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Film Sub-Genres
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Sub-Genre Types
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Sub-Genre Descriptions
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Select an icon or sub-genre category below, read about the development and history of the sub-genre, and view chronological lists of selected, representative greatest films for each one.
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Drama film is a genre that is based on the emotional and realistic characters relatival. Drama film relies heavily on this type of development, dramatic themes play an important role in the plot too. If the heroes or heroines face a conflict from the outside or a conflict within themselves, the film aims to tell a story theater honest human struggles.
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'chick' flicks or gal films (slightly derisive terms) mostly include formulated romantic comedies (with mis-matched lovers or female relationships), 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. Their counterpart films for males are termed 'guy' films.
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Detective-mystery films are usually considered a sub-type or sub-genre of crime/gangster films , 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 in locales such as aboard imperiled airliners, trains, dirigibles, sinking or wrecked ocean-liners, or in towering burning skyscrapers .sometimes noted for their visual and special effects, but not their acting performances.
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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 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 an 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 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
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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.
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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").
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Road films have been a staple of American films 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
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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)..
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Action films usually include high energy, big-budget physical stunts and chases, possibly with rescues, battles, fights, escapes, destructive crises (floods, explosions, natural disasters, fires, etc.), non-stop motion, spectacular rhythm and pacing, and adventurous, often two-dimensional 'good-guy' heroes (or recently, heroines) battling 'bad guys' - all designed for pure audience escapism
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This category is an off-shoot of fantasy-action films, based quite often on an original comic-strip or comic book character. Fictional super-heroes with extraordinary powers, derived from 1930s-1960s comic books and other more recent sources, have been the subjects of numerous fantasy and sci-fi films (both live-action and animated, and serialized and feature-length) with action-oriented heroes and heroines. Superheroes are repeatedly chosen to be the subjects of big-budget blockbuster films, with glossy production values, expensive CGI special effects and sets, make-up and costuming.
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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, or a romantic fashion, and were not designed to frighten the audience.
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Thrillers are often hybrids with other genres, crime-caper 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. .
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