Genre is actually a tricky term to explain. It defines a group of stories that all relate to similar themes and elements. For example, romantic films concentrate on themes of love, passion and lust with elements of dramatisation and a focus on the two lead characters. You could say there’s dozens of genres, from disaster films to epic films. But these can just defining characteristics of a particular genre. For example, a disaster film such as Independence Day can be seen as a sci-fi film and an action film. This also introduces the idea of hybrid genres, which is a blend of two main genres. These include romance and comedy to make the romcom, or historical and action to make the epic genre.
As I said before, genre can be a bit tricky to explain. So the main character is this - what are the main genres? Now, this is all a matter of opinion and this is my personal opinion. I could argue that there are 22 main genres. These include:
Action
Adventure
Animation
Biopic
Comedy
Crime
Documentary
Drama
Family
Fantasy
Film Noir
Historical
Horror
Musical
Mystery
Romance
Sci-Fi
Sport
Superhero
Thriller
War
Western
Some of you will agree and/or disagree with this list. The relevant and most overused genre in today’s film market is drama, despite the massive spike in superhero movies. The problem with superhero movies is that they can be expensive to make, whereas drama films can be easy to finance and produce and can be incorporated easily into any story.
Films are made to reflect the audience’s wishes and needs. During the middle of the twentieth century there was a lot of western films being made. In today’s market films such as Aquaman and Avengers: Endgame make superhero films stand out above the rest. There’s also been a decline in romcom’s in recent years and scarcely any film noirs when compared to the beginning of the twentieth century. This proves that audiences go through phases and adjustments in the cinematic landscape, with help from the big studios who make the films of course.
Certain studios heavily rely on particular genres as well. Universal Pictures are well known for their horror films such as Dracula, The Mummy, Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein. Disney are more well versed in their animation films such as Moana, Frozen and Wreck-It Ralph, and Warner Bros. in their fantasy franchises The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter, and so on and so forth. This proves that certain studios play with the audience’s expectations and greed. Horror will always be financially successful. Animation will always have an audience. Fantasy makes great escapism. These are reasons why people go to the cinema.
Genre sells a film and lots of filmmakers experiment with genre, introduce new genre styles and even re-define genres. It proves how important it is in crafting a story and that should be the main takeaway from today’s blog.
Alex Murray, the Head of Eyesight Productions
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