Film Genre in World Cinema 1

What is Genre?
The word genre refers to the method of film categorization based on similarities in the “narrative elements” from which films are constructed.

A word genre comes from French "kind" or "sort", from Latin: genus (stem gener-), Greek: genos) is a loose set of criteria for a category of composition; the term is often used to categorize literature and speech, but is also used for any other form of art.

Film Genre is a vast topic to look at. Here, there is very little as an overview:

Besides the basic distinction in genre between “fiction” and “documentary”, film genres can be categorized in several ways.

Fictional films are usually categorized according to their setting, theme topic, or mood. The setting is the environment where the story and action takes place. The theme or topic refers to the issues or concepts that the film revolves around. The mood is the emotional tone of the film.

Genres always change, die and re-generate themselves according to social and cultural history, in which a particular genre is born. Many Genres will be explained in possible detail, how they were born, flourished in the next articles.


Here is a list of some of the prominent Genres:
Western
Musical
Gangster
Road
Melodrama
Film Noir
Horror
Sci-Fi
The Bond Films

Some other Genres:
Biography
Children’s
Comedy
Disaster
Fantasy
History
Romance
Sport
Thriller
War
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Next: The birth of "Western Genre"