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Film genre table
table started by
Freebase Data Team for the Film Commons
The Film Genre type defines a finite set of topics that are used to classify films. Films can have multiple Film Genres.
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| x name | x image | x Films of this genre | x article |
|---|---|---|---|
| x Cult |
|
Kiss Me Deadly |
A cult film (also known as a cult movie/picture or a cult classic) is a film that has acquired a highly devoted but specific group of fans. Often, cult movies have failed to achieve fame outside of the small fanbases; however, there have been...
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| Beyond the Valley of the Dolls | |||
| Valley of the Dolls | |||
| Quadrophenia | |||
| Short Cuts | |||
| more ▼ | |||
| x Drama |
|
Pi |
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" (Classical Greek: δράμα, dráma), which is derived from "to do" (Classical Greek: δράω, dráō). The enactment of drama in theatre,...
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| Detective Story | |||
| Airport 1975 | |||
| Hamlet | |||
| American Beauty | |||
| more ▼ | |||
| x Film noir |
|
Miller's Crossing |
Film noir is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize moral ambiguity and sexual motivation. Hollywood's classic film noir period is generally regarded as stretching from the early...
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| Touch of Evil | |||
| Croupier | |||
| Gattaca | |||
| The French Connection | |||
| more ▼ | |||
| x Historical drama | Apollo 13 |
The historical drama is a film genre in which stories are based upon historical events and famous persons. Some historical dramas attempt to accurately portray a historical event or biography, to the degree that the available historical research...
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| Seven Samurai | |||
| Gladiator | |||
| Russian Ark | |||
| Eklavya: The Royal Guard | |||
| more ▼ | |||
| x Martial arts | Kill and Kill Again |
Martial arts film is a film genre that originated in the Pacific Rim. This genre is a type of action film characterized by extensive fighting scenes employing various types of martial arts. This genre has mainly been produced in China, peaking in...
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| Giant Robo | |||
| Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon | |||
| Marked for Death | |||
| Hard to Kill | |||
| more ▼ | |||
| x Musical |
|
An American in Paris |
The musical film is a film genre in which several songs sung by the characters are interwoven into the narrative. The songs are usually used to advance the plot or develop the film's characters, but some musical films (i.e.Down Argentine Way) simply...
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| Chicago | |||
| West Side Story | |||
| The Pajama Game | |||
| 42nd Street | |||
| more ▼ | |||
| x Romantic comedy | What Women Want |
Romantic comedy is a hybrid genre in which a story about romance is presented in a comedic style. Works in this genre are generally considered light-hearted, and are sometimes associated with the vaguely derogatory terms "chick lit" or "chick flick"...
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|
| As Good as It Gets | |||
| Hitch | |||
| Can't Hardly Wait | |||
| She's All That | |||
| more ▼ | |||
| x Screwball comedy | Weekend at Bernie's |
The screwball comedy is a subgenre of the comedy film genre. It has proven to be one of the most popular and enduring film genres. It first gained prominence in 1934 with It Happened One Night, and, although many film scholars would agree that its...
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|
| His Girl Friday | |||
| You, Me and Dupree | |||
| Fast Times at Ridgemont High | |||
| x War | Heartbreak Ridge |
War film is a film genre concerned with warfare, usually about naval, air or land battles, sometimes focusing instead on prisoners of war, covert operations, military training or other related subjects. At times war films focus on daily military or...
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|
| Flags of Our Fathers | |||
| Apocalypse Now | |||
| Platoon | |||
| A Bridge Too Far | |||
| more ▼ | |||
| x Zombie |
|
Resident Evil: Apocalypse |
A zombie is a mythical creature that appears in folklore and popular culture typically as a reanimated corpse or a mindless human being. Stories of zombies originated in the Afro-Caribbean spiritual belief system of Vodou, which told of the people...
|
| I Am Legend | |||
| Vampires Vs. Zombies | |||
| Shaun of the Dead | |||
| Dawn of the Dead | |||
| more ▼ | |||
| x Spy | Sabotage |
The spy film genre deals with the subject of fictional espionage, either in a realistic way or as a basis for fantasy. Many novels in the spy fiction genre have been adapted as films, although in many cases (such as James Bond) the overall tone is...
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| The Lady Vanishes | |||
| Johnny English | |||
| The Man Who Knew Too Little | |||
| Spy Hard | |||
| more ▼ | |||
| x Western |
|
The Iron Horse |
The Western is a fiction genre seen in film, television, radio, literature, painting and other visual arts. Westerns are devoted to telling stories set primarily in the later half of the 19th century in what became the Western United States (known...
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| Tumbleweeds | |||
| Cimarron | |||
| Dodge City | |||
| Go West | |||
| more ▼ | |||
| x Family | My Neighbor Totoro |
A family film (also known as family comedy) is a film genre that is designed to appeal to a variety of age groups and, thus, families. To attract these diverse audiences, film makers often create works that operate simultaneously on several levels...
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|
| Mei and the Kittenbus | |||
| Night at the Museum | |||
| Parenthood | |||
| Millions | |||
| more ▼ | |||
| x B-movie |
|
The Raven |
A B movie is a low-budget commercial motion picture conceived neither as an arthouse film nor as pornography. In its original usage, during the so-called Golden Age of Hollywood, the term more precisely identified a film intended for distribution as...
|
| x Slasher |
|
Dressed to Kill |
The slasher film is a sub-genre of the horror film typically involving a psychopathic killer stalking and killing a sequence of victims in a graphically violent manner. Although the term "slasher" may be used as a generic term for any horror movie...
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| Psycho | |||
| The Texas Chain Saw Massacre | |||
| Hellraiser | |||
| Scream | |||
| more ▼ | |||
| x Slapstick | Garfield |
Slapstick films are a type of comedy film that employ slapstick comedy with five main conventions:
Films:
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|
| Home Alone | |||
| Mousehunt | |||
| Problem Child | |||
| Zorro, The Gay Blade | |||
| x Thriller |
|
The Conversation |
Thriller is a broad genre of literature, film, television, and gaming that includes numerous and often overlapping sub-genres.
Thrillers are characterized by fast pacing, frequent action, and resourceful heroes who must thwart the plans of more...
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| .45 | |||
| Absolute Power | |||
| The River Wild | |||
| The Silence of the Lambs | |||
| more ▼ | |||
| x Indie |
|
The Birth of a Nation |
An independent film, or indie film, is a film that is produced outside of any major film studio. Originally, this term denoted independence from MGM, Paramount Pictures, RKO, Warner Bros., Universal Pictures and Twentieth Century Fox, the 7 major...
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| Blue Velvet | |||
| Dressed to Kill | |||
| Escape from New York | |||
| Heathers | |||
| more ▼ | |||
| x Crime | Detective Story |
A crime film, in the most general sense, is a film that involves various aspects crime and the criminal justice system. Stylistically, it can fall under many different genres, most commonly drama, thriller, Mystery film and film noir. Films focused...
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|
| The Usual Suspects | |||
| The Getaway | |||
| A Clockwork Orange | |||
| Wild Things | |||
| more ▼ | |||
| x Teen |
|
High School Musical |
The teen film (also called teen movie or teenpic) is a film genre targeted at teenagers and young adults in which the plot is based upon the special interests of teenagers, such as coming of age, first love, rebellion, conflict with parents, teen...
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| Fast Times at Ridgemont High | |||
| Pretty in Pink | |||
| John Tucker Must Die | |||
| Superbad | |||
| more ▼ | |||
| x Chick flick |
Chick flick (also "chick's flick") is slang for a film designed to appeal to a female target audience. The term was first used in the 1980s, a decade during which such chick flicks as Beaches were released. Although many types of films may be...
|
||
| x Romance film |
|
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind |
While most films have some aspect of romance between characters (at least as a subplot) a romance film can be loosely defined as any film in which the central plot (the premise of the story) revolves around the romantic involvement of the story's...
|
| Xanadu | |||
| Loverboy | |||
| Titanic | |||
| Revolutionary Girl Utena | |||
| more ▼ | |||
| x Mystery |
|
The Conversation |
Mystery film is a sub-genre of the more general category of crime film. It focuses on the efforts of the Detective, private investigator or amateur sleuth to solve the mysterious circumstances of a crime by means of clues, investigation, and clever...
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| The 4400 | |||
| Gossip | |||
| The Usual Suspects | |||
| Vertigo | |||
| more ▼ | |||
| x Biographical |
|
A Beautiful Mind |
A biographical motion picture—often shortened to biopic—is a film that dramatizes the life of an actual person or people. They differ from films “based on a true story” or “historical films” in that they attempt to comprehensively tell a person’s...
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| Raging Bull | |||
| The Life of Emile Zola | |||
| The Great Ziegfeld | |||
| Reds | |||
| more ▼ | |||
| x Adventure |
|
Tremors |
Adventure Film is a film genre.
The adventure film reached its peak of popularity in 1930s and 1940s Hollywood, when films such as Captain Blood, The Adventures of Robin Hood and The Mark of Zorro were regularly made with major stars, notably Errol...
|
| Spider-Man 3 | |||
| Sunshine | |||
| War of the Worlds | |||
| Ghost Rider | |||
| more ▼ | |||
| x Road movie | The Getaway |
A road film is a film genre in which the film's plot takes place during a journey.
The genre has its roots in spoken and written tales of epic journeys, such as the Odyssey and the Aeneid. The road film is a standard plot employed by screenwriters....
|
|
| Eldorado | |||
| x Educational | Technology of Lewis & Clark |
An educational film is a film or movie whose primary purpose is to educate. Educational films have been used in classrooms as an alternative to other teaching methods.
Many educational films shown in schools are part of long series - for example,...
|
|
| The Commies Are Coming, the Commies Are Coming | |||
| Treasures of the British Crown | |||
| x Buddy film | Kangaroo Jack |
A buddy film, according to The Complete Film Dictionary, is "a film that features the friendship of two males as the major relationship". Ira Konigsberg, author of the dictionary, further defines the genre: "Such films extol the virtues of male...
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|
| Friday | |||
| Toy Story | |||
| Midnight Run | |||
| The Hard Way | |||
| more ▼ | |||
| x Romantic drama | Persuasion |
A romantic drama film is a film that seriously studies the romantic nature of relationships between people. Common themes include the characters making decisions based on a newly-found romantic attraction. The questions, "What am I living for?" or ...
|
|
| Going Shopping | |||
| Far from the Madding Crowd | |||
| Moulin Rouge! | |||
| Linger | |||
| x Epic | Ben-Hur |
An epic is a genre of film which places emphasis on human drama on a grand scale. They are more ambitious in scope than other genres which helps to differentiate them from similar genres such as the period piece or adventure film. This often entails...
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|
| Quo Vadis | |||
| Spartacus | |||
| 300 | |||
| Dances with Wolves | |||
| more ▼ | |||
| x Amateur |
|
Amateur Film is the low-budget hobbyist art of film practiced for passion and enjoyment and not for business purposes.
The international organization for amateur film makers is UNICA (Union International du Cinema Non Professionel); in the United...
|
|
| x Children's |
|
Rigoletto |
A children's film is a film aimed for children as its audience. As opposed to a family film, no special effort is made to make the film attractive for other audiences. The film may or may not be about children. In Unshrinking the Kids: Children's...
|
| The Goonies | |||
| Cadet Kelly | |||
| Spy Kids | |||
| DuckTales the Movie: Treasure of the Lost Lamp | |||
| more ▼ | |||
| x Disaster |
|
Gray Lady Down |
A disaster film is a film genre that has an impending or ongoing disaster (such as a damaged airliner, fire, shipwreck, or an asteroid collision) as its subject. These films typically feature large casts of well-known actors and multiple plotlines,...
|
| The Concorde...Airport '79 | |||
| World Trade Center | |||
| Volcano | |||
| The Perfect Storm | |||
| more ▼ | |||
| x Black comedy |
|
Lolita |
Black comedy is a sub-genre of comedy and satire in which topics and events that are usually regarded as taboo are treated in a satirical or humorous manner while retaining its seriousness.
Synonyms include dark comedy, black humor, dark humor, and...
|
| Catch-22 | |||
| Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb | |||
| Happiness | |||
| Prizzi's Honor | |||
| more ▼ | |||
| x Anime |
|
Patlabor the Movie |
Anime (アニメ, an abbreviated pronunciation in Japanese of "animation", pronouned [anime] ( listen) in Japanese, but typically /ˈænɪmeɪ/ or /ˈænɪmə/ in English) is animation originating in Japan. The rest of the world regard anime to be "Japanese...
|
| Akira | |||
| Revolutionary Girl Utena | |||
| Steamboy | |||
| Barefoot Gen | |||
| more ▼ | |||
| x Wuxia | New One-Armed Swordsman |
Wuxia or Wǔxiá (traditional Chinese: 武俠; simplified Chinese: 武侠, Mandarin IPA: [ùɕiɑ̌], Hanyu Pinyin: Wǔxiá, Cantonese Pinyin: mou5 hap6: Taiwanese/Hokkien: bu kiap) is a broad genre of Chinese fiction that concerns itself with martial arts...
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|
| One-Armed Swordsman | |||
| The Swordsman | |||
| Seven Swords | |||
| Kung Fu Hustle | |||
| more ▼ | |||
| x Superhero |
|
X-Men |
A superhero film, superhero movie, or superhero motion picture is an action, fantasy or science fiction film that is focused on the actions of one or more superheroes, individuals who usually possess superhuman abilities relative to a normal person....
|
| Spider-Man 3 | |||
| x Erotic Science Fiction | Barbarella | ||
| Flesh Gordon | |||
| x Mockumentary | To Kill a Mockumentary |
Mockumentary (a portmanteau of mock and documentary, also known as Fake documentary), is a genre of film and television, or a single work of the genre. Although a mockumentary may be one of the comedy genres, serious mockumentaries also exist. The...
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|
| Zelig | |||
| Fear of a Black Hat | |||
| CB4 | |||
| Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan | |||
| more ▼ | |||
| x Parody |
|
Airplane! |
A parody or spoof film is a comedy that satirizes other film genres or classic films. The main conventions for this genre are:
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| Best in Show | |||
| Spaceballs | |||
| Scary Movie | |||
| A Mighty Wind | |||
| more ▼ | |||
| x Silent film |
|
Princess Nicotine; or, The Smoke Fairy |
A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially spoken dialogue. The idea of combining motion pictures with recorded sound is nearly as old as film itself, but because of the technical challenges involved, synchronized...
|
| Great Expectations | |||
| Ramona | |||
| Ramona | |||
| Ramona | |||
| more ▼ | |||
| x Pornographic movie |
|
Debbie Does Dallas |
Pornographic films are motion pictures with the purpose of promoting sexual arousal in the viewer, often featuring depictions of sexual activity. They appeared shortly after the creation of the motion picture in the early 1900s. Pornographic films...
|
| World's Biggest Gang Bang | |||
| The Opening of Misty Beethoven | |||
| The Devil in Miss Jones | |||
| Flesh Gordon | |||
| more ▼ | |||
| x French New Wave |
|
Breathless |
The New Wave (French: La Nouvelle Vague) was a blanket term coined by critics for a group of French filmmakers of the late 1950s and 1960s, influenced (in part) by Italian Neorealism and classical Hollywood cinema. Although never a formally...
|
| The 400 Blows | |||
| x sports | The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh |
A sports film is a film genre that uses sport as the theme of a film. For a list of sports films refer to the List of sports films
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| Breaking Away | |||
| The Pride of the Yankees | |||
| Ali | |||
| Fear Strikes Out | |||
| more ▼ | |||
| x Gross-out film | National Lampoon's Animal House |
Gross-out is a sub-genre of comedy movies in which the makers employ humour that is willfully "tasteless" or even downright disgusting, although the latter isn't truly requisite. Typical elements include fast pace, toilet humour, slapstick,...
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|
| A Good Old Fashioned Orgy | |||
| x Social commentary | Damul |
Social commentary is the act of rebelling against an individual, or a group of people by rhetorical means. This is most often done with the idea of implementing or promoting change by informing the general populace about a given problem and...
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|
| x Short film |
|
Meat Love |
Short subject is a technical description originally coined in the North American film industry in the early period of cinema. The description is now used almost interchangeably with short film. Either term is often abbreviated to short (as a noun, e...
|
| La Jetée | |||
| Steamboat Willie | |||
| Developing | |||
| The Battle of San Pietro | |||
| more ▼ | |||
| x Melodrama |
|
East Lynne |
The theatrical genre of melodrama uses theme-music to manipulate the spectator's emotional response and to denote character types. The term combines "melody" (from the Greek "melōidía", meaning "song") and "drama"(Classical Greek: δράμα, dráma;...
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| x Musical comedy | The Love Parade | ||
| Bye Bye Birdie | |||
| The Life of the Party | |||
| Side Show | |||
| x Bollywood |
|
Bollywood/Hollywood |
Bollywood (Hindi: बॉलीवूड) is the informal term popularly used for the Hindi-language film industry based in Mumbai, India. The term is often incorrectly used to refer to the whole of Indian cinema; it is only a part of the Indian film industry....
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| Koi... Mil Gaya | |||
| Bunty Aur Babli | |||
| Black | |||
| x Cyberpunk |
|
Ghost in the Shell |
Cyberpunk is a science fiction genre noted for its focus on "high tech and low life". The name is a portmanteau of cybernetics and punk and was originally coined by Bruce Bethke as the title of his short story "Cyberpunk", published in 1983. It...
|
| Blade Runner | |||
| Tron | |||
| Johnny Mnemonic | |||
| Cyberpunk Educator | |||
| x Religious Film | Ben-Hur | ||
| x Sword and Sandal |
|
Ben-Hur |
Sword and sandal films, or pepla (singular=peplum) are a class of Italian-made adventure or fantasy films that have subjects set in Biblical or classical antiquity, often with contrived plots based very loosely on mythology or Greco-Roman history,...
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| Demetrius and the Gladiators | |||
| The Robe | |||
| Alexander the Great | |||
| x Steampunk |
|
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen |
Steampunk is a sub-genre of fantasy and speculative fiction that came into prominence in the 1980s and early 1990s. The term denotes works set in an era or world where steam power is still widely used—usually the 19th century, and often Victorian...
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| Steamboy | |||
| Things to Come | |||
| 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea | |||
| The Fabulous World of Jules Verne | |||
| more ▼ | |||
| x Surrealism |
|
I ♥ Huckabees |
Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members.
Surrealist works feature the element of surprise, unexpected juxtapositions and non sequitur; however, many...
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| De Noorderlingen | |||
| Porky in Wackyland | |||
| Un chien andalou | |||
| Last Year at Marienbad | |||
| more ▼ | |||
| x Political fiction |
|
Wag the Dog |
Political fiction is a subgenre of fiction that deals with political affairs. Political fiction has often used narrative to provide commentary on political events, systems and theories. Works of political fiction often "directly criticize an...
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| Advise and Consent | |||
| x Yuri |
|
Revolutionary Girl Utena |
Yuri (百合), also known by the wasei-eigo construction Girls Love (ガールズラブ, gāruzu rabu), is a Japanese jargon term for content and a genre involving love between women in manga, anime, and related Japanese media. Yuri can focus either on the sexual or...
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| x Shōjo |
|
Revolutionary Girl Utena |
The term Shōjo, shojo, or shoujo manga (少女漫画, shōjo manga) refers to manga marketed to a female audience roughly between the ages of 10 and 18. The name romanizes the Japanese 少女 (shōjo), literally "young girl". Shōjo manga covers many subjects in a...
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| x Opera |
|
Carmen |
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text (called a libretto) and musical score. Opera is part of the Western classical music tradition. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such...
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| Don Giovanni | |||
| La traviata | |||
| Aida | |||
| Aida | |||
| more ▼ | |||
| x Family Drama | Terms of Endearment |
Family Drama concerns itself with interpersonal relationships and conflicts amongst the members of family structure within a society. Topics can consist of incest, abuse, status, conflicts between members of a family or the family and society or...
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| Fanny and Alexander | |||
| The Magnificent Ambersons | |||
| Little Women | |||
| Little Women | |||
| more ▼ | |||
