Genres of Films

Genre's of films, as in literature and other fine arts, refers to the primary category under which a film is classified. We will discuss a number of genres and subgenres from the filmmaker's point in terms of themes and settings.

A Filmmakers job is to take the audiences minds off their problems and stimulate their senses in some way.

The main film genres are:

• Action Films
• Adventure Films
• Comedy Films
• Crime & Gangster Films
• Epics/Historical Films
• Horror Films
• Musicals (Dance)
• Science Fiction Films
• War (Anti-War) Films
• Westerns (set in the American frontier of the 1800s).

Film genre categorization can be confusing. In addition filmmakers sometimes mix and match genres in attempts to come up with seemingly new material. This was obvious in the 'Back to the Future' series.

Movie themes can also influence their distinctness. They include:

• Prison;
• Fantasy (long ago and far away or magical other-universe);
• History;
• Futuristic (sometimes like but distinct from Science Fiction);

Another way to catagorise a film is by labeling the film's subject. These may include:

• Art (intense focus on dialogue or characters' inner lives, such as My Dinner With Andre);
• Crime;
• Film Noire ("black film", having a frustrated existentialist or nihilistic theme);
• Fantasy (here, this refers to the use of magic or mystical beasts and characters);
• Sports;
• Espionage ("spy movies" that can be set anywhere);

Sometimes a film can be catagorised by looking at the emotions it invokes in the audience which include:

• Melodrama (these aim to appeal to onlookers' heightened emotions to convey the plot and are often looked down upon by film critics for being shallow or sappy);
• Romance (in the modern sense of the word--focusing on characters' sexual love);
• Tragedy (where the main character's demise is caused by a fatal flaw or by a lack of good judgment about something).

Films that are opposite to dramas are comedies. Sub-genre's from the main genre category includes:

• Romantic Comedy;
• Sci-Fi Comedy (typically a sci-fi spoof);
• Action-Comedy;
• College;
• Screw ball (outlandish plots and often-nutty dialogue intended to invoke laughter);
• Slap-stick Comedy (think The Three Stooges);
• Black Comedy (which explores a morbid theme, especially death, but in such a way as to often invoke laughter throughout and to inspire deeper, serious reflection on the topic).

There are film subjects that revolve around a sub-category of the adventure genre. These include:

• Action;
• Martial Arts;
• Disaster (depicting huge catastrophes' impacts on the characters);
• Road (the film equivalent in style of Joyce's 'A Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man'; there are several variations on this theme).

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