal with a corrupt legal system as well as those involved in organized crime.
The last part of this genre is the movies that are based in the courtroom.
They cover the legal side of the genre by going into the courts and their proceedings.
They can cross over to other subgenres such as whodunnit but focus on how the courts are dealing with the legal side of things.
Erotic Movies
One of the most controversial genres in the world of cinematography is the erotic movie.
Many consider it pornography, but they couldn’t be further from the truth.
From a cinematographic point of view, erotic movies are just as valuable as any other genre, with the difference that the action features explicit ludic scenes.
Erotic movies have a well-defined plot and characters with depth.
Although exciting to watch, the erotic scenes are not destined for pornographic entertaining.
They give a dose of reality to the film and makes the viewing experience more captivating.
Drama Movies
Drama is a genre that is serious and has very little focus on humor.
The tone is serious and encourages a viewer to react in a deeper emotional way than in one that is lighthearted.
The content is a serious presentation of stories that are based on potential life situations that portray characters that could be real.
The characters are in conflict in the film with themselves or others.
There drama movies are styles of films portray current news issues, social problems, injustice and serious cultural and political unrest.
They can be used to draw attention to serious issues that need to be addressed.
Older dramatic films tended to focus on the individual and how issues were their fault but now they have made their lens wider and often look at society as a whole.
Dramatic movies are about serious topics that people have either tried to address or think should be addressed.
Comedy Movies
Comedy movies are the ones we laugh at and feel good when we see.
They are focused on humor and can be a way of escaping a more serious real world.
They tend to have happy endings unless it’s a black comedy, but the overall theme keeps us feeling emotionally satisfied when we watch.
These comedy movies range from the old slapstick movies that were mainly visual to those that have great comics in them like Bill Murray, Adam Sandler and Will Farrell.
The newer movies range from movies that are simply unrealistic stories created as a platform for the comic or ones that take a humorous look at potential real-life situations.
While some of these films are simply for fun, there are others that actually offer political or social commentary.
There is a serious theme under the humor, a satire and ironically funny.
Porn Movies
Whether you like it or not, porn movies are still movies.
It’s true that with the apparition of internet gonzo porn back in the early 2000s, porn movies have lost some of their cinematographic value.
But prior to that, pornography was well crafted into structured movies that followed a storyline.
In fact, one of the first mainstream pornographic movies was directed by Andy Warhol.
It’s called Blue Movie, and it was the film that elevated pornography from the status of obscenity to the one of cinematography.
In the past years, the adult industry has started to shift back towards a more cinematographic approach.
New porn movies are very artsy.
Many mainstream sites have stopped objectifying the female protagonist, and directors strive to capture true sexuality on film.
