movie genres essay

Essays About Movies: 7 Examples and 5 Writing Prompts

Check out our guide with essays about movies for budding videographers and artistic students. Learn from our helpful list of examples and prompts.

Watching movies is a part of almost everyone’s life. They entertain us, teach us lessons, and even help us socialize by giving us topics to talk about with others. As long as movies have been produced, everyone has patronized them.  Essays about movies  are a great way to learn all about the meaning behind the picture.

Cinema is an art form in itself. The lighting, camera work, and acting in the most widely acclaimed movies are worthy of praise. Furthermore, a movie can be used to send a message, often discussing issues in contemporary society. Movies are entertaining, but more importantly, they are works of art. If you’re interested in this topic, check out our round-up of screenwriters on Instagram .

5 Helpful Essay Examples 

1. the positive effects of movies on human behaviour by ajay rathod, 2. horror movies by emanuel briggs, 3. casablanca – the greatest hollywood movie ever (author unknown).

• 4.  Dune Review: An Old Story Reshaped For The New 2021 Audience by Oren Cohen

5. Blockbuster movies create booms for tourism — and headaches for locals by Shubhangi Goel

• 6. Moonage Daydream: “Who Is He? What Is He?” by Jonathan Romney
• 7. La Bamba: American Dreaming, Chicano Style by Yolanda Machado

1. My Favorite Movie

2. movies genres, 3. special effects in movies, 4. what do you look for in a movie, 5. the evolution of movies.

“​​Films encourage us to take action. Our favourite characters, superheroes, teach us life lessons. They give us ideas and inspiration to do everything for the better instead of just sitting around, waiting for things to go their way. Films about famous personalities are the perfect way to affect social behaviour positively. Films are a source of knowledge. They can help learn what’s in the trend, find out more about ancient times, or fill out some knowledge gaps.”

In this movie essay, Rathod gives readers three ways watching movies can positively affect us. Movie writers, producers, and directors use their platform to teach viewers life skills, the importance of education, and the contrast between good and evil. Watching movies can also help us improve critical thinking, according to Briggs. Not only do movies entertain us, but they also have many educational benefits. You might also be interested in these  essays about consumerism .

“Many people involving children and adults can effect with their sleeping disturbance and anxiety. Myths, non-realistic, fairy tales could respond differently with being in the real world. Horror movies bring a lot of excitement and entertainment among you and your family. Horror movies can cause physical behavior changes in a person by watching the films. The results of watching horror movies shows that is has really effect people whether you’re an adult, teens, and most likely happens during your childhood.”

In his essay, Briggs acknowledges why people enjoy horror movies so much but warns of their adverse effects on viewers. Most commonly, they cause viewers nightmares, which may cause anxiety and sleep disorders. He focuses on the films’ effects on children, whose more sensitive, less developed brains may respond with worse symptoms, including major trauma. The films can affect all people negatively, but children are the most affected.

“This was the message of Casablanca in late 1942. It was the ideal opportunity for America to utilize its muscles and enter the battle. America was to end up the hesitant gatekeeper of the entire world. The characters of Casablanca, similar to the youthful Americans of the 1960s who stick headed the challenge development, are ‘genuine Americans’ lost in a hostile region, battling to open up another reality.”

In this essay, the author discusses the 1942 film  Casablanca , which is said to be the greatest movie ever made, and explains why it has gotten this reputation. To an extent, the film’s storyline, acting, and even relatability (it was set during World War II) allowed it to shine from its release until the present. It invokes feelings of bravery, passion, and nostalgia, which is why many love the movie. You can also check out these  books about adaption . 

4.   Dune Review: An Old Story Reshaped For The New 2021 Audience by Oren Cohen

“Lady Jessica is a powerful woman in the original book, yet her interactions with Paul diminish her as he thinks of her as slow of thought. Something we don’t like to see in 2021 — and for a good reason. Every book is a product of its time, and every great storyteller knows how to adapt an old story to a new audience. I believe Villeneuve received a lot of hate from diehard Dune fans for making these changes, but I fully support him.”

Like the previous essay, Cohen reviews a film, in this case, Denis Villeneuve’s  Dune , released in 2021. He praises the film, writing about its accurate portrayal of the epic’s vast, dramatic scale, music, and, interestingly, its ability to portray the characters in a way more palatable to contemporary audiences while staying somewhat faithful to the author’s original vision. Cohen enjoyed the movie thoroughly, saying that the movie did the book justice. 

“Those travelers added around 630 million New Zealand dollars ($437 million) to the country’s economy in 2019 alone, the tourism authority told CNBC. A survey by the tourism board, however, showed that almost one in five Kiwis are worried that the country attracts too many tourists. Overcrowding at tourist spots, lack of infrastructure, road congestion and environmental damage are creating tension between locals and visitors, according to a 2019 report by Tourism New Zealand.”

The locations where successful movies are filmed often become tourist destinations for fans of those movies. Goel writes about how “film tourism” affects the residents of popular filming locations. The environment is sometimes damaged, and the locals are caught off guard. Though this is not always the case, film tourism is detrimental to the residents and ecosystem of these locations. You can also check out these  essays about The Great Gatsby .

6. Moonage Daydream:  “Who Is He? What Is He?” by Jonathan Romney

“Right from the start, Brett Morgen’s  Moonage Daydream  (2022) catches us off guard. It begins with an epigraph musing on Friedrich Nietzsche’s proclamation that “God is dead,” then takes us into deep space and onto the surface of the moon. It then unleashes an image storm of rockets, robots, and star-gazers, and rapid-fire fragments of early silent cinema, 1920s science fiction, fifties cartoons, and sixties and seventies newsreel footage, before lingering on a close-up of glittery varnish on fingernails.” 

Moonage Daydream  is a feature film containing never-before-seen footage of David Bowie. In this essay, Romney delves into the process behind creating the movie and how the footage was captured. It also looks at the director’s approach to creating a structured and cohesive film, which took over two years to plan. This essay looks at how Bowie’s essence was captured and preserved in this movie while displaying the intricacies of his mind.

7. La Bamba:  American Dreaming, Chicano Style by Yolanda Machado

“A traumatic memory, awash in hazy neutral tones, arising as a nightmare. Santo & Johnny’s mournful “Sleep Walk” playing. A sudden death, foreshadowing the passing of a star far too young. The opening sequence of Luis Valdez’s  La Bamba  (1987) feels like it could be from another film—what follows is largely a celebration of life and music.”

La Bamba  is a well-known movie about a teenage Mexican migrant who became a rock ‘n’ roll star. His rise to fame is filled with difficult social dynamics, and the star tragically dies in a plane crash at a young age. In this essay, Machado looks at how the tragic death of the star is presented to the viewer, foreshadowing the passing of the young star before flashing back to the beginning of the star’s career. Machado analyses the storyline and directing style, commenting on the detailed depiction of the young star’s life. It’s an in-depth essay that covers everything from plot to writing style to direction.

5 Prompts for Essays About Movies

Simple and straightforward, write about your favorite movie. Explain its premise, characters, and plot, and elaborate on some of the driving messages and themes behind the film. You should also explain why you enjoy the movie so much: what impact does it have on you? Finally, answer this question in your own words for an engaging piece of writing.

From horror to romance, movies can fall into many categories. Choose one of the main genres in cinema and discuss the characteristics of movies under that category. Explain prevalent themes, symbols, and motifs, and give examples of movies belonging to your chosen genre. For example, horror movies often have underlying themes such as mental health issues, trauma, and relationships falling apart. 

Without a doubt, special effects in movies have improved drastically. Both practical and computer-generated effects produce outstanding, detailed effects to depict situations most would consider unfathomable, such as the vast space battles of the  Star Wars  movies. Write about the development of special effects over the years, citing evidence to support your writing. Be sure to detail key highlights in the history of special effects. 

Movies are always made to be appreciated by viewers, but whether or not they enjoy them varies, depending on their preferences. In your essay, write about what you look for in a “good” movie in terms of plot, characters, dialogue, or anything else. You need not go too in-depth but explain your answers adequately. In your opinion, you can use your favorite movie as an example by writing about the key characteristics that make it a great movie.

From the silent black-and-white movies of the early 1900s to the vivid, high-definition movies of today, times have changed concerning movies. Write about how the film industry has improved over time. If this topic seems too broad, feel free to focus on one aspect, such as cinematography, themes, or acting.

For help with your essays, check out our round-up of the  best essay checkers .

If you’re looking for more ideas, check out our  essays about music topic guide !

Meet Rachael, the editor at Become a Writer Today. With years of experience in the field, she is passionate about language and dedicated to producing high-quality content that engages and informs readers. When she's not editing or writing, you can find her exploring the great outdoors, finding inspiration for her next project.

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100+ Movie Genres. The Definitive List, with Examples

Movie genres have evolved alongside the movie industry itself. In the early days of Hollywood filmmaking, the limited number of movie genres had distinct and clear definitions. It was easy to categorize releases based on their subject and style into specific movie genres.

Today, movie genres are more numerous and less rigid, with the emergence of hybrid and crossover movies. Filmmakers experiment with genre theory and play with audience expectations to tell stories in innovative ways.

Understanding movie genres is crucial in discussing movie theory and aids in comparing genre elements and the work of filmmakers during critical analysis of movies. We'll provide you with an introduction to movie genres and explain their significance before delving into a comprehensive list of movie genres, including important subgenres.

What are movie genres?

Film genres categorize a film based on content and style. They address what story is being told and how it's being told, impacting several elements:

Movies often blend genres, creating mixed or hybrid styles. The primary genre indicates the movie's main classification, while subgenres provide more specific distinctions or combine elements of different genres, like an action-thriller.

For example, a science-fiction thriller with horror elements in the style of a heist movie suggests a Sci-Fi setting, thriller-like suspense, horror-like shock, and a plot involving a specialized team executing a task. Such classifications help in understanding the movie's narrative style and thematic focus.

Why categorize movies into genres?

While a personal approach to sorting movies might be as simple as those seen and those yet to see, or liked versus disliked, this binary method overlooks many defining aspects of movies. Categorizing movies into genres provides a basic characterization and helps group similar movies together. This organization into basic film genres aids in navigating the vast landscape of cinema, offering a starting point for exploring different styles, themes, and storytelling techniques.

Movie genres aid viewers in discovering new films, particularly through browsing on streaming platforms. Critics utilize genres to compare movies and assess artistic elements like cinematography within genre contexts. Additionally, genres and subgenres enable broader discussions about the history and theory of moviemaking, enriching our understanding and appreciation of films.

Basic movie genres

From Hollywood's inception and the dawn of cinema, certain foundational genres have shaped the film industry. These film genres, originally rooted in live-action filmmaking, set the stage for storytelling through motion pictures. With the advent of advanced special effects and animation technology, new genres like animation emerged, expanding the cinematic landscape.

The big genre list: an overview of movie genres and subgenres

We've organized our movie genre list into a tree structure with major movie genres as branches, from which the subgenres branch off further. We'll walk you through each genre, highlighting their key features, must-watch titles, and standout filmmakers.

The action genre is all about excitement: think edge-of-your-seat chases, explosive stunts, and nail-biting danger. It's a realm where movies are defined by their high-energy scenes, often branching into subgenres like martial arts or military adventures.

Known for their big budgets, action films are where you'll find jaw-dropping explosions and intricate stunts. Directors like James Cameron, known for hits like "Terminator," along with John Woo, Michael Mann, Kathryn Bigelow, and Michael Bay, have mastered this thrilling genre.

In action cinema, there's always more to explore with its various subgenres and hybrids, each offering a unique flavor of adrenaline-pumping excitement. The action genre continues to evolve, consistently captivating audiences with its dynamic blend of spectacle and storytelling.

The action genre comprises several subgenres and hybrid genres:

Animation is a diverse movie genre, where the magic lies in bringing inanimate objects to life through various techniques, each forming a unique subgenre.

CGI (Computer-Generated Imagery): Dominating modern animation, CGI creates vibrant worlds through advanced computer rendering. These films, often significant in production time and cost, include classics like the Toy Story franchise, The Lego Movie , Wall-E , Ratatouille , Shrek , Frozen , Coco , and Luca .

Claymation and Stop Motion: This technique breathes life into objects through frame-by-frame adjustment in still photography. Claymation, a subset, uses clay-crafted characters and settings. Notable films include Chicken Run , Early Man , The Fantastic Mr. Fox , Isle of Dogs , and The Nightmare Before Christmas .

Cutout Animation: Once relying on physical cutouts, this style now often blends with CGI. Its distinct look is showcased in films like South Park: Bigger, Longer, & Uncut and The Beatles - Yellow Submarine .

Traditional Drawn Animation: This classic style features hand-drawn frames and painted backgrounds, exemplified by early Disney films like Fantasia and Beauty and the Beast , as well as Studio Ghibli's My Neighbor Totoro and Persepolis .

Live-Action Hybrid: These films mix real actors with animated elements, creating a unique crossover. Examples include Waltz with Bashir , Space Jam , Who Framed Roger Rabbit? , The Mask , Casper , Looney Tunes: Back in Action , the 1978 animated The Lord of the Rings , Waking Life , and A Scanner Darkly .

Puppet Animation: Utilizing various puppetry forms, from marionettes to shadow puppets, this subgenre includes films like Eraserhead , Labyrinth , Street of Crocodiles , The Muppet Christmas Carol , and Team America: World Police .

The comedy genre, with its wide range of humor, from simple dad jokes to sophisticated satire and dark wit, is one of the most versatile film genres. The comedy genre is a playground for creativity, offering filmmakers the flexibility to blend humor with other themes and styles.

Black or Dark Comedy: This subgenre tackles taboo topics like death or tragedy with humor. Examples of dark comedy movies include Dr. Strangelove , In Bruges , Parasite , and Fargo .

Buddy Comedy: Here, the comedy arises from the dynamics between two or more characters, whether they share a deep friendship or a love-hate relationship. It can blend with action or the Hangout genre, as seen in Dumb and Dumber and The Hangover .

Hangout Movies: These films focus on a group of characters whose interactions bring the laughs. They become almost like friends to the audience Examples include The Big Lebowski , Clerks , and The Breakfast Club .

Parody and Spoof: Parodies mock specific films, like Spaceballs does with Star Wars , while spoofs target entire movie genres, such as The Naked Gun with police movies and Scary Movie with the horror genre.

Prank Movies: These involve putting people in unexpected, often outrageous situations, typically without their knowledge. Borat and the Jackass series are key examples of prank comedy movies.

Satire: Satire humorously criticizes broader concepts or institutions, often through exaggeration. Examples include Natural Born Killers and Monty Python's Life of Brian , with mockumentaries like This is Spinal Tap using a documentary format for humor.

Slapstick Comedy: Originating in vaudeville, slapstick comedy relies on physical humor and gags, demonstrated by classics like Charlie Chaplin and The Three Stooges , and modern films like Ace Ventura and Home Alone .

Screwball Comedy: Evolving from slapstick, this romantic comedy subgenre often features a strong, quirky female lead challenging a male protagonist. Classic examples include It Happened One Night and The Philadelphia Story , with modern takes evident in films like She's Funny That Way .

The crime movie genre delves into the world of criminal activities, legal battles, and moral complexities. It explores themes from the classic good vs. evil to the gray areas of morality, often making heroes out of underdogs or even the 'bad guys' in gangster films.

Cop Movies: These focus on police protagonists, sometimes paired with partners, blending with buddy films. They can be action-packed or comedic, like Beverly Hills Cop and Lethal Weapon .

Crime Drama: This subgenre centers on legal proceedings and courtroom battles, often with a mix of detective work. Key examples include A Few Good Men and Erin Brockovich , where the climax often hinges on a pivotal court decision.

Crime Thriller: Combining crime with the intensity of a thriller, this subgenre can have psychological twists or action-packed revenge plots, as seen in John Wick and The Equalizer .

Detective and Whodunnit: Centered around an investigation, these films often feature an unlikely hero uncovering mysteries. Classics like L.A. Confidential and The Silence of the Lambs fall into this category, offering either a hidden perpetrator or a crime followed by an investigation.

Gangster Films: Focusing on organized crime, these movies showcase the life of gangs or the efforts to bring them down. Examples include GoodFellas and The Departed .

Hardboiled: A specific type of detective film, often set in the film noir era, featuring a cynical detective. Films like The Maltese Falcon and Chinatown exemplify this style.

Heist and Caper: These films revolve around elaborate plans like heists or prison breaks, blending humor and seriousness. They feature masterminds and complex plots, as seen in Ocean's Eleven and The Sting .

Documentary

Documentaries are the non-fiction storytellers of cinema, educating and informing through real-life events and facts. As a movie genre, they come in various styles and subgenres, each offering a unique perspective on the world.

Expository Documentary: These straightforward documentaries present information directly, often narrated, combining historical footage with modern interviews and expert insights. Notable examples include The Blue Planet , March of the Penguins , and An Inconvenient Truth .

Observational Documentary: Focusing on close, unobtrusive observation, these films offer a firsthand look at their subjects with minimal commentary. Examples are Hoop Dreams and The Monastery: Mr. Vig and the Nun .

Poetic Documentary: More abstract, these films are like visual essays, expressing feelings and ideas through creative compositions. Films like Koyaanisqatsi and Voyage of Time fit this style.

Participatory Documentary: The filmmaker plays a role in the narrative, either through commentary or direct involvement. Michael Moore's works exemplify this style, as do films like Free Solo and Paris Is Burning .

Reflexive Documentary: These are personal investigations, often focusing on the filmmaker's discovery of the subject. Examples include Man with a Movie Camera and Biggie & Tupac .

Performative Documentary: Similar to participatory, these focus on subjective experiences and emotional responses, as seen in Bowling for Columbine and The Thin Blue Line .

Dramas, known for their deep exploration of conflict and emotions, truly shine in the drama genre, offering a vivid reflection of human experiences and complexities. They bring to life pivotal moments with a focus on authenticity and human nature, rather than relying on sensational action.

Docudrama: Merging drama with documentary, these films recreate real events with accuracy, like Sully and 127 Hours , providing a factual yet dramatic portrayal.

Melodrama: Aiming to evoke intense emotions, melodramas often place narrative above character development, and are known for their moral narratives, as seen in The Fault in Our Stars and Life is Beautiful .

Teen Drama: These films focus on the trials and tribulations of teenage life, capturing the essence of growing up, with examples like Virgin Suicides and Mid90s .

Medical Drama: Set in the world of healthcare, these dramas explore the lives, conflicts, and ethical dilemmas of medical professionals, as showcased in Bringing Out The Dead .

Legal Drama: Revolving around the legal arena, these dramas delve into the interactions and challenges within the legal system, with films like The Practice and The Firm .

Religious Drama: Tackling themes and conflicts arising from religion or supernatural events, these films often delve into deeper philosophical and spiritual issues, as seen in Silence and The Passion of the Christ .

Sports Drama: Centered on athletes, coaches, or teams, these films explore the dramatic world of sports and the personal struggles of those involved, with movies like Creed and The Blind Side .

Political Drama: Set against the backdrop of political intrigue, these dramas explore the lives and challenges of politicians, elections, and diplomacy, with films like Primary Colors and Argo .

Anthropological Drama: Focusing on human behavior and societal interactions, these films draw drama from real-life social dynamics, as depicted in City of God and In A Savage Land .

Philosophical Drama: Delving into existential themes and the human condition, these films tackle profound philosophical questions, as seen in The Fountain and Waking Life .

The fantasy genre, with its boundless imagination, stands out in the cinematic world. It brings to life the incredible, featuring fictional universes, magical elements, and mythical beings. This genre is a canvas for the extraordinary, where anything is possible, and the fantasy genre continually captivates audiences with its unique blend of escapism and wonder.

Contemporary and Urban Fantasy: This subgenre blends fantasy with modern settings. Urban fantasy specifically focuses on cities, often with supernatural beings like vampires or werewolves. Films like Meet Joe Black , Interview With The Vampire , and Ghostbusters are prime examples.

Epic Fantasy: Also known as high fantasy, this subgenre immerses viewers in fully-realized worlds, complete with rich lore and fantastical creatures. Examples include Harry Potter , The Lord Of The Rings , and Avatar .

Fairy Tale: These films range from traditional fairy tales to modern adaptations with magical elements and often a 'happily ever after' ending, such as The Princess Bride , Mary Poppins , and Cinderella .

Dark Fantasy: Combining real-world settings with menacing fantasy elements, this subgenre of the fantasy genre includes films like Pan's Labyrinth and A Monster Calls , where reality meets the hauntingly fantastical.

Among movie genres, the historical genre stands out for its blend of truth and fiction, taking viewers back in time to real or accurately depicted settings and eras.

Historical Film: These films can span various styles, from drama to action or romance. They often center around significant historical events, periods, or figures, providing context and storytelling that may not always be entirely factual. Examples include Apollo 13 , Lincoln , Ben-Hur , and Titanic .

Period Film: Similar to historical films but without the reliance on real-life characters, period dramas focus on specific time periods, prioritizing accurate depiction over factual narratives. Films like The Age of Innocence and Little Women are quintessential period films.

Alternate History: This subgenre creatively reimagines historical events, offering speculative twists on crucial moments in history. It can merge elements of fantasy and science fiction, as seen in Inglourious Basterds and Once Upon A Time In Hollywood .

Biography (Biopic): Biopics tell the life story or a significant part of a historical figure, often dramatizing events for cinematic effect. While they aim to be informative, they sometimes take liberties with historical accuracy. Notable biopics include A Beautiful Mind , The Social Network , and Bohemian Rhapsody .

Within the diverse array of movie genres, the horror genre uniquely captivates with its blend of terrifying events, creatures, and stories. Horror films continually evolve, with filmmakers exploring new ways to unsettle and frighten audiences, pushing the boundaries of what can be achieved in this spine-chilling genre.

Ghost: In horror films featuring ghosts, spirits return from the afterlife to haunt, as seen in The Others , The Frighteners , and The Sixth Sense .

Zombie: Horror movies about zombies bring apocalyptic scenarios to life, with classics like Night Of The Living Dead , 28 Days Later , and the humorous take in Zombieland .

Werewolf: The transformation under the moonlight leads to thrilling werewolf tales in The Wolfman , American Werewolf , and Underworld .

Vampire: Long-fanged nocturnal creatures are central in vampire horror films, from the eerie Nosferatu to the comedic What We Do in the Shadows .

Monster: A category of horror movie for all other terrifying creatures, with movies like The Thing , Alien , and Chucky .

Slasher: A horror genre staple, featuring antagonists who terrorize communities, as seen in Psycho , Scream , and Halloween .

Splatter and Gore: Emphasizing the gruesome and bloody, films like Braindead and Hellraiser have defined this subgenre.

Body Horror: This type of horror movie concentrates on the grotesque aspects of the human body, offering unique frights in films like The Fly and The Human Centipede .

Folk Horror: Often set in rural areas, these films explore unknown terrors, with Children Of The Corn and Midsommar as examples.

Occult: Delving into hidden and paranormal horrors, this subgenre of the horror genre includes The Exorcist , Hereditary , and Rosemary's Baby .

Found Footage: Creating an illusion of reality, films like The Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity use supposedly 'recovered' footage to enhance their scares.

Outbreak: Exploring global pandemics and diseases, movies like The Stand and Contagion tap into widespread fears of contagion and collapse.

Music Film and Musical

Musicals stand out for their unique blend of storytelling, song, and dance. When characters spontaneously burst into song, often accompanied by a chorus and elaborate dance numbers, you're watching a musical film. This movie genre ranges from adaptations of beloved Broadway shows to original creations filled with dazzling choreography and special effects. The music in these films isn't just for show; it's woven into the narrative, offering deeper insights into the characters, each with their own signature songs.

The genre's diversity is evident in its rich history, with classics like My Fair Lady and The Wizard of Oz , cult favorites like Rocky Horror Picture Show , timeless treasures like The Sound of Music , and modern hits including In The Heights , Mamma Mia! , Grease , Les Miserables , Chicago , and La La Land . Other notable examples span various approaches, such as Moonwalker , 8 Women , Pitch Perfect , The Muppets , and Sing Street .

The romance genre is particularly notable for exploring love, relationships, intimacy, and deep connections. Often intertwining with drama and comedy, romance movies are fundamentally about lovers, passion, and the journey of relationships. This movie genre, with its wide emotional spectrum and universal themes, continues to enchant and resonate with audiences worldwide.

Historical Romance: These films, set in distinct time periods, showcase how historical contexts influence the pursuit of love and relationships. Classics like Gone with the Wind , Titanic , and Doctor Zhivago exemplify this subgenre.

Regency Romance: A subset of historical romance set during the British Regency or the early 19th century, often focusing on the upper class. These films are known for their luxurious settings, elaborate costumes, and eloquent language, as seen in Emma , Persuasion , and Northanger Abbey .

Romantic Drama: Diving deeper into the complexities of relationships, the romantic drama explores themes of loss, separation, and infidelity, with films like Casablanca , The English Patient , and Marriage Story .

Romantic Comedy: Perhaps the most popular subgenre of the romance genre, the romantic comedy blends humor with heartwarming narratives, often leading to a happily ever after. Films like Some Like It Hot , Love Actually , and Notting Hill are beloved examples.

Chick Flick: While often marketed towards women, these romance movies have a broad appeal, characterized by dreamy narratives and emotional depth. Titles like Pretty Woman , Romeo + Juliet , and The Notebook are perfect for a night in with ice cream and tissues.

Fantasy Romance: Combining elements of fantasy with love stories, this subgenre sets epic romances against a backdrop of fantastical worlds, as seen in The Twilight Saga , Warm Bodies , and I Am Dragon .

Science Fiction

Science fiction, often shortened to Sci-Fi, is a film genre that has long fascinated viewers with its explorations of space, the speculative, and the future. Sci-fi movies delve into themes like advanced technology, artificial intelligence, outer space exploration, time travel, and alien life, often examining humanity's role in the universe.

Space Opera or Epic Sci-Fi: This subgenre of science fiction combines elements of comedy, romance, adventure, and space exploration, seen in epic sagas like Star Wars , The Fifth Element , and Dune .

Utopia: These films explore seemingly perfect societies that often hide darker truths or dystopian elements, prompting a need for change or revolution. Utopian sci-fi movies include Gattaca , Tomorrowland , and The Truman Show .

Dystopia: The flip side of utopia, dystopian films depict societies marked by struggle, oppression, and bleak futures, featuring centralized governments or AI dominance. Notable films include Blade Runner , The Matrix , and Mad Max .

Contemporary Sci-Fi: Set in the present or near future, this subgenre introduces a major science fiction element, like a groundbreaking scientific discovery or alien contact, into a familiar setting. Films such as Arrival and Ex Machina are prime examples.

Cyberpunk: This science fiction subgenre paints a picture of a high-tech, often grim future with themes of cybernetics, virtual reality, and AI, seen in Blade Runner 2049 and Minority Report .

Steampunk: A unique twist on cyberpunk, steampunk is set in the world of the 19th century, blending steam-powered technology with futuristic concepts, as seen in Howl's Moving Castle and Mortal Engines .

Thrillers are a diverse and engaging movie genre, captivating audiences with suspense, heightened emotions, and a sense of imminent danger. The thriller genre is all about the thrill of the chase, the tension of the unknown, and characters facing off against formidable opponents, whether they are concrete or abstract. The thriller genre excels in keeping viewers on the edge of their seats, often blending with other genres, leading to exciting hybrids like action-thrillers, adventure-thrillers, or fantasy-thrillers.

Psychological Thriller: Here, the focus is on the mental and emotional states of the characters. These films often involve mysterious circumstances, paranoia, and extreme actions, sometimes leading to murder. Films like Vertigo , Gone Girl , and Shutter Island are exemplary of this subgenre.

Mystery: Often centered around a crime or murder, mystery thrillers engage the audience in a quest for answers, without necessarily involving law enforcement. These films, like Knives Out and Memento , keep viewers on the edge of their seats, eager to unravel the mystery.

Film Noir: Characterized by its style as much as its content, film noir emerged in the 1940s and 1950s. These black-and-white films feature crime, moral ambiguity, stark lighting contrasts, narrative monologues, and femme fatales. Classics include Double Indemnity and Sunset Boulevard . Neo-noir, a modern iteration, maintains the style of film noir but adds complexity and modern elements, as seen in Pulp Fiction and Taxi Driver .

War movies, as a movie genre, are known for their depiction of large-scale conflicts and the realities of war, making the battlefield itself a central character or theme. These films often intersect with other genres like military action, historical drama, science fiction, and even the thriller genre, offering diverse storytelling perspectives and heightened emotional stakes. Action films, in particular, frequently draw inspiration from war movies, incorporating intense battle scenes and high-stakes scenarios.

Movies like 1917 and Dunkirk immerse viewers in the intensity of war, while Platoon and All Quiet On The Western Front explore the deeper aspects of conflict. The Thin Red Line and Pearl Harbor blend historical drama with the raw emotions of war. Films like Full Metal Jacket and Jarhead provide a closer look at the life of soldiers, and 300 showcases a blend of war with fantasy elements. Each of these films contributes to the rich and varied tapestry of the war movie genre, offering insights into the complexities and human experiences within the context of war.

Among the various film genres, the Western genre stands out with its distinct setting and time period, primarily focusing on the American West during the 19th century. This film genre is rich with elements like horse riding, cattle farming, military expansion, encounters with Native Americans, settlers' stories, railway construction, and, of course, the iconic gunfights and duels.

Classic Western movies like The Searchers , Stagecoach , and Red River showcase these elements beautifully. The Western genre often features outlaws and criminals, matched by marshals, lawmen, or bounty hunters, and is ripe with revenge plots and stories highlighting righteous protagonists. Revisionist Westerns aim to reinterpret the traditional narratives of the genre.

Spaghetti Westerns, so named for their Italian filmmaking roots or production in Italy, hold a special place in the Western genre. Some of the most acclaimed Westerns belong to this category, including Django , A Fistful of Dollars , and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly .

Modern Western movies bring fresh perspectives and filmmaking techniques to this historical Hollywood genre, revitalizing it with new storytelling methods while honoring its rich legacy. Films like Unforgiven , Dances with Wolves , and Django Unchained , along with No Country For Old Men and The Hateful Eight , demonstrate how the Western continues to evolve and captivate audiences.

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How to Write a Film Analysis Essay: Examples, Outline, & Tips

A film analysis essay might be the most exciting assignment you have ever had! After all, who doesn’t love watching movies? You have your favorite movies, maybe something you watched years ago, perhaps a classic, or a documentary. Or your professor might assign a film for you to make a critical review. Regardless, you are totally up for watching a movie for a film analysis essay.

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However, once you have watched the movie, facing the act of writing might knock the wind out of your sails because you might be wondering how to write a film analysis essay. In summary, writing movie analysis is not as difficult as it might seem, and Custom-writing.org experts will prove this. This guide will help you choose a topic for your movie analysis, make an outline, and write the text.️ Film analysis examples are added as a bonus! Just keep reading our advice on how to get started.

❓ What Is a Film Analysis Essay?

• 🚦 Film Analysis Types

📽️ Movie Analysis Format

✍️ how to write a film analysis, 🎦 film analysis template, 🎬 film analysis essay topics.

• 📄 Essay Examples

🔗 References

To put it simply, film analysis implies watching a movie and then considering its characteristics : genre, structure, contextual context, etc. Film analysis is usually considered to be a form of rhetorical analysis . The key to success here is to formulate a clear and logical argument, supporting it with examples.

🚦 Film Analysis Essay Types

Since a film analysis essay resembles literature analysis, it makes sense that there are several ways to do it. Its types are not limited to the ones described here. Moreover, you are free to combine the approaches in your essay as well. Since your writing reflects your own opinion, there is no universal way to do it.

• Semiotic analysis . If you’re using this approach, you are expected to interpret the film’s symbolism. You should look for any signs that may have a hidden meaning. Often, they reveal some character’s features. To make the task more manageable, you can try to find the objects or concepts that appear on the screen multiple times. What is the context they appear in? It might lead you to the hidden meaning of the symbols.
• Narrative structure analysis . This type is quite similar to a typical literature guide. It includes looking into the film’s themes, plot, and motives. The analysis aims to identify three main elements: setup, confrontation, and resolution. You should find out whether the film follows this structure and what effect it creates. It will make the narrative structure analysis essay if you write about the theme and characters’ motivations as well.
• Contextual analysis . Here, you would need to expand your perspective. Instead of focusing on inner elements, the contextual analysis looks at the time and place of the film’s creation. Therefore, you should work on studying the cultural context a lot. It can also be a good idea to mention the main socio-political issues of the time. You can even relate the film’s success to the director or producer and their career.
• Mise-en-scene analysis . This type of analysis works with the most distinctive feature of the movies, audiovisual elements. However, don’t forget that your task is not only to identify them but also to explain their importance. There are so many interconnected pieces of this puzzle: the light to create the mood, the props to show off characters’ personalities, messages hidden in the song lyrics.

To write an effective film analysis essay, it is important to follow specific format requirements that include the following:

• Standard essay structure. Just as with any essay, your analysis should consist of an introduction with a strong thesis statement, body paragraphs, and a conclusion. The main body usually includes a summary and an analysis of the movie’s elements.
• Present tense for events in the film. Use the present tense when describing everything that happens in the movie. This way, you can make smooth transitions between describing action and dialogue. It will also improve the overall narrative flow.
• Proper formatting of the film’s title. Don’t enclose the movie’s title in quotation marks; instead, italicize it. In addition, use the title case : that is, capitalize all major words.
• Proper use of the characters’ names. When you mention a film character for the first time, name the actor portraying them. After that, it is enough to write only the character’s name.
• In-text citations. Use in-text citations when describing certain scenes or shots from the movie. Format them according to your chosen citation style. If you use direct quotes, include the time-stamp range instead of page numbers. Here’s how it looks in the MLA format: (Smith 0:11:24–0:12:35).

Even though film analysis is similar to the literary one, you might still feel confused with where to begin. No need to worry; there are only a few additional steps you need to consider during the writing process.

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Starting Your Film Analysis Essay

There are several things you need to do before you start writing your film analysis paper. First and foremost, you have to watch the movie. Even if you have seen it a hundred times, you need to watch it again to make a good film analysis essay.

Note that you might be given an essay topic or have to think of it by yourself. If you are free to choose a topic for your film analysis essay, reading some critical reviews before you watch the film might be a good idea. By doing this in advance, you will already know what to look for when watching the movie.

In the process of watching, keep the following tips in mind:

• Consider your impression of the movie
• Enumerate memorable details
• Try to interpret the movie message in your way
• Search for the proof of your ideas (quotes from the film)
• Make comments on the plot, settings, and characters
• Draw parallels between the movie you are reviewing and some other movies

Making a Film Analysis Essay Outline

Once you have watched and possibly re-watched your assigned or chosen movie from an analytical point of view, you will need to create a movie analysis essay outline . The task is pretty straightforward: the outline can look just as if you were working on a literary analysis or an article analysis.

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• Introduction : This includes the basics of the movie, including the title, director, and the date of release. You should also present the central theme or ideas in the movie and your thesis statement .
• Summary : This is where you take the time to present an overview of the primary concepts in the movie, including the five Ws (who, what, when, where, and why)—don’t forget how!—as well as anything you wish to discuss that relates to the point of view, style, and structure.
• Analysis : This is the body of the essay and includes your critical analysis of the movie, why you did or did not like it, and any supporting material from the film to support your views. It would help if you also discussed whether the director and writer of the movie achieved the goal they set out to achieve.
• Conclusion: This is where you can state your thesis again and provide a summary of the primary concepts in a new and more convincing manner, making a case for your analysis. You can also include a call-to-action that will invite the reader to watch the movie or avoid it entirely.

You can find a great critical analysis template at Thompson Rivers University website. In case you need more guidance on how to write an analytical paper, check out our article .

Writing & Editing Your Film Analysis Essay

We have already mentioned that there are differences between literary analysis and film analysis. They become especially important when one starts writing their film analysis essay.

First of all, the evidence you include to support the arguments is not the same. Instead of quoting the text, you might need to describe the audiovisual elements.

However, the practice of describing the events is similar in both types. You should always introduce a particular sequence in the present tense. If you want to use a piece of a dialogue between more than two film characters, you can use block quotes. However, since there are different ways to do it, confirm with your supervisor.

For your convenience, you might as well use the format of the script, for which you don’t have to use quotation marks:

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ELSA: But she won’t remember I have powers?

KING: It’s for the best.

Finally, to show off your proficiency in the subject, look at the big picture. Instead of just presenting the main elements in your analysis, point out their significance. Describe the effect they make on the overall impression form the film. Moreover, you can dig deeper and suggest the reasons why such elements were used in a particular scene to show your expertise.

Stuck writing a film analysis essay? Worry not! Use our template to structure your movie analysis properly.

Introduction

• The title of the film is… [title]
• The director is… [director’s name] He/she is known for… [movies, style, etc.]
• The movie was released on… [release date]
• The themes of the movie are… [state the film’s central ideas]
• The film was made because… [state the reasons]
• The movie is… because… [your thesis statement].
• The main characters are… [characters’ names]
• The events take place in… [location]
• The movie is set in… [time period]
• The movie is about… [state what happens in the film and why]
• The movie left a… [bad, unforgettable, lasting, etc.] impression in me.
• The script has… [a logical sequence of events, interesting scenes, strong dialogues, character development, etc.]
• The actors portray their characters… [convincingly, with intensity, with varying degree of success, in a manner that feels unnatural, etc.]
• The soundtrack is [distracting, fitting, memorable, etc.]
• Visual elements such as… [costumes, special effects, etc.] make the film [impressive, more authentic, atmospheric, etc.]
• The film succeeds/doesn’t succeed in engaging the target audience because it… [tells a compelling story, features strong performances, is relevant, lacks focus, is unauthentic, etc.]
• Cultural and societal aspects make the film… [thought-provoking, relevant, insightful, problematic, polarizing, etc.]
• The director and writer achieved their goal because… [state the reasons]
• Overall, the film is… [state your opinion]
• I would/wouldn’t recommend watching the movie because… [state the reasons]
• Analysis of the film Inception by Christopher Nolan .
• Examine the rhetoric in the film The Red Balloon .
• Analyze the visual effects of Zhang Yimou’s movie Hero .
• Basic concepts of the film Interstellar by Christopher Nolan.
• The characteristic features of Federico Fellini’s movies.
• Analysis of the movie The Joker .
• The depiction of ethical issues in Damaged Care .
• Analyze the plot of the film Moneyball .
• Explore the persuasive techniques used in Henry V .
• Analyze the movie Killing Kennedy .
• Discuss the themes of the film Secret Window .
• Describe the role of audio and video effects in conveying the message of the documentary Life in Renaissance .
• Compare and analyze the films Midnight Cowboy and McCabe and Mrs. Miller .
• Analysis of the movie Rear Window .
• The message behind the film Split .
• Analyze the techniques used by Tim Burton in his movie Sleepy Hollow .
• The topic of children’s abuse and importance of trust in Joseph Sargent’s Sybil .
• Examine the themes and motives of the film Return to Paradise by Joseph Ruben .
• The issues of gender and traditions in the drama The Whale Rider.
• Analysis of the film Not Easily Broken by Duke Bill.
• The symbolism in R. Scott’s movie Thelma and Louise .
• The meaning of audiovisual effects in Citizen Kane .
• Analyze the main characters of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo .
• Discuss the historical accuracy of the documentary The Civil War .
• Analysis of the movie Through a Glass Darkly .
• Explore the core idea of the comedy Get Out .
• The problem of artificial intelligence and human nature in Ex Machina .
• Three principles of suspense used in the drama The Fugitive .
• Examine the ideas Michael Bay promotes in Armageddon .
• Analyze the visual techniques used in Tenet by Christopher Nolan.
• Analysis of the movie The Green Mile .
• Discrimination and exclusion in the film The Higher Learning .
• The hidden meaning of the scenes in Blade Runner .
• Compare the social messages of the films West Side Story and Romeo + Juliet .
• Highlighting the problem of children’s mental health in the documentary Kids in Crisis .
• Discuss the ways Paul Haggis establishes the issue of racial biases in his movie Crash .
• Analyze the problem of moral choice in the film Gone Baby Gone .
• Analysis of the historical film Hacksaw Ridge .
• Explore the main themes of the film Mean Girls by Mark Walters .
• The importance of communication in the movie Juno .
• Describe the techniques the authors use to highlight the problems of society in Queen and Slim .
• Examine the significance of visual scenes in My Family/ Mi Familia .
• Analysis of the thriller Salt by Phillip Noyce.
• Analyze the message of Greg Berlanti’s film Love, Simon .
• Interpret the symbols of the film The Wizard of Oz (1939).
• Discuss the modern issues depicted in the film The Corporation .
• Moral lessons of Edward Zwick’s Blood Diamond .
• Analysis of the documentary Solitary Nation .
• Describe the audiovisual elements of the film Pride and Prejudice (2005) .
• The problem of toxic relationships in Malcolm and Marie .

📄 Film Analysis Examples

Below you’ll find two film analysis essay examples. Note that the full versions are downloadable for free!

Film Analysis Example #1: The Intouchables

Raising acute social problems in modern cinema is a common approach to draw the public’s attention to the specific issues and challenges of people facing crucial obstacles. As a film for review, The Intouchables by Oliver Nakache and Éric Toledano will be analyzed, and one of the themes raised in this movie is the daily struggle of the person with severe disabilities. This movie is a biographical drama with comedy elements. The Intouchables describes the routine life of a French millionaire who is confined to a wheelchair and forced to receive help from his servants. The acquaintance of the disabled person with a young and daring man from Parisian slums changes the lives of both radically. The film shows that for a person with disabilities, recognition as a full member of society is more important than sympathy and compassion, and this message expressed comically raises an essential problem of human loneliness.

Movie Analysis Example #2: Parasite

Parasite is a 2019 South Korean black comedy thriller movie directed by Bong Joon-ho and is the first film with a non-English script to win Best Picture at the Oscars in 2020. With its overwhelming plot and acting, this motion picture retains a long-lasting effect and some kind of shock. The class serves as a backbone and a primary objective of social commentary within the South Korean comedy/thriller (Kench, 2020). Every single element and detail in the movie, including the student’s stone, the contrasting architecture, family names, and characters’ behavior, contribute to the central topic of the universal problem of classism and wealth disparity. The 2020 Oscar-winning movie Parasite (2019) is a phenomenal cinematic portrayal and a critical message to modern society regarding the severe outcomes of the long-established inequalities within capitalism.

Want more examples? Check out this bonus list of 10 film analysis samples. They will help you gain even more inspiration.

• “Miss Representation” Documentary Film Analysis
• “The Patriot”: Historical Film Analysis
• “The Morning Guy” Film Analysis
• 2012′ by Roland Emmerich Film Analysis
• “The Crucible” (1996) Film Analysis
• The Aviator’ by Martin Scorsese Film Analysis
• The “Lions for Lambs” Film Analysis
• Bill Monroe – Father of Bluegrass Music Film Analysis
• Lord of the Rings’ and ‘Harry Potter’ Film Analysis
• Red Tails by George Lucas Film Analysis

Film Analysis Essay FAQ

• Watch the movie or read a detailed plot summary.
• Read others’ film reviews paying attention to details like key characters, movie scenes, background facts.
• Compose a list of ideas about what you’ve learned.
• Organize the selected ideas to create a body of the essay.
• Write an appropriate introduction and conclusion.

The benefits of analyzing a movie are numerous . You get a deeper understanding of the plot and its subtle aspects. You can also get emotional and aesthetic satisfaction. Film analysis enables one to feel like a movie connoisseur.

Here is a possible step by step scenario:

• Think about the general idea that the author probably wanted to convey.
• Consider how the idea was put across: what characters, movie scenes, and details helped in it.
• Study the broader context: the author’s other works, genre essentials, etc.

The definition might be: the process of interpreting a movie’s aspects. The movie is reviewed in terms of details creating the artistic value. A film analysis essay is a paper presenting such a review in a logically structured way.

• Film Analysis – UNC Writing Center
• Film Writing: Sample Analysis // Purdue Writing Lab
• Yale Film Analysis – Yale University
• Film Terms And Topics For Film Analysis And Writing
• Questions for Film Analysis (Washington University)
• Resources on Film Analysis – Cinema Studies (University of Toronto)
• Does Film Analysis Take the Magic out of Movies?
• Film Analysis Research Papers – Academia.edu
• What’s In a Film Analysis Essay? Medium
• Analysis of Film – SAGE Research Methods
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Genre Conventions — The Building Blocks of Genre Storytelling

M ost movies can be characterized as being one genre or the other. If the plot involves a love triangle, that’s most likely romance. If the plot is about a space marine, it’s most likely science-fiction. If the plot involves a group of kids running away from a monster, that’s probably horror. The things that make up the conventions of a genre, also known as genre conventions. What are genre conventions, you ask? You’ll soon be getting an answer via definition, along with plenty of examples.

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Genre Conventions Definition

Defining genre conventions.

We want to provide a brief genre conventions definition before really digging into what they mean and how they are utilized. Conventions of a genre can be used in a lot of different ways, so a straightforward understanding of the basic concept is a must.

GENRE CONVENTIONS DEFINITION

What are genre conventions.

Genre conventions are elements, themes, topics, tropes, characters, situations, and plot beats that are common in specific genres. Genre conventions are what make certain stories the genre that they are. This is why conventions of a genre are made up of specific elements, as these are used to create and identify the genres in question.

What are genre conventions characteristics:

• Plot beats and narrative turns that must almost always occur in the genre the story is set in.
• Characters and settings that are staples of the genre (either directly or subtly).
• Tropes and themes that are almost always part of the genre they are being featured and used in.

What are Conventions in Film

Explaining genre conventions.

Genre conventions work best when you are working exclusively inside the genre you have chosen. This means no mixing or blending of other genres and just focusing on what works for the genre you have chosen. A fantasy story will have a dragon, a knight, a princess, a wizard, and more. A romance story will have a person in love with someone, along with a competing suitor for the protagonist’s love, and a happy ending.

Conventions of a genre do not have to be a checklist, but rather a group of themes and topics that make the genre what it is. For example, a romance story must always have a romance at its center, otherwise it isn’t a romance. And if your romance does not end with the couple living happily ever after, you might alienate the very audience you were writing for. Same if you write a Western that isn’t set in the West, doesn’t have a gunslinger, a showdown, or a sunset; you might upset some, if not all, Western fans.

In many ways, genre conventions exist to give the people what they want. Dragons in fantasy, shootouts in Westerns, monsters in horror, and so on. This is also why plenty of writers have made a living making stories in the same genre, as they know what their audience wants. It’s like the old Greek comedies and tragedies; the genre alone should give you the gist of what you’re about to read or watch.

That said, plenty of movies set in specific genres have broke with convention in one way or another, while still clearly being that genre. A tragic romance can still be a success, as can a Western set in a not-so-Western location. And of course, a horror story can be realistic, so long as there are still victims to terrorize. It’s a careful balancing act, but it’s been done before.

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Genre Conventions List

Obeying and defying conventions.

Some classic and well-known movies have played genre conventions straight, while others have successfully defied them.

The Friday the 13th series as a whole has maintained horror genre conventions to the point of parody (as seen in Jason X ). Each film involves a killer coming after a group of youngsters, successfully killing off a lot of them before being defeated by someone (most often the Final Girl who has survived the killer’s attacks).

Where are conventions in film?  •  Friday the 13th

Alien is a classic film that, while mostly horror, is set in outer space. So aside from the setting, its horror genre conventions are played completely straight. There’s a group of people on an isolated freighter who are hunted down by an unknown and frightening monster. In the end, only one crew member remains, and it is up to them to take this monster out for good. You can read our Alien script breakdown for more in-depth analysis on how it balanced sci-fi with horror.

Crime films tend to follow certain paths that cover similar beats and end results. Many of these are either noir , neo-noir, or noir influenced, like Chinatown. One of the very best neo-noirs of all-time , Chinatown follows a detective investigating a mysterious murder. Like all crime stories, he follows clues before falling into serious danger himself, culminating in his discovery of who was behind it all. And since it’s noir, the ending is usually a downer, even if the detective was able to solve the crime.

Then you have Memento , a noir-influenced crime movie unlike any other. The protagonist suffers from memory loss and there are two parallel storylines; one told chronologically, the other reverse-chronological. A risky move, but it paid off for director Christopher Nolan , as it is considered one of Nolan’s best films , along with having one of the best plot twists in recent memory.

Genre conventions list  •  Memento

Romance movies tend to be among the most conventional with their stories and plots, but some movies manage to shake things up. One of the best romantic comedies of all time is (500) Days of Summer , a rom-com that says outright it is “not a love story.” The film is told out of order as it follows our male lead and how he fell too hard for the titular Summer, how his expectations got the better of him, and how he eventually learned to move on.

What are genre conventions in film?  •   Subscribe on YouTube

Then you have Edgar Wright’s Scott Pilgrim vs. the World , the definition of a movie that defies genre categorization. Video game references, musical fight scenes, and wild visual effects helped make this movie into the cult sensation it is today. That said, the main plot is still very much a romance: boy meets girl, boy has to fight for girl, boy loses girl, boy comes back stronger than ever for girl, boy and girl try again.

These are just some examples of movies that obey or defy genre conventions in their own special ways. There’s no shortage of scripts you can read online that follow the familiar path, go in a totally different direction, or do something in-between. Following conventions of a genre is more than okay, as many other successful films have proven, but sometimes going off the beaten path pays off, too.

Ultimate Movie Genre Guide

Now that we’ve gone over genre conventions, we can look at the many genres that make up the cinema landscape. Our ultimate guide covers nearly every genre out there, from general well-known genres to smaller sub-genres, all with plenty of examples.

Up Next: Ultimate Movie Genre Guide →

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Study Guide - Edward Scissorhands: How to write a Film Analysis Essay & Cinematic Techniques

• Characters, Plot, Synopsis &Themes
• Quotations & Bibilography
• Film Reviews
• How to write a Film Analysis Essay & Cinematic Techniques
• Film Genres & Film Lighting Terminology, Film QUIZ

How to write a film analysis essay

How to Write a Film Analysis Essay

By Timothy Sexton

Writing a film analysis essay is an assignment that is less likely to terrorize those who fear the idea of writing an essay, because it allows them to write about something most people enjoy. Film analysis is not the same thing as writing a movie review, which involves passively watching a movie. An analysis means you must engage on a level beyond that of storytelling.

Watch the movie. Then watch it again. Take notes during the first viewing and, if you are analyzing a movie that is available on DVD, be ready with your remote control to pause and rewind.

Critically engage the movie so that you can effectively produce a strong essay. Focus on a single thematic concept related to the film. Ideas for essays taking this route could include an analysis of how the film is photographed, how the movie relates a historical event in a dramatic way without compromising the facts or how a single sequence within the film relates to larger cinematic concepts, like overlapping dialogue or the utilization of dramatic irony.

Introduce the film and its major participants, such as the actors and director. Include the name of another technician on the film if your analysis will be focusing on that aspect. For instance, cite the name of the cinematographer if you are going to be writing about the importance of shadows to film noir, or include the name of the composer of the movie’s score if you are writing about the importance of background music to the emotional tone of the film.

Provide a brief overview of the story, but avoid the temptation to pad your word count by writing what amounts to a synopsis of the story rather than analysis. Reveal plots twists or the ending of the film only if they relate directly to your analysis.

Write your film analysis with the movie at hand if this is possible. Write next to a television and DVD player if applicable. Stay inside the theatre for the second or third showing with your notepad ready if this is possible. Writing an effective film analysis is best accomplished if you don’t have to rely on your memory of events, dialogue or cinematic techniques.

Familiarize yourself with technical jargon related to the art of filmmaking. Learn the difference between a cut and a dissolve. Write about subjective camera work if the analysis is dealing with a part of the movie shot from the point of view of one of the characters. Properly utilizing filmmaking terms will strengthen the authority of your essay.

Source:  http://classroom.synonym.com/write-film-analysis-essay-4125.html

Cinematic Techniques

Tim Burton's Edward Scissorhands Film Analysis

Help with writing a film essay - Linda Rubens

Film Techniques

Film techniques is the term used to describe the ways that meaning is created in film.

Camera Shots

A camera shot is the amount of space that is seen in one shot or frame. Camera shots are used to demonstrate different aspects of a film's setting, characters and themes. As a result, camera shots are very important in shaping meaning in a film. Reviewing the examples on the right hand side of this page should make the different camera shots clearer.

An extreme long shot ( animation on right ) contains a large amount of landscape. It is often used at the beginning of a scene or a film to establish general location (setting). This is also known as an establishing shot.

A long shot ( animation on right ) contains landscape but gives the viewer a more specific idea of setting. A long shot may show the viewers the building where the action will take place.

A full shot ( animation on right ) contains a complete view of the characters . From this shot, viewers can take in the costumes of characters and may also help to demonstrate the relationships between characters. For more information on costumes and acting refer to Chapter 4.

A mid shot ( animation on right ) contains the characters or a character from the waist up . From this shot, viewers can see the characters' faces more clearly as well as their interaction with other characters. This is also known as a social shot

A close-up ( animation on right ) contains just one character's face . This enables viewers to understand the actor's emotions and also allows them to feel empathy for the character. This is also known as a personal shot.

An extreme close-up ( animation on right ) contains one part of a character's face or other object. This technique is quite common in horror films, particularly the example above. This type of shot creates an intense mood and provides interaction between the audience and the viewer.

When analysing a film you should always think about the different camera shots and why they are being used. The next time that you are at the cinema or watching television see what camera shots are being used.

Important: These camera shots are used in all forms of visual texts including postcards, posters and print advertisements.

Camera angles

It is important that you do not confuse camera angles and camera shots. Camera shots are used to demonstrate different aspects of setting, themes and characters. Camera angles are used to position the viewer so that they can understand the relationships between the characters. These are very important for shaping meaning in film as well as in other visual texts.

The following examples will help you to understand the differences between the different camera angles

A bird's eye angle ( animation on right ) is an angle that looks directly down upon a scene . This angle is often used as an establishing angle, along with an extreme long shot, to establish setting.

A high angle ( animation on right ) is a camera angle that looks down upon a subject . A character shot with a high angle will look vulnerable or small. These angles are often used to demonstrate to the audience a perspective of a particular character. The example above demonstrates to us the perspective or point of view of a vampire. As a viewer we can understand that the vampire feels powerful.

An eye-level angle ( animation on right ) puts the audience on an equal footing with the character/s . This is the most commonly used angle in most films as it allows the viewers to feel comfortable with the characters.

A low angle ( animation on right ) is a camera angle that looks up at a character . This is the opposite of a high angle and makes a character look more powerful. This can make the audience feel vulnerable and small by looking up at the character. This can help the responder feel empathy if they are viewing the frame from another character's point of view.

As with camera shots, you will be able to see many examples of camera angles in any film or visual text that you view. The next time that you watch television or see a film, take note of the camera angles and think of how they affect your perception (idea) of different characters.

Another camera angle that you might come across is a Dutch angle.

A Dutch angle ( animation on right ) is used to demonstrate the confusion of a character. The example above should disorientate you.

Camera movement

Composers of films also use camera movement to shape meaning. The following are some examples of common camera movements and how they can be used to shape meaning in films.

A crane shot ( animation on right ) is often used by composers of films to signify the end of a film or scene. The effect is achieved by the camera being put on a crane that can move upwards

A tracking shot and a dolly shot ( animation on right ) have the same effect. A tracking shot moves on tracks and a dolly shot is mounted on a trolley to achieve the effect in the example above. This camera movement is used in a number of ways but is most commonly used to explore a room such as a restaurant. By using a tracking shot or a dolly shot the composer of a film gives the viewer a detailed tour of a situation. It can also be used to follow a character.

Panning ( animation on right ) is used to give the viewer a panoramic view of a set or setting. This can be used to establish a scene

An Evangelion shot ( animation on right ) is derived from the popular anime series 'Neon Genesis Evangelion'. This camera movement begins as an extreme close-up and zooms out abruptly, creating a blurring effect to emphasise the speed and size of the object

Lighting is a very important aspect for shaping meaning in films. What kind of atmosphere is created in a room lit by candles? Have you ever heard of mood lighting? A room that is brightly lit by neon lights might seem to be sterile or a shadowy room might be eerie or scary. The lighting technicians in a film crew have the task of creating lighting to suit the mood and atmosphere of each scene in a film.

Consider the animations Lighting example one, Lighting example two, Lighting example three and think about what type of atmosphere is created in each.

For each example, do you think the lighting suits the characters in the frames? For instance, in Example Three the two people are very happy and the scene is lit brightly. What would be the effect on the atmosphere if the lighting were dark and shadowy, similar to Example Two?

Remember that lighting is used in still image visual texts as well as in films.

Cinematography

Cinematography is the combination of the techniques described in this chapter. This includes camera shots, camera angles, camera movement and lighting. Use the term cinematography to group all of these together, for example, 'The cinematography in that film was exceptional.'

Mise en Scene

Mise en scene refers to all the objects and characters in a particular frame. More specifically, it refers to the composition of the frame. When you use the term mise en scene, you are discussing where the composer or director has placed all the elements of the scene within the frame.

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Film Analysis

What this handout is about.

This handout introduces film analysis and and offers strategies and resources for approaching film analysis assignments.

Writing the film analysis essay

Writing a film analysis requires you to consider the composition of the film—the individual parts and choices made that come together to create the finished piece. Film analysis goes beyond the analysis of the film as literature to include camera angles, lighting, set design, sound elements, costume choices, editing, etc. in making an argument. The first step to analyzing the film is to watch it with a plan.

Watching the film

First it’s important to watch the film carefully with a critical eye. Consider why you’ve been assigned to watch a film and write an analysis. How does this activity fit into the course? Why have you been assigned this particular film? What are you looking for in connection to the course content? Let’s practice with this clip from Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo (1958). Here are some tips on how to watch the clip critically, just as you would an entire film:

• Give the clip your undivided attention at least once. Pay close attention to details and make observations that might start leading to bigger questions.
• Watch the clip a second time. For this viewing, you will want to focus specifically on those elements of film analysis that your class has focused on, so review your course notes. For example, from whose perspective is this clip shot? What choices help convey that perspective? What is the overall tone, theme, or effect of this clip?
• Take notes while you watch for the second time. Notes will help you keep track of what you noticed and when, if you include timestamps in your notes. Timestamps are vital for citing scenes from a film!

For more information on watching a film, check out the Learning Center’s handout on watching film analytically . For more resources on researching film, including glossaries of film terms, see UNC Library’s research guide on film & cinema .

Brainstorming ideas

Once you’ve watched the film twice, it’s time to brainstorm some ideas based on your notes. Brainstorming is a major step that helps develop and explore ideas. As you brainstorm, you may want to cluster your ideas around central topics or themes that emerge as you review your notes. Did you ask several questions about color? Were you curious about repeated images? Perhaps these are directions you can pursue.

If you’re writing an argumentative essay, you can use the connections that you develop while brainstorming to draft a thesis statement . Consider the assignment and prompt when formulating a thesis, as well as what kind of evidence you will present to support your claims. Your evidence could be dialogue, sound edits, cinematography decisions, etc. Much of how you make these decisions will depend on the type of film analysis you are conducting, an important decision covered in the next section.

After brainstorming, you can draft an outline of your film analysis using the same strategies that you would for other writing assignments. Here are a few more tips to keep in mind as you prepare for this stage of the assignment:

• Make sure you understand the prompt and what you are being asked to do. Remember that this is ultimately an assignment, so your thesis should answer what the prompt asks. Check with your professor if you are unsure.
• In most cases, the director’s name is used to talk about the film as a whole, for instance, “Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo .” However, some writers may want to include the names of other persons who helped to create the film, including the actors, the cinematographer, and the sound editor, among others.
• When describing a sequence in a film, use the literary present. An example could be, “In Vertigo , Hitchcock employs techniques of observation to dramatize the act of detection.”
• Finding a screenplay/script of the movie may be helpful and save you time when compiling citations. But keep in mind that there may be differences between the screenplay and the actual product (and these differences might be a topic of discussion!).
• Go beyond describing basic film elements by articulating the significance of these elements in support of your particular position. For example, you may have an interpretation of the striking color green in Vertigo , but you would only mention this if it was relevant to your argument. For more help on using evidence effectively, see the section on “using evidence” in our evidence handout .

Also be sure to avoid confusing the terms shot, scene, and sequence. Remember, a shot ends every time the camera cuts; a scene can be composed of several related shots; and a sequence is a set of related scenes.

Different types of film analysis

As you consider your notes, outline, and general thesis about a film, the majority of your assignment will depend on what type of film analysis you are conducting. This section explores some of the different types of film analyses you may have been assigned to write.

Semiotic analysis

Semiotic analysis is the interpretation of signs and symbols, typically involving metaphors and analogies to both inanimate objects and characters within a film. Because symbols have several meanings, writers often need to determine what a particular symbol means in the film and in a broader cultural or historical context.

For instance, a writer could explore the symbolism of the flowers in Vertigo by connecting the images of them falling apart to the vulnerability of the heroine.

Here are a few other questions to consider for this type of analysis:

• What objects or images are repeated throughout the film?
• How does the director associate a character with small signs, such as certain colors, clothing, food, or language use?
• How does a symbol or object relate to other symbols and objects, that is, what is the relationship between the film’s signs?

Many films are rich with symbolism, and it can be easy to get lost in the details. Remember to bring a semiotic analysis back around to answering the question “So what?” in your thesis.

Narrative analysis

Narrative analysis is an examination of the story elements, including narrative structure, character, and plot. This type of analysis considers the entirety of the film and the story it seeks to tell.

For example, you could take the same object from the previous example—the flowers—which meant one thing in a semiotic analysis, and ask instead about their narrative role. That is, you might analyze how Hitchcock introduces the flowers at the beginning of the film in order to return to them later to draw out the completion of the heroine’s character arc.

To create this type of analysis, you could consider questions like:

• How does the film correspond to the Three-Act Structure: Act One: Setup; Act Two: Confrontation; and Act Three: Resolution?
• What is the plot of the film? How does this plot differ from the narrative, that is, how the story is told? For example, are events presented out of order and to what effect?
• Does the plot revolve around one character? Does the plot revolve around multiple characters? How do these characters develop across the film?

When writing a narrative analysis, take care not to spend too time on summarizing at the expense of your argument. See our handout on summarizing for more tips on making summary serve analysis.

Cultural/historical analysis

One of the most common types of analysis is the examination of a film’s relationship to its broader cultural, historical, or theoretical contexts. Whether films intentionally comment on their context or not, they are always a product of the culture or period in which they were created. By placing the film in a particular context, this type of analysis asks how the film models, challenges, or subverts different types of relations, whether historical, social, or even theoretical.

For example, the clip from Vertigo depicts a man observing a woman without her knowing it. You could examine how this aspect of the film addresses a midcentury social concern about observation, such as the sexual policing of women, or a political one, such as Cold War-era McCarthyism.

A few of the many questions you could ask in this vein include:

• How does the film comment on, reinforce, or even critique social and political issues at the time it was released, including questions of race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality?
• How might a biographical understanding of the film’s creators and their historical moment affect the way you view the film?
• How might a specific film theory, such as Queer Theory, Structuralist Theory, or Marxist Film Theory, provide a language or set of terms for articulating the attributes of the film?

Take advantage of class resources to explore possible approaches to cultural/historical film analyses, and find out whether you will be expected to do additional research into the film’s context.

Mise-en-scène analysis

A mise-en-scène analysis attends to how the filmmakers have arranged compositional elements in a film and specifically within a scene or even a single shot. This type of analysis organizes the individual elements of a scene to explore how they come together to produce meaning. You may focus on anything that adds meaning to the formal effect produced by a given scene, including: blocking, lighting, design, color, costume, as well as how these attributes work in conjunction with decisions related to sound, cinematography, and editing. For example, in the clip from Vertigo , a mise-en-scène analysis might ask how numerous elements, from lighting to camera angles, work together to present the viewer with the perspective of Jimmy Stewart’s character.

To conduct this type of analysis, you could ask:

• What effects are created in a scene, and what is their purpose?
• How does this scene represent the theme of the movie?
• How does a scene work to express a broader point to the film’s plot?

This detailed approach to analyzing the formal elements of film can help you come up with concrete evidence for more general film analysis assignments.

Reviewing your draft

Once you have a draft, it’s helpful to get feedback on what you’ve written to see if your analysis holds together and you’ve conveyed your point. You may not necessarily need to find someone who has seen the film! Ask a writing coach, roommate, or family member to read over your draft and share key takeaways from what you have written so far.

Works consulted

We consulted these works while writing this handout. This is not a comprehensive list of resources on the handout’s topic, and we encourage you to do your own research to find additional publications. Please do not use this list as a model for the format of your own reference list, as it may not match the citation style you are using. For guidance on formatting citations, please see the UNC Libraries citation tutorial . We revise these tips periodically and welcome feedback.

Aumont, Jacques, and Michel Marie. 1988. L’analyse Des Films . Paris: Nathan.

Media & Design Center. n.d. “Film and Cinema Research.” UNC University Libraries. Last updated February 10, 2021. https://guides.lib.unc.edu/filmresearch .

Oxford Royale Academy. n.d. “7 Ways to Watch Film.” Oxford Royale Academy. Accessed April 2021. https://www.oxford-royale.com/articles/7-ways-watch-films-critically/ .

You may reproduce it for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout and attribute the source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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7.3 Glance at Genre: Criteria, Evidence, Evaluation

Learning outcomes.

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Identify and define common characteristics, mediums, key terms, and features of the review genre.
• Identify criteria and evidence to support reviews of different primary sources.

Reviews vary in style and content according to the subject, the writer, and the medium. The following are characteristics most frequently found in reviews:

• Focused subject : The subject of the review is specific and focuses on one item or idea. For example, a review of all Marvel Cinematic Universe movies could not be contained in the scope of a single essay or published review not only because of length but also because of the differences among them. Choosing one specific item to review—a single film or single topic across films, for instance—will allow you to provide a thorough evaluation of the subject.
• Judgment or evaluation: Reviewers need to deliver a clear judgment or evaluation to share with readers their thoughts on the subject and why they would or would not recommend it. An evaluation can be direct and explicit, or it can be indirect and subtle.
• Specific evidence : All reviews need specific evidence to support the evaluation. Typically, this evidence comes in the form of quotations and vivid descriptions from the primary source, or subject of the review. Reviewers often use secondary sources —works about the primary source — to support their claims or provide context.
• Context : Reviewers provide context, such as relevant historical or cultural background, current events, or short biographical sketches, that help readers understand both the primary source and the review.
• Tone : Writers of effective reviews tend to maintain a professional, unbiased tone—attitude toward the subject. Although many reviewers try to avoid sarcasm and dismissiveness, you will find these elements present in professional reviews, especially those in which critics pan the primary source.

These are some key terms to know and use when writing a review:

• Analysis : detailed examination of the parts of a whole or of the whole itself.
• Connotation: implied feelings or thoughts associated with a word. Connotations can be positive or negative. Reviewers often use words with strong positive or negative connotations that support their praise or criticism. For example, a writer may refer to a small space positively as “cozy” instead of negatively as “cramped.”
• Criteria : standards by which something is judged. Reviewers generally make their evaluation criteria clear by listing and explaining what they are basing their review on. Each type of primary source has its set of standards, some or all of which reviewers address.
• Critics : professional reviewer who typically publishes reviews in well-known publications.
• Denotation : the literal or dictionary definition of a word.
• Evaluation : judgment based on analysis.
• Fandom : community of admirers who follow their favorite works and discuss them online as a group.
• Genre : broad category of artistic compositions that share similar characteristics such as form, subject matter, or style. For example, horror, suspense, and drama are common film and literary genres. Hip hop and reggae are common music genres.
• Medium : way in which a work is created or delivered (DVD, streaming, book, vinyl, etc.). Works can appear in more than one medium.
• Mode : sensory method through which a person interacts with a work. Modes include linguistic, visual, audio, spatial, and gestural.
• Primary Sources : in the context of reviewing, the original work or item being reviewed, whether a film, book, performance, business, or product. In the context of research, primary sources are items of firsthand, or original, evidence, such as interviews, court records, diaries, letters, surveys, or photographs.
• Recap : summary of an individual episode of a television series.
• Review : genre that evaluates performances, exhibitions, works of art (books, movies, visual arts), services, and products
• Secondary source: source that contains the analysis or synthesis of someone else, such as opinion pieces, newspaper and magazine articles, and academic journal articles.
• Subgenre : category within a genre. For example, subgenres of drama include various types of drama: courtroom drama, historical/costume drama, and family drama.

Establishing Criteria

All reviewers and readers alike rely on evidence to support an evaluation. When you review a primary source, the evidence you use depends on the subject of your evaluation, your audience, and how your audience will use your evaluation. You will need to determine the criteria on which to base your evaluation. In some cases, you will also need to consider the genre and subgenre of your subject to determine evaluation criteria. In your review, you will need to clarify your evaluation criteria and the way in which specific evidence related to those criteria have led you to your judgment. Table 7.1 illustrates evaluation criteria in four different primary source types.

Even within the same subject, however, evaluation criteria may differ according to the genre and subgenre of the film. Audiences have different expectations for a horror movie than they do for a romantic comedy, for example. For your subject, select the evaluation criteria on the basis of your knowledge of audience expectations. Table 7.2 shows how the evaluation criteria might be different in film reviews of different genres.

Providing Objective Evidence

You will use your established evaluation criteria to gather specific evidence to support your judgment. Remember, too, that criteria are fluid; no reviewer will always use the same criteria for all works, even those in the same genre or subgenre.

Whether or not the criteria are unique to the particular task, a reviewer must look closely at the subject and note specific details from the primary source or sources. If you are evaluating a product, look at the product specifications and evaluate product performance according to them, noting details as evidence. When evaluating a film, select either quotations from the dialogue or detailed, vivid descriptions of scenes. If you are evaluating an employee’s performance, observe the employee performing their job and take notes. These are examples of primary source evidence: raw information you have gathered and will analyze to make a judgment.

Gathering evidence is a process that requires you to look closely at your subject. If you are reviewing a film, you certainly will have to view the film several times, focusing on only one or two elements of the evaluation criteria at a time. If you are evaluating an employee, you might have to observe that employee on several occasions and in a variety of situations to gather enough evidence to complete your evaluation. If you are evaluating a written argument, you might have to reread the text several times and annotate or highlight key evidence. It is better to gather more evidence than you think you need and choose the best examples rather than try to base your evaluation on insufficient or irrelevant evidence.

Modes of Reviews

Not all reviews have to be written; sometimes a video or an audio review can be more engaging than a written review. YouTube has become a popular destination for project reviews, creating minor celebrities out of popular reviewers. However, a written review of a movie might work well because the reviewer can provide just enough information to avoid spoiling the movie, whereas some reviews require more visual interaction to understand.

Take reviewer Doug DeMuro ’s popular YouTube channel. DeMuro reviews cars—everything from sports cars to sedans to vintage cars. Car buyers need to interact with a car to want to buy it, and YouTube provides the next best thing by giving viewers an up-close look.

Technology is another popular type of review on YouTube. YouTube creators like Marques Brownlee discuss rumors about the next Apple iPhone or Samsung Galaxy and provide unboxing videos to record their reactions to the latest phones and laptops. Like DeMuro’s viewers, Brownlee’s audience can get up close to the product. Seeing a phone in Brownlee’s hands helps audience members imagine it in their hands.

On the other hand, reviews don’t always need to be about products you can touch, as Paul Lucas demonstrates on his YouTube channel “Wingin’ It!” Lucas reviews travel experiences (mainly airlines and sometimes trains), evaluating the service of airlines around the world and in various ticket classes.

What do these reviews have in common? First, they are all in the video medium. YouTube ’s medium is video; a podcast’s medium is audio. They also share a mode. YouTube ’s mode is viewing or watching; a podcast’s mode is listening.

These examples all use the genre conventions of reviews discussed in this chapter. The reviewers present a clear evaluation: should you buy this car, phone, or airline ticket? They base their evaluation on evidence that fits a set of evaluation criteria. Doug DeMuro might evaluate a family sedan on the basis of seating, trunk storage, and ride comfort. Marques Brownlee might judge a phone on the basis of battery life, design, and camera quality. Paul Lucas might grade an airline on service, schedules, and seat comfort. While the product or service being reviewed might be different, all three reviewers use similar frameworks.

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Film Genres

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Finding library resources

• Finding library resources for film genres
• Introductory reading(s)
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This page is here to help you find movies of a specific types and resources that talk about those types. The list will grow as time permits.

Groups of films classified according to

1. shared characteristics of film form , film style , iconography , or content (textual focus);

2. film industry practices of production and marketing (industry focus);

3. audience expectations and responses (reception focus). Many film genres have existed since the earliest years of cinema: the action film , biopic , melodrama , and social problem film , to name only a handful ( see early cinema ; silent cinema ); while others are newer: the chick flick , extreme cinema , machinima , for example. Some genres are international, or nearly so: these include the fantasy film , the musical , pornography , science fiction ; while others are closely associated with particular national cinemas : chanchada , peplum film , blaxploitation , Heimat film .

In film studies, the study of genre—often termed genre criticism —divides into two main aspects: firstly, work on individual film genres (historical treatises on the Hollywood western , for example); and secondly, general theoretical inquiry into genre as a system of expectations and conventions that circulate between film industry, film texts , and filmgoers. The second area of study is undeveloped by comparison with the first, which until the 1990s was largely dominated by attention to popular genres in Hollywood cinema.

Kuhn, A., & Westwell, G. (2012).  Genre . In  A Dictionary of Film Studies . : Oxford University Press. Retrieved 13 Oct. 2020

To find what we have in the Library's collection, you can do a subject search for " film genres " in the online catalog. You can also use the other subject heading shown: " motion pictures plots, themes, etc. "

• film genres
• motion pictures plots, themes, etc.
• ... in motion pictures If you want to see how a theme is handle in movies, you put the word in front of "in motion pictures." An example is "sex in motion pictures."
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Keeping up with Film Studies journal literature

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Genre in Action: The Impossibility and Value of Genre Analysis

• First Online: 02 January 2022

Cite this chapter

• Yvonne Tasker 2  

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This chapter stresses that genre has remained a central reference point within media studies, in contrast to authorship, that mainstay of critical post-war writing in film and media studies. Though the applications are wider, both authorship and genre were concepts developed and refined largely in relation to commercial, typically Hollywood, cinema. Both are equally concerned with patterns of continuity and discontinuity and both, it can be argued, are premised on an impossible idea of knowledge. Yet the impossibility of genre—how can a particular genre ever be fully known or defined?—has impacted its continuing use in the way that we see happening with the impossibility of authorship. This chapter seeks to explore why that might be the case, revisiting some key 1960s Anglophone writings on genre in order to reflect on the continuing resonance of genre as a category. Whether implicitly or explicitly, it contrasts the range of action as a generic space to more limited categories defined by subject matter or iconography. Reflecting on what is implicit in this work on action, and reading this through key early writings on genre, it raises questions about the flexibility of genre as a concept. Given its very extensiveness, it uses action film and television as a test case for exploring both the impossibility and the value of genre as a concept for contemporary critical analysis of media texts.

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See chapter “ Trespass: Genre, Author, and Play in the Discourse of Media Aesthetics ” by Ivo Ritzer in this volume.

Bazin, André. 2005. What Is Cinema? Volume 2 . Berkeley: University of California Press.

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Boddy, William. 1996. Approaching The Untouchables : Social Science and Moral Panics in Early Sixties Television. Cinema Journal 35 (4): 70–87.

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Tasker, Y. (2021). Genre in Action: The Impossibility and Value of Genre Analysis. In: Ritzer, I. (eds) Media and Genre. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-69866-9_2

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Understanding What is Meant by the Word "Genre"

What do we mean by genre? This means a type of writing, i.e., an essay, a poem, a recipe, an email, a tweet. These are all different types (or categories) of writing, and each one has its own format, type of words, tone, and so on.  Analyzing a type of writing (or genre) is considered a genre analysis project. A genre analysis grants students the means to think critically about how a particular form of communication functions as well as a means to evaluate it.

Every genre (type of writing/writing style) has a set of conventions that allow that particular genre to be unique. These conventions include the following components:

• Tone: tone of voice, i.e. serious, humorous, scholarly, informal.
• Diction : word usage - formal or informal, i.e. “disoriented” (formal) versus “spaced out” (informal or colloquial).
•   Content : what is being discussed/demonstrated in the piece? What information is included or needs to be included?
•   Style / Format (the way it looks): long or short sentences? Bulleted list? Paragraphs? Short-hand? Abbreviations? Does punctuation and grammar matter? How detailed do you need to be? Single-spaced or double-spaced? Can pictures / should pictures be included? How long does it need to be / should be? What kind of organizational requirements are there?
•   Expected Medium of Genre : where does the genre appear? Where is it created? i.e. can be it be online (digital) or does it need to be in print (computer paper, magazine, etc)? Where does this genre occur? i.e. flyers (mostly) occur in the hallways of our school, and letters of recommendation (mostly) occur in professors’ offices.
• Genre creates an expectation in the minds of its audience and may fail or succeed depending on if that expectation is met or not.
• Many genres have built-in audiences and corresponding publications that support them, such as magazines and websites.
• The goal of the piece that is written, i.e. a newspaper entry is meant to inform and/or persuade, and a movie script is meant to entertain.
• Basically, each genre has a specific task or a specific goal that it is created to attain.
• Understanding Genre
• Understanding the Rhetorical Situation

To understand genre, one has to first understand the rhetorical situation of the communication. 

Below are some additional resources to assist you in this process:

• Reading and Writing for College

Genre Analysis

Genre analysis:  A tool used to create genre awareness and understand the conventions of new writing situations and contexts.  This a llows you to make effective communication choices and approach your audience and rhetorical situation appropriately

Basically, when we say "genre analysis," that is a fancy way of saying that we are going to look at similar pieces of communication - for example a handful of business memos - and determine the following:

• Tone: What was the overall tone of voice in the samples of that genre (piece of writing)?
• Diction : What was the overall type of writing in the three samples of that genre (piece of writing)? Formal or informal?
•   Content : What types(s) of information is shared in those pieces of writing?
•   Style / Format (the way it looks): Do the pieces of communication contain long or short sentences? Bulleted list? Paragraphs? Abbreviations? Does punctuation and grammar matter? How detailed do you need to be in that type of writing style? Single-spaced or double-spaced? Are pictures included? If so, why? How long does it need to be / should be? What kind of organizational requirements are there?
•   Expected Medium of Genre : Where did the pieces appear? Were they online? Where? Were they in a printed, physical context? If so, what?
•   Audience:   What audience is this piece of writing trying to reach?
• Purpose :  What is the goal of the piece of writing? What is its purpose? Example: the goal of the piece that is written, i.e. a newspaper entry is meant to inform and/or persuade, and a movie script is meant to entertain.

In other words, we are analyzing the genre to determine what are some commonalities of that piece of communication. 

For additional help, see the following resource for Questions to Ask When Completing a Genre Analysis . 

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Home — Essay Samples — Entertainment — Film Study — Codes and Conventions of Three Different Film Genres

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Essay Film by Yelizaveta Moss LAST REVIEWED: 24 March 2021 LAST MODIFIED: 24 March 2021 DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199791286-0216

The term “essay film” has become increasingly used in film criticism to describe a self-reflective and self-referential documentary cinema that blurs the lines between fiction and nonfiction. Scholars unanimously agree that the first published use of the term was by Richter in 1940. Also uncontested is that Andre Bazin, in 1958, was the first to analyze a film, which was Marker’s Letter from Siberia (1958), according to the essay form. The French New Wave created a popularization of short essay films, and German New Cinema saw a resurgence in essay films due to a broad interest in examining German history. But beyond these origins of the term, scholars deviate on what exactly constitutes an essay film and how to categorize essay films. Generally, scholars fall into two camps: those who find a literary genealogy to the essay film and those who find a documentary genealogy to the essay film. The most commonly cited essay filmmakers are French and German: Marker, Resnais, Godard, and Farocki. These filmmakers are singled out for their breadth of essay film projects, as opposed to filmmakers who have made an essay film but who specialize in other genres. Though essay films have been and are being produced outside of the West, scholarship specifically addressing essay films focuses largely on France and Germany, although Solanas and Getino’s theory of “Third Cinema” and approval of certain French essay films has produced some essay film scholarship on Latin America. But the gap in scholarship on global essay film remains, with hope of being bridged by some forthcoming work. Since the term “essay film” is used so sparingly for specific films and filmmakers, the scholarship on essay film tends to take the form of single articles or chapters in either film theory or documentary anthologies and journals. Some recent scholarship has pointed out the evolutionary quality of essay films, emphasizing their ability to change form and style as a response to conventional filmmaking practices. The most recent scholarship and conference papers on essay film have shifted from an emphasis on literary essay to an emphasis on technology, arguing that essay film has the potential in the 21st century to present technology as self-conscious and self-reflexive of its role in art.

Both anthologies dedicated entirely to essay film have been published in order to fill gaps in essay film scholarship. Biemann 2003 brings the discussion of essay film into the digital age by explicitly resisting traditional German and French film and literary theory. Papazian and Eades 2016 also resists European theory by explicitly showcasing work on postcolonial and transnational essay film.

Biemann, Ursula, ed. Stuff It: The Video Essay in the Digital Age . New York: Springer, 2003.

This anthology positions Marker’s Sans Soleil (1983) as the originator of the post-structuralist essay film. In opposition to German and French film and literary theory, Biemann discusses video essays with respect to non-linear and non-logical movement of thought and a range of new media in Internet, digital imaging, and art installation. In its resistance to the French/German theory influence on essay film, this anthology makes a concerted effort to include other theoretical influences, such as transnationalism, postcolonialism, and globalization.

Papazian, Elizabeth, and Caroline Eades, eds. The Essay Film: Dialogue, Politics, Utopia . London: Wallflower, 2016.

This forthcoming anthology bridges several gaps in 21st-century essay film scholarship: non-Western cinemas, popular cinema, and digital media.

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What are the different genres of films?

Checked : Suzanne S. , Aakanksha M.

Latest Update 21 Jan, 2024

Table of content

The action film, adventure, thriller and suspense, you can sometimes get lost with all these kinds of  films . Let's try to demystify the different types of the film a bit.

First, we must distinguish two main categories in which all films fall: Drama and comedy. These two categories are then subdivided into several sub-categories. It often happens that very different genres are mixed up. A very popular example is the blending of comedy and drama to make it a dramatic comedy that is found abundantly in cinema. Each movie can obviously be categorized with several genres and sub-genres, for example, a horror-thriller or a sci-fi comedy.

Comedy is a genre of light film, based on funny or recurring situations. The humor in a comedy can be experienced in different ways.

The sitcom is a genre mainly used on television which is based on the interactions between the characters and their daily life. We will, therefore laugh at contextual and recurring situations related to the personality of the characters.

• American-style comedy (or action-comedy):   A story that looks serious but one or more characters have a funny personality or are different from their surroundings. It's not uncommon in this kind of movie for the antagonists (the bad guys) to behave funny too.
• Dramatic comedy:   Incorporating comedy into a drama or vice versa.

Drama is a type of film in which the narrative centers on tragic facts that are emotionally or psychologically difficult for the characters. For example, bereavement, rape, war, etc. We suffer emphatically with the character.

• The tragedy:   Very rare nowadays and largely inspired by Greek literature, a tragedy, in the cinema, is a film constructed like a great fall. A tragedy necessarily ends badly. Example: Think about impossible love in the various adaptations of Romeo and Juliet.
• Melodrama:   a more theatrical genre that is seldom used, which consists of manipulating and amplifying the spectator's emotion to make him experience the events of the story more tragically. James Cameron's blockbuster Titanic could be considered a melodrama.
• Adventure film:   Often more accessible and less violent than an action film, adventure film is a genre that often develops the pursuit of a mystery or the discovery of missing treasures. We mainly develop the origin and cause of events and their understanding rather than the action itself. The best example of an adventure film would be Indiana Jones.
• The action film:   a genre particularly popularized by American cinema. The narrative is oriented on the Action rather than on the characters, and the story is expressed by a series of numerous adventures. We live the action as we go with a fairly rapid pace. We usually live the story at the same time as the protagonist. The action film is not always a drama; it can often be linked to a comedy or a dramatic comedy. Example: Die Hard, Le Flic de Beverly Hills, and others.
• The suspense film:   a kind that we owe especially to Alfred Hitchcock, who is called the master of suspense. It's a kind of movie that constantly keeps us going, not with the fast pace and the sheer amount of events happening, like the action movie, but rather with the tension and expectation that precedes each event. The suspense often makes us guess or anticipate the course of the story, just before the protagonist experiences it. Example: Psychosis, The birds.
• The thriller:   Often associated with the action movie or the suspense movie. We prefer to distinguish it from these two subgenera. While there is a lot of tension in a thriller, the pace and focus of the film are more on the action than the anticipation. But unlike an outright action movie, the thriller is more about what the protagonist experiences than the action itself. You could say that the thriller is somewhere between an action movie and a suspense movie. Example: Blade Runner 2049, Inception, The Davinci Code.
• The science fiction film:   whose story takes place in a futuristic environment or one equipped with technologies that do not yet exist in the real world? Unlike the fantasy film, whether the action takes place on earth, in space or on other planets or universes, where it is accepted, for example, that magic can exist, the science fiction film leaves it to rest on scientifically explicable bases tools, powers or capacities that do not exist (yet). For example, in Star Trek, spaceships can move faster than the speed of light. However, this capacity is explained by the use of anti-matter, energy scientifically proven at the theoretical level. Example: Star Wars, Star Trek, The Stargate, the matrix.
• The Fantastic / Fantasy Film:   Often separated into two categories. However, Fantasy and Fantasy Film can be grouped into one genre. The fantasy film is generally a genre that includes mythical or legendary characters or creatures like dragons, elves, etc. At the same time, the fantasy film develops an imaginary universe that does not necessarily respect the laws of physics or current biology. For example, talking animals, magical powers, etc. Ex. Harry Potter, Narnia, The Lord of the Rings, etc.
• The Western movie:   Sometimes based on historical events. Very American genre, whose story usually takes place in the 19th century in the United States. There is often a confrontation between bandits, Amerindians and lawyers, numerous duels and shootings, as well as several equestrian elements. Example: The good the bad and the ugly, Django Unchained.
• The Horror Film:   Sometimes related to fantasy/fantasy, science fiction, it is a genre that subdivides itself into various categories. Horror movies are built to stimulate the fear of the viewer and startle them many times during the movie. It's a genre that is usually violent (serial murders, blood, zombies, etc.) Example: Evil Dead, The shining, Mother, Prohibited lines.
• Historical drama:   As its name suggests, historical drama is a film that relates one or more real events. However, the film does not have to be entirely faithful to the story. We often see films based on an actual story but fictionalized with a love story that was made up or amplified. Example: Dunkirk, Schindler's list. Note that there are also historical comedies.
• Biographical drama:   Similar to historical drama, the only major difference is that it relates to the life of a real character rather than an event in itself. Example: Victoria and Abdul, The King's Speech, etc.
• The war drama:   sometimes historical, the war drama shows a military environment, armed conflicts, prisoners, survival and sometimes certain political elements, trials, etc. The war film usually has one or more protagonists who will be described as courageous and with a great sense of honor. A genre born out of an era of propaganda, we can see that even today, war films tend to be extremely patriotic. Example: Saving Private Ryan, Apocalypse Now, The Longest Day.
• Psychological drama/thriller:   A story centred on the psychological difficulties experienced by the characters. We usually experience the story through the eyes or reactions of the protagonist. Example: The infiltration problem, Black Swan, Memento.
• Trial film:   a sub-genre often linked to a real story, we usually show the obstacles and wonders that the protagonists must overcome to win a cause lost in advance. We see lawyers being zealous and using unorthodox methods to turn the scales in their favor. An excellent trial film would be The Sydney Lumet Verdict.
• The sentimental film:   it can be a real or fictional love story. Whether it's a sad impossible romance or a happy ending with the long-awaited reunion, crossing paths or fortuitousness, romantic films are very popular, and their target audience is predominantly female. Example: The well digger's daughter, An unforgettable walk.
• The family film:   Generally accessible to everyone without age limit. It is a genre that is aimed at both children and adults. The themes developed are generally simple and have a strong moral tenor. The guy can be funny or sad or a mixture of the two, but the ending is always happy or at least satisfying. Example: Mrs Doubtfire, Honey I have reduced the children.
• The Teenage Film:   Almost always a comedy, teen films are generally films with a primary audience of 12 to 17-year-olds. We show young people going through life experiences: discovering sexuality, work relationships with others and parents. Example: Scare film, American Pie, etc.
• The animated film :   contrary to the idea conveyed, the animated film is not necessarily a genre aimed at children. There are many very violent and dramatic animated films. There is, however, a large pool of animated family films. An animated film consists of drawings or animations made by computer. Each movie can have its own genre from the list of subgenres. Example: The lion king, Inside out, Princess Mononoke.

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The essay film

In recent years the essay film has attained widespread recognition as a particular category of film practice, with its own history and canonical figures and texts. In tandem with a major season throughout August at London’s BFI Southbank, Sight & Sound explores the characteristics that have come to define this most elastic of forms and looks in detail at a dozen influential milestone essay films.

Andrew Tracy , Katy McGahan , Olaf Möller , Sergio Wolf , Nina Power Updated: 7 May 2019

from our August 2013 issue

Le camera stylo? Dziga Vertov’s Man with a Movie Camera (1929)

I recently had a heated argument with a cinephile filmmaking friend about Chris Marker’s Sans soleil (1983). Having recently completed her first feature, and with such matters on her mind, my friend contended that the film’s power lay in its combinations of image and sound, irrespective of Marker’s inimitable voiceover narration. “Do you think that people who can’t understand English or French will get nothing out of the film?” she said; to which I – hot under the collar – replied that they might very well get something, but that something would not be the complete work.

The Sight & Sound Deep Focus season Thought in Action: The Art of the Essay Film runs at BFI Southbank 1-28 August 2013, with a keynote lecture by Kodwo Eshun on 1 August, a talk by writer and academic Laura Rascaroli on 27 August and a closing panel debate on 28 August.

To take this film-lovers’ tiff to a more elevated plane, what it suggests is that the essentialist conception of cinema is still present in cinephilic and critical culture, as are the difficulties of containing within it works that disrupt its very fabric. Ever since Vachel Lindsay published The Art of the Moving Picture in 1915 the quest to secure the autonomy of film as both medium and art – that ever-elusive ‘pure cinema’ – has been a preoccupation of film scholars, critics, cinephiles and filmmakers alike. My friend’s implicit derogation of the irreducible literary element of Sans soleil and her neo- Godard ian invocation of ‘image and sound’ touch on that strain of this phenomenon which finds, in the technical-functional combination of those two elements, an alchemical, if not transubstantiational, result.

Mechanically created, cinema defies mechanism: it is poetic, transportive and, if not irrational, then a-rational. This mystically-minded view has a long and illustrious tradition in film history, stretching from the sense-deranging surrealists – who famously found accidental poetry in the juxtapositions created by randomly walking into and out of films; to the surrealist-influenced, scientifically trained and ontologically minded André Bazin , whose realist veneration of the long take centred on the very preternaturalness of nature as revealed by the unblinking gaze of the camera; to the trash-bin idolatry of the American underground, weaving new cinematic mythologies from Hollywood detritus; and to auteurism itself, which (in its more simplistic iterations) sees the essence of the filmmaker inscribed even upon the most compromised of works.

It isn’t going too far to claim that this tradition has constituted the foundation of cinephilic culture and helped to shape the cinematic canon itself. If Marker has now been welcomed into that canon and – thanks to the far greater availability of his work – into the mainstream of (primarily DVD-educated) cinephilia, it is rarely acknowledged how much of that work cheerfully undercuts many of the long-held assumptions and pieties upon which it is built.

In his review of Letter from Siberia (1957), Bazin placed Marker at right angles to cinema proper, describing the film’s “primary material” as intelligence – specifically a “verbal intelligence” – rather than image. He dubbed Marker’s method a “horizontal” montage, “as opposed to traditional montage that plays with the sense of duration through the relationship of shot to shot”.

Here, claimed Bazin, “a given image doesn’t refer to the one that preceded it or the one that will follow, but rather it refers laterally, in some way, to what is said.” Thus the very thing which makes Letter “extraordinary”, in Bazin’s estimation, is also what makes it not-cinema. Looking for a term to describe it, Bazin hit upon a prophetic turn of phrase, writing that Marker’s film is, “to borrow Jean Vigo’s formulation of À propos de Nice (‘a documentary point of view’), an essay documented by film. The important word is ‘essay’, understood in the same sense that it has in literature – an essay at once historical and political, written by a poet as well.”

Marker’s canonisation has proceeded apace with that of the form of which he has become the exemplar. Whether used as critical/curatorial shorthand in reviews and programme notes, employed as a model by filmmakers or examined in theoretical depth in major retrospectives (this summer’s BFI Southbank programme, for instance, follows upon Andréa Picard’s two-part series ‘The Way of the Termite’ at TIFF Cinémathèque in 2009-2010, which drew inspiration from Jean-Pierre Gorin ’s groundbreaking programme of the same title at Vienna Filmmuseum in 2007), the ‘essay film’ has attained in recent years widespread recognition as a particular, if perennially porous, mode of film practice. An appealingly simple formulation, the term has proved both taxonomically useful and remarkably elastic, allowing one to define a field of previously unassimilable objects while ranging far and wide throughout film history to claim other previously identified objects for this invented tradition.

Las Hurdes (1933)

It is crucial to note that the ‘essay film’ is not only a post-facto appellation for a kind of film practice that had not bothered to mark itself with a moniker, but also an invention and an intervention. While it has acquired its own set of canonical ‘texts’ that include the collected works of Marker, much of Godard – from the missive (the 52-minute Letter to Jane , 1972) to the massive ( Histoire(s) de cinéma , 1988-98) – Welles’s F for Fake (1973) and Thom Andersen’s Los Angeles Plays Itself (2003), it has also poached on the territory of other, ‘sovereign’ forms, expanding its purview in accordance with the whims of its missionaries.

From documentary especially, Vigo’s aforementioned À propos de Nice, Ivens’s Rain (1929), Buñuel’s sardonic Las Hurdes (1933), Resnais’s Night and Fog (1955), Rouch and Morin’s Chronicle of a Summer (1961); from the avant garde, Akerman’s Je, Tu, Il, Elle (1974), Straub/Huillet’s Trop tôt, trop tard (1982); from agitprop, Getino and Solanas’s The Hour of the Furnaces (1968), Portabella’s Informe general… (1976); and even from ‘pure’ fiction, for example Gorin’s provocative selection of Griffith’s A Corner in Wheat (1909).

Just as within itself the essay film presents, in the words of Gorin, “the meandering of an intelligence that tries to multiply the entries and the exits into the material it has elected (or by which it has been elected),” so, without, its scope expands exponentially through the industrious activity of its adherents, blithely cutting across definitional borders and – as per the Manny Farber ian concept which gave Gorin’s ‘Termite’ series its name –  creating meaning precisely by eating away at its own boundaries. In the scope of its application and its association more with an (amorphous) sensibility as opposed to fixed rules, the essay film bears similarities to the most famous of all fabricated genres: film noir, which has been located both in its natural habitat of the crime thriller as well as in such disparate climates as melodramas, westerns and science fiction.

The essay film, however, has proved even more peripatetic: where noir was formulated from the films of a determinate historical period (no matter that the temporal goalposts are continually shifted), the essay film is resolutely unfixed in time; it has its choice of forebears. And while noir, despite its occasional shadings over into semi-documentary during the 1940s, remains bound to fictional narratives, the essay film moves blithely between the realms of fiction and non-fiction, complicating the terms of both.

“Here is a form that seems to accommodate the two sides of that divide at the same time, that can navigate from documentary to fiction and back, creating other polarities in the process between which it can operate,” writes Gorin. When Orson Welles , in the closing moments of his masterful meditation on authenticity and illusion F for Fake, chortles, “I did promise that for one hour, I’d tell you only the truth. For the past 17 minutes, I’ve been lying my head off,” he is expressing both the conjuror’s pleasure in a trick well played and the artist’s delight in a self-defined mode that is cheerfully impure in both form and, perhaps, intention.

Nevertheless, as the essay film merrily traipses through celluloid history it intersects with ‘pure cinema’ at many turns and its form as such owes much to one particularly prominent variety thereof.

The montage tradition

If the mystical strain described above represents the Dionysian side of pure cinema, Soviet montage was its Apollonian opposite: randomness, revelation and sensuous response countered by construction, forceful argumentation and didactic instruction.

No less than the mystics, however, the montagists were after essences. Eisenstein , Dziga Vertov and Pudovkin , along with their transnational associates and acolytes, sought to crystallise abstract concepts in the direct and purposeful juxtaposition of forceful, hard-edged images – the general made powerfully, viscerally immediate in the particular. Here, says Eisenstein, in the umbrella-wielding harpies who set upon the revolutionaries in October (1928), is bourgeois Reaction made manifest; here, in the serried ranks of soldiers proceeding as one down the Odessa Steps in Battleship Potemkin (1925), is Oppression undisguised; here, in the condemned Potemkin sailor who wins over his imminent executioners with a cry of “Brothers!” – a moment powerfully invoked by Marker at the beginning of his magnum opus A Grin Without a Cat (1977) – is Solidarity emergent and, from it, the seeds of Revolution.

The relentlessly unidirectional focus of classical Soviet montage puts it methodologically and temperamentally at odds with the ruminative, digressive and playful qualities we associate with the essay film. So, too, the former’s fierce ideological certainty and cadre spirit contrast with that free play of the mind, the Montaigne -inspired meanderings of individual intelligence, that so characterise our image of the latter.

Beyond Marker’s personal interest in and inheritance from the Soviet masters, classical montage laid the foundations of the essay film most pertinently in its foregrounding of the presence, within the fabric of the film, of a directing intelligence. Conducting their experiments in film not through ‘pure’ abstraction but through narrative, the montagists made manifest at least two operative levels within the film: the narrative itself and the arrangement of that narrative by which the deeper structures that move it are made legible. Against the seamless, immersive illusionism of commercial cinema, montage was a key for decrypting those social forces, both overt and hidden, that govern human society.

And as such it was method rather than material that was the pathway to truth. Fidelity to the authentic – whether the accurate representation of historical events or the documentary flavouring of Eisensteinian typage – was important only insomuch as it provided the filmmaker with another tool to reach a considerably higher plane of reality.

Dziga Vertov’s Enthusiasm (1931)

Midway on their Marxian mission to change the world rather than interpret it, the montagists actively made the world even as they revealed it. In doing so they powerfully expressed the dialectic between control and chaos that would come to be not only one of the chief motors of the essay film but the crux of modernity itself.

Vertov’s Man with a Movie Camera (1929), now claimed as the most venerable and venerated ancestor of the essay film (and this despite its prototypically purist claim to realise a ‘universal’ cinematic language “based on its complete separation from the language of literature and the theatre”) is the archetypal model of this high-modernist agon. While it is the turning of the movie projector itself and the penetrating gaze of Vertov’s kino-eye that sets the whirling dynamo of the city into motion, the recorder creating that which it records, that motion is also outside its control.

At the dawn of the cinematic century, the American writer Henry Adams saw in the dynamo both the expression of human mastery over nature and a conduit to mysterious, elemental powers beyond our comprehension. So, too, the modernist ambition expressed in literature, painting, architecture and cinema to capture a subject from all angles – to exhaust its wealth of surfaces, meanings, implications, resonances – collides with awe (or fear) before a plenitude that can never be encompassed.

Remove the high-modernist sense of mission and we can see this same dynamic as animating the essay film – recall that last, parenthetical term in Gorin’s formulation of the essay film, “multiply[ing] the entries and the exits into the material it has elected (or by which it has been elected)”. The nimble movements and multi-angled perspectives of the essay film are founded on this negotiation between active choice and passive possession; on the recognition that even the keenest insight pales in the face of an ultimate unknowability.

The other key inheritance the essay film received from the classical montage tradition, perhaps inevitably, was a progressive spirit, however variously defined. While Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will (1935) and Olympia (1938) amply and chillingly demonstrated that montage, like any instrumental apparatus, has no inherent ideological nature, hers were more the exceptions that proved the rule. (Though why, apart from ideological repulsiveness, should Riefenstahl’s plentifully fabricated ‘documentaries’ not be considered as essay films in their own right?)

The overwhelming fact remains that the great majority of those who drew upon the Soviet montagists for explicitly ideological ends (as opposed to Hollywood’s opportunistic swipings) resided on the left of the spectrum – and, in the montagists’ most notable successor in the period immediately following, retained their alignment with and inextricability from the state.

Progressive vs radical

The Grierson ian documentary movement in Britain neutered the political and aesthetic radicalism of its more dynamic model in favour of paternalistic progressivism founded on conformity, class complacency and snobbery towards its own medium. But if it offered a far paler antecedent to the essay film than the Soviet montage tradition, it nevertheless represents an important stage in the evolution of the essay-film form, for reasons not unrelated to some of those rather staid qualities.

The Soviet montagists had created a vision of modernity racing into the future at pace with the social and spiritual liberation of its proletarian pilot-passenger, an aggressively public ideology of group solidarity. The Grierson school, by contrast, offered a domesticated image of an efficient, rational and productive modern industrial society based on interconnected but separate public and private spheres, as per the ideological values of middle-class liberal individualism.

The Soviet montagists had looked to forge a universal, ‘pure’ cinematic language, at least before the oppressive dictates of Stalinist socialist realism shackled them. The Grierson school, evincing a middle-class disdain for the popular and ‘low’ arts, sought instead to purify the sullied medium of cinema by importing extra-cinematic prestige: most notably Night Mail (1936), with its Auden -penned, Britten -scored ode to the magic of the mail, or Humphrey Jennings’s salute to wartime solidarity A Diary for Timothy (1945), with its mildly sententious E.M. Forster narration.

Night Mail (1936)

What this domesticated dynamism and retrograde pursuit of high-cultural bona fides achieved, however, was to mingle a newfound cinematic language (montage) with a traditionally literary one (narration); and, despite the salutes to state-oriented communality, to re-introduce the individual, idiosyncratic voice as the vehicle of meaning – as the mediating intelligence that connects the viewer to the images viewed.

In Night Mail especially there is, in the whimsy of the Auden text and the film’s synchronisation of private time and public history, an intimation of the essay film’s musing, reflective voice as the chugging rhythm of the narration timed to the speeding wheels of the train gives way to a nocturnal vision of solitary dreamers bedevilled by spectral monsters, awakening in expectation of the postman’s knock with a “quickening of the heart/for who can bear to be forgot?”

It’s a curiously disquieting conclusion: this unsettling, anxious vision of disappearance that takes on an even darker shade with the looming spectre of war – one that rhymes, five decades on, with the wistful search of Marker’s narrator in Sans soleil, seeking those fleeting images which “quicken the heart” in a world where wars both past and present have been forgotten, subsumed in a modern society built upon the systematic banishment of memory.

It is, of course, with the seminal post-war collaborations between Marker and Alain Resnais that the essay film proper emerges. In contrast to the striving culture-snobbery of the Griersonian documentary, the Resnais-Marker collaborations (and the Resnais solo documentary shorts that preceded them) inaugurate a blithe, seemingly effortless dialogue between cinema and the other arts in both their subjects (painting, sculpture) and their assorted creative personnel (writers Paul Éluard , Jean Cayrol , Raymond Queneau , composers Darius Milhaud and Hanns Eisler ). This also marks the point where the revolutionary line of the Soviets and the soft, statist liberalism of the British documentarians give way to a more free-floating but staunchly oppositional leftism, one derived as much from a spirit of humanistic inquiry as from ideological affiliation.

Related to this was the form’s problems with official patronage. Originally conceived as commissions by various French government or government-affiliated bodies, the Resnais-Marker films famously ran into trouble from French censors: Les statues meurent aussi (1953) for its condemnation of French colonialism, Night and Fog for its shots of Vichy policemen guarding deportation camps; the former film would have its second half lopped off before being cleared for screening, the latter its offending shots removed.

Night and Fog (1955)

Appropriately, it is at this moment that the emphasis of the essay film begins to shift away from tactile presence – the whirl of the city, the rhythm of the rain, the workings of industry – to felt absence. The montagists had marvelled at the workings of human creations which raced ahead irrespective of human efforts; here, the systems created by humanity to master the world write, in their very functioning, an epitaph for those things extinguished in the act of mastering them. The African masks preserved in the Musée de l’Homme in Les statues meurent aussi speak of a bloody legacy of vanquished and conquered civilisations; the labyrinthine archival complex of the Bibliothèque Nationale in the sardonically titled Toute la mémoire du monde (1956) sparks a disquisition on all that is forgotten in the act of cataloguing knowledge; the miracle of modern plastics saluted in the witty, industrially commissioned Le Chant du styrène (1958) regresses backwards to its homely beginnings; in Night and Fog an unprecedentedly enormous effort of human organisation marshals itself to actively produce a dreadful, previously unimaginable nullity.

To overstate the case, loss is the primary motor of the modern essay film: loss of belief in the image’s ability to faithfully reflect reality; loss of faith in the cinema’s ability to capture life as it is lived; loss of illusions about cinema’s ‘purity’, its autonomy from the other arts or, for that matter, the world.

“You never know what you may be filming,” notes one of Marker’s narrating surrogates in A Grin Without a Cat, as footage of the Chilean equestrian team at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics offers a glimpse of a future member of the Pinochet junta. The image and sound captured at the time of filming offer one facet of reality; it is only with this lateral move outside that reality that the future reality it conceals can speak.

What will distinguish the essay film, as Bazin noted, is not only its ability to make the image but also its ability to interrogate it, to dispel the illusion of its sovereignty and see it as part of a matrix of meaning that extends beyond the screen. No less than were the montagists, the film-essayists seek the motive forces of modern society not by crystallising eternal verities in powerful images but by investigating that ever-shifting, kaleidoscopic relationship between our regime of images and the realities it both reveals and occludes.

— Andrew Tracy

1.   À propos de Nice

Jean Vigo, 1930

Few documentaries have achieved the cult status of the 22-minute A propos de Nice, co-directed by Jean Vigo and cameraman Boris Kaufman at the beginning of their careers. The film retains a spontaneous, apparently haphazard, quality yet its careful montage combines a strong realist drive, lyrical dashes – helped by Marc Perrone’s accordion music – and a clear political agenda.

In today’s era, in which the Côte d’Azur has become a byword for hedonistic consumption, it’s refreshing to see a film that systematically undermines its glossy surface. Using images sometimes ‘stolen’ with hidden cameras, A propos de Nice moves between the city’s main sites of pleasure: the Casino, the Promenade des Anglais, the Hotel Negresco and the carnival. Occasionally the filmmakers remind us of the sea, the birds, the wind in the trees but mostly they contrast people: the rich play tennis, the poor boules; the rich have tea, the poor gamble in the (then) squalid streets of the Old Town.

As often, women bear the brunt of any critique of bourgeois consumption: a rich old woman’s head is compared to an ostrich, others grin as they gaze up at phallic factory chimneys; young women dance frenetically, their crotch to the camera. In the film’s most famous image, an elegant woman is ‘stripped’ by the camera to reveal her naked body – not quite matched by a man’s shoes vanishing to display his naked feet to the shoe-shine.

An essay film avant la lettre , A propos de Nice ends on Soviet-style workers’ faces and burning furnaces. The message is clear, even if it has not been heeded by history.

— Ginette Vincendeau

2. A Diary for Timothy

Humphrey Jennings, 1945

A Diary for Timothy takes the form of a journal addressed to the eponymous Timothy James Jenkins, born on 3 September 1944, exactly five years after Britain’s entry into World War II. The narrator, Michael Redgrave , a benevolent offscreen presence, informs young Timothy about the momentous events since his birth and later advises that, even when the war is over, there will be “everyday danger”.

The subjectivity and speculative approach maintained throughout are more akin to the essay tradition than traditional propaganda in their rejection of mere glib conveyance of information or thunderous hectoring. Instead Jennings invites us quietly to observe the nuances of everyday life as Britain enters the final chapter of the war. Against the momentous political backdrop, otherwise routine, everyday activities are ascribed new profundity as the Welsh miner Geronwy, Alan the farmer, Bill the railway engineer and Peter the convalescent fighter pilot go about their daily business.

Within the confines of the Ministry of Information’s remit – to lift the spirits of a battle-weary nation – and the loose narrative framework of Timothy’s first six months, Jennings finds ample expression for the kind of formal experiment that sets his work apart from that of other contemporary documentarians. He worked across film, painting, photography, theatrical design, journalism and poetry; in Diary his protean spirit finds expression in a manner that transgresses the conventional parameters of wartime propaganda, stretching into film poem, philosophical reflection, social document, surrealistic ethnographic observation and impressionistic symphony. Managing to keep to the right side of sentimentality, it still makes for potent viewing.

— Catherine McGahan

3. Toute la mémoire du monde

Alain Resnais, 1956

In the opening credits of Toute la mémoire du monde, alongside the director’s name and that of producer Pierre Braunberger , one reads the mysterious designation “Groupe des XXX”. This Group of Thirty was an assembly of filmmakers who mobilised in the early 1950s to defend the “style, quality and ambitious subject matter” of short films in post-war France; the signatories of its 1953 ‘Declaration’ included Resnais , Chris Marker and Agnès Varda. The success of the campaign contributed to a golden age of short filmmaking that would last a decade and form the crucible of the French essay film.

A 22-minute poetic documentary about the old French Bibliothèque Nationale, Toute la mémoire du monde is a key work in this strand of filmmaking and one which can also be seen as part of a loose ‘trilogy of memory’ in Resnais’s early documentaries. Les statues meurent aussi (co-directed with Chris Marker) explored cultural memory as embodied in African art and the depredations of colonialism; Night and Fog was a seminal reckoning with the historical memory of the Nazi death camps. While less politically controversial than these earlier works, Toute la mémoire du monde’s depiction of the Bibliothèque Nationale is still oddly suggestive of a prison, with its uniformed guards and endless corridors. In W.G. Sebald ’s 2001 novel Austerlitz, directly after a passage dedicated to Resnais’s film, the protagonist describes his uncertainty over whether, when using the library, he “was on the Islands of the Blest, or, on the contrary, in a penal colony”.

Resnais explores the workings of the library through the effective device of following a book from arrival and cataloguing to its delivery to a reader (the book itself being something of an in-joke: a mocked-up travel guide to Mars in the Petite Planète series Marker was then editing for Editions du Seuil). With Resnais’s probing, mobile camerawork and a commentary by French writer Remo Forlani, Toute la mémoire du monde transforms the library into a mysterious labyrinth, something between an edifice and an organism: part brain and part tomb.

— Chris Darke

4. The House is Black

(Khaneh siah ast) Forough Farrokhzad, 1963

Before the House of Makhmalbaf there was The House is Black. Called “the greatest of all Iranian films” by critic Jonathan Rosenbaum, who helped translate the subtitles from Farsi into English, this 20-minute black-and-white essay film by feminist poet Farrokhzad was shot in a leper colony near Tabriz in northern Iran and has been heralded as the touchstone of the Iranian New Wave.

The buildings of the Baba Baghi colony are brick and peeling whitewash but a student asked to write a sentence using the word ‘house’ offers Khaneh siah ast : the house is black. His hand, seen in close-up, is one of many in the film; rather than objects of medical curiosity, these hands – some fingerless, many distorted by the disease – are agents, always in movement, doing, making, exercising, praying. In putting white words on the blackboard, the student makes part of the film; in the next shots, the film’s credits appear, similarly handwritten on the same blackboard.

As they negotiate the camera’s gaze and provide the soundtrack by singing, stamping and wheeling a barrow, the lepers are co-authors of the film. Farrokhzad echoes their prayers, heard and seen on screen, with her voiceover, which collages religious texts, beginning with the passage from Psalm 55 famously set to music by Mendelssohn (“O for the wings of a dove”).

In the conjunctions between Farrokhzad’s poetic narration and diegetic sound, including tanbur-playing, an intense assonance arises. Its beat is provided by uniquely lyrical associative editing that would influence Abbas Kiarostami , who quotes Farrokhzad’s poem ‘The Wind Will Carry Us’ in his eponymous film . Repeated shots of familiar bodily movement, made musical, move the film insistently into the viewer’s body: it is infectious. Posing a question of aesthetics, The House Is Black uses the contagious gaze of cinema to dissolve the screen between Us and Them.

— Sophie Mayer

5. Letter to Jane: An Investigation About a Still

Jean-Luc Godard & Jean-Pierre Gorin, 1972

With its invocation of Brecht (“Uncle Bertolt”), rejection of visual pleasure (for 52 minutes we’re mostly looking at a single black-and-white still) and discussion of the role of intellectuals in “the revolution”, Letter to Jane is so much of its time as to appear untranslatable to the present except as a curio from a distant era of radical cinema. Between 1969 and 1971, Godard and Gorin made films collectively as part of the Dziga Vertov Group before they returned, in 1972, to the mainstream with Tout va bien , a big-budget film about the aftermath of May 1968 featuring leftist stars Yves Montand and  Jane Fonda . It was to the latter that Godard and Gorin directed their Letter after seeing a news photograph of her on a solidarity visit to North Vietnam in August 1972.

Intended to accompany the US release of Tout va bien, Letter to Jane is ‘a letter’ only in as much as it is fairly conversational in tone, with Godard and Gorin delivering their voiceovers in English. It’s stylistically more akin to the ‘blackboard films’ of the time, with their combination of pedagogical instruction and stern auto-critique.

It’s also an inspired semiological reading of a media image and a reckoning with the contradictions of celebrity activism. Godard and Gorin examine the image’s framing and camera angle and ask why Fonda is the ‘star’ of the photograph while the Vietnamese themselves remain faceless or out of focus? And what of her expression of compassionate concern? This “expression of an expression” they trace back, via an elaboration of the Kuleshov effect , through other famous faces – Henry Fonda , John Wayne , Lillian Gish and Falconetti – concluding that it allows for “no reverse shot” and serves only to bolster Western “good conscience”.

Letter to Jane is ultimately concerned with the same question that troubled philosophers such as Levinas and Derrida : what’s at stake ethically when one claims to speak “in place of the other”? Any contemporary critique of celebrity activism – from Bono and Geldof to Angelina Jolie – should start here, with a pair of gauchiste trolls muttering darkly beneath a press shot of ‘Hanoi Jane’.

6. F for Fake

Orson Welles, 1973

Those who insist it was all downhill for Orson Welles after Citizen Kane would do well to take a close look at this film made more than three decades later, in its own idiosyncratic way a masterpiece just as innovative as his better-known feature debut.

Perhaps the film’s comparative and undeserved critical neglect is due to its predominantly playful tone, or perhaps it’s because it is a low-budget, hard-to-categorise, deeply personal work that mixes original material with plenty of footage filmed by others – most extensively taken from a documentary by François Reichenbach about Clifford Irving and his bogus biography of his friend Elmyr de Hory , an art forger who claimed to have painted pictures attributed to famous names and hung in the world’s most prestigious galleries.

If the film had simply offered an account of the hoaxes perpetrated by that disreputable duo, it would have been entertaining enough but, by means of some extremely inventive, innovative and inspired editing, Welles broadens his study of fakery to take in his own history as a ‘charlatan’ – not merely his lifelong penchant for magician’s tricks but also the 1938 radio broadcast of his news-report adaptation of H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds – as well as observations on Howard Hughes , Pablo Picasso and the anonymous builders of Chartres cathedral. So it is that Welles contrives to conjure up, behind a colourful cloak of consistently entertaining mischief, a rueful meditation on truth and falsehood, art and authorship – a subject presumably dear to his heart following Pauline Kael ’s then recent attempts to persuade the world that Herman J. Mankiewicz had been the real creative force behind Kane.

As a riposte to that thesis (albeit never framed as such), F for Fake is subtle, robust, supremely erudite and never once bitter; the darkest moment – as Welles contemplates the serene magnificence of Chartres – is at once an uncharacteristic but touchingly heartfelt display of humility and a poignant memento mori. And it is in this delicate balancing of the autobiographical with the universal, as well as in the dazzling deployment of cinematic form to illustrate and mirror content, that the film works its once unique, now highly influential magic.

— Geoff Andrew

7. How to Live in the German Federal Republic

(Leben – BRD) Harun Farocki, 1990

Harun Farocki ’s portrait of West Germany in 32 simulations from training sessions has no commentary, just the actions themselves in all their surreal beauty, one after the other. The Bundesrepublik Deutschland is shown as a nation of people who can deal with everything because they have been prepared – taught how to react properly in every possible situation.

We know how birth works; how to behave in kindergarten; how to chat up girls, boys or whatever we fancy (for we’re liberal-minded, if only in principle); how to look for a job and maybe live without finding one; how to wiggle our arses in the hottest way possible when we pole-dance, or manage a hostage crisis without things getting (too) bloody. Whatever job we do, we know it by heart; we also know how to manage whatever kind of psychological breakdown we experience; and we are also prepared for the end, and even have an idea about how our burial will go. This is the nation: one of fearful people in dire need of control over their one chance of getting it right.

Viewed from the present, How to Live in the German Federal Republic is revealed as the archetype of many a Farocki film in the decades to follow, for example Die Umschulung (1994), Der Auftritt (1996) or Nicht ohne Risiko (2004), all of which document as dispassionately as possible different – not necessarily simulated – scenarios of social interactions related to labour and capital. For all their enlightening beauty, none of these ever came close to How to Live in the German Federal Republic which, depending on one’s mood, can play like an absurd comedy or the most gut-wrenching drama. Yet one disquieting thing is certain: How to Live in the German Federal Republic didn’t age – our lives still look the same.

— Olaf Möller

8. One Man’s War

(La Guerre d’un seul homme) Edgardo Cozarinsky , 1982

One Man’s War proves that an auteur film can be made without writing a line, recording a sound or shooting a single frame. It’s easy to point to the ‘extraordinary’ character of the film, given its combination of materials that were not made to cohabit; there couldn’t be a less plausible dialogue than the one Cozarinsky establishes between the newsreels shot during the Nazi occupation of Paris and the Parisian diaries of novelist and Nazi officer Ernst Jünger . There’s some truth to Pascal Bonitzer’s assertion in Cahiers du cinéma in 1982 that the principle of the documentary was inverted here, since it is the images that provide a commentary for the voice.

But that observation still doesn’t pin down the uniqueness of a work that forces history through a series of registers, styles and dimensions, wiping out the distance between reality and subjectivity, propaganda and literature, cinema and journalism, daily life and dream, and establishing the idea not so much of communicating vessels as of contaminating vessels.

To enquire about the essayistic dimension of One Man’s War is to submit it to a test of purity against which the film itself is rebelling. This is no ars combinatoria but systems of collision and harmony; organic in their temporal development and experimental in their procedural eagerness. It’s like a machine created to die instantly; neither Cozarinsky nor anyone else could repeat the trick, as is the case with all great avant-garde works.

By blurring the genre of his literary essays, his fictional films, his archival documentaries, his literary fictions, Cozarinsky showed he knew how to reinvent the erasure of borders. One Man’s War is not a film about the Occupation but a meditation on the different forms in which that Occupation can be represented.

—Sergio Wolf. Translated by Mar Diestro-Dópido

9. Sans soleil

Chris Marker, 1982

There are many moments to quicken the heart in Sans soleil but one in particular demonstrates the method at work in Marker’s peerless film. An unseen female narrator reads from letters sent to her by a globetrotting cameraman named Sandor Krasna (Marker’s nom de voyage), one of which muses on the 11th-century Japanese writer  Sei Shōnagon .

As we hear of Shōnagon’s “list of elegant things, distressing things, even of things not worth doing”, we watch images of a missile being launched and a hovering bomber. What’s the connection? There is none. Nothing here fixes word and image in illustrative lockstep; it’s in the space between them that Sans soleil makes room for the spectator to drift, dream and think – to inimitable effect.

Sans soleil was Marker’s return to a personal mode of filmmaking after more than a decade in militant cinema. His reprise of the epistolary form looks back to earlier films such as  Letter from Siberia  (1958) but the ‘voice’ here is both intimate and removed. The narrator’s reading of Krasna’s letters flips the first person to the third, using ‘he’ instead of ‘I’. Distance and proximity in the words mirror, multiply and magnify both the distances travelled and the time spanned in the images, especially those of the 1960s and its lost dreams of revolutionary social change.

While it’s handy to define Sans soleil as an ‘essay film’, there’s something about the dry term that doesn’t do justice to the experience of watching it. After Marker’s death last year, when writing programme notes on the film, I came up with a line that captures something of what it’s like to watch Sans soleil: “a mesmerising, lucid and lovely river of film, which, like the river of the ancients, is never the same when one steps into it a second time”.

10. Handsworth Songs

Black Audio Film Collective, 1986

Made at the time of civil unrest in Birmingham, this key example of the essay film at its most complex remains relevant both formally and thematically. Handsworth Songs is no straightforward attempt to provide answers as to why the riots happened; instead, using archive film spliced with made and found footage of the events and the media and popular reaction to them, it creates a poetic sense of context.

The film is an example of counter-media in that it slows down the demand for either immediate explanation or blanket condemnation. Its stillness allows the history of immigration and the subsequent hostility of the media and the police to the black and Asian population to be told in careful detail.

One repeated scene shows a young black man running through a group of white policemen who surround him on all sides. He manages to break free several times before being wrestled to the ground; if only for one brief, utopian moment, an entirely different history of race in the UK is opened up.

The waves of post-war immigration are charted in the stories told both by a dominant (and frequently repressive) televisual narrative and, importantly, by migrants themselves. Interviews mingle with voiceover, music accompanies the machines that the Windrush generation work at. But there are no definitive answers here, only, as the Black Audio Film Collective memorably suggests, “the ghosts of songs”.

— Nina Power

11.   Los Angeles Plays Itself

Thom Andersen, 2003

One of the attractions that drew early film pioneers out west, besides the sunlight and the industrial freedom, was the versatility of the southern Californian landscape: with sea, snowy mountains, desert, fruit groves, Spanish missions, an urban downtown and suburban boulevards all within a 100-mile radius, the Los Angeles basin quickly and famously became a kind of giant open-air film studio, available and pliant.

Of course, some people actually live there too. “Sometimes I think that gives me the right to criticise,” growls native Angeleno Andersen in his forensic three-hour prosecution of moving images of the movie city, whose mounting litany of complaints – couched in Encke King’s gravelly, near-parodically irritated voiceover, and sometimes organised, as Stuart Klawans wrote in The Nation, “in the manner of a saloon orator” – belies a sly humour leavening a radically serious intent.

Inspired in part by Mark Rappaport’s factual essay appropriations of screen fictions (Rock Hudson’s Home Movies, 1993; From the Journals of Jean Seberg , 1995), as well as Godard’s Histoire(s) de cinéma, this “city symphony in reverse” asserts public rights to our screen discourse through its magpie method as well as its argument. (Today you could rebrand it ‘Occupy Hollywood’.) Tinseltown malfeasance is evidenced across some 200 different film clips, from offences against geography and slurs against architecture to the overt historical mythologies of Chinatown (1974), Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) and L.A. Confidential (1997), in which the city’s class and cultural fault-lines are repainted “in crocodile tears” as doleful tragedies of conspiracy, promoting hopelessness in the face of injustice.

Andersen’s film by contrast spurs us to independent activism, starting with the reclamation of our gaze: “What if we watch with our voluntary attention, instead of letting the movies direct us?” he asks, peering beyond the foregrounding of character and story. And what if more movies were better and more useful, helping us see our world for what it is? Los Angeles Plays Itself grows most moving – and useful – extolling the Los Angeles neorealism Andersen has in mind: stories of “so many men unneeded, unwanted”, as he says over a scene from Billy Woodberry’s Bless Their Little Hearts (1983), “in a world in which there is so much to be done”.

— Nick Bradshaw

12.   La Morte Rouge

Víctor Erice, 2006

The famously unprolific Spanish director Víctor Erice may remain best known for his full-length fiction feature The Spirit of the Beehive (1973), but his other films are no less rewarding. Having made a brilliant foray into the fertile territory located somewhere between ‘documentary’ and ‘fiction’ with The Quince Tree Sun (1992), in this half-hour film made for the ‘Correspondences’ exhibition exploring resemblances in the oeuvres of Erice and Kiarostami , the relationship between reality and artifice becomes his very subject.

A ‘small’ work, it comprises stills, archive footage, clips from an old Sherlock Holmes movie, a few brief new scenes – mostly without actors – and music by Mompou and (for once, superbly used) Arvo Pärt . If its tone – it’s introduced as a “soliloquy” – and scale are modest, its thematic range and philosophical sophistication are considerable.

The title is the name of the Québécois village that is the setting for The Scarlet Claw (1944), a wartime Holmes mystery starring Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce which was the first movie Erice ever saw, taken by his sister to the Kursaal cinema in San Sebastian.

For the five-year-old, the experience was a revelation: unable to distinguish the ‘reality’ of the newsreel from that of the nightmare world of Roy William Neill’s film, he not only learned that death and murder existed but noted that the adults in the audience, presumably privy to some secret knowledge denied him, were unaffected by the corpses on screen. Had this something to do with war? Why was La Morte Rouge not on any map? And what did it signify that postman Potts was not, in fact, Potts but the killer – and an actor (whatever that was) to boot?

From such personal reminiscences – evoked with wondrous intimacy in the immaculate Castillian of the writer-director’s own wry narration – Erice fashions a lyrical meditation on themes that have underpinned his work from Beehive to Broken Windows (2012): time and change, memory and identity, innocence and experience, war and death. And because he understands, intellectually and emotionally, that the time-based medium he himself works in can reveal unforgettably vivid realities that belong wholly to the realm of the imaginary, La Morte Rouge is a great film not only about the power of cinema but about life itself.

Sight & Sound: the August 2013 issue

In this issue: Frances Ha’s Greta Gerwig – the most exciting actress in America? Plus Ryan Gosling in Only God Forgives, Wadjda, The Wall,...

More from this issue

DVDs and Blu Ray

Buy The Complete Humphrey Jennings Collection Volume Three: A Diary for Timothy on DVD and Blu Ray

Humphrey Jennings’s transition from wartime to peacetime filmmaking.

Buy Chronicle of a Summer on DVD and Blu Ray

Jean Rouch’s hugely influential and ground-breaking documentary.

Further reading

Video essay: The essay film – some thoughts of discontent

Kevin B. Lee

The land still lies: Handsworth Songs and the English riots

The world at sea: The Forgotten Space

What I owe to Chris Marker

Patricio Guzmán

His and her ghosts: reworking La Jetée

Melissa Bradshaw

At home (and away) with Agnès Varda

Daniel Trilling

Pere Portabella looks back

John Akomfrah’s Hauntologies

Laura Allsop

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According to Stephen King, This Is Why We Crave Horror Movies

The horror king breaks down our obsession with the macabre.

Stephen King and horror are synonymous. Are you really able to call yourself a fan of horror if one of his novels or film adaptations isn't among your top favorites? The Maine-born writer is hands down the most successful horror writer and one of the most beloved and prolific writers ever whose legacy spans generations. Without King, we might not be as terrified of clowns and or think twice about bullying the shy girl in school. One could say that King has earned the moniker, "the King of Horror." In addition to all he's written, King has also had over 60 adaptations of his work for television and the big screen and has written, produced, and starred in films and shows as well. He has fully immersed himself in the genre of horror from all sides, and it's unlikely that we will ever have anyone else like Stephen King. But did you know that King wrote an essay that was published in Playboy magazine about horror movies?

In 1981, King's essay titled " Why We Crave Horror Movies " was published in Playboy magazine as a variation of the chapter " The Horror Movie As Junk Food" in Danse Macabre . Danse Macabre was published in 1981 and is one of the non-fiction books in which that wrote about horror in media and how our fears and anxieties have been influencing the horror genre. The full article that was published is no longer online, but there is a shortened four-page version of it that can be found.

RELATED: The Iconic Horror Movie You Won't Believe Premiered at Cannes

Stephen King Believes We Are All Mentally Ill

The essay starts out guns blazing, the first line reading "I think that we're all mentally ill; those of us outside the asylums only hide it a little bit better." From here, he describes the general behaviors of people we know and how mannerisms and irrational fears are not different between the public and those in asylums. He points out that we pay money to sit in a theater and be scared to prove a point that we can and to show that we do not shy away from fear. Some of us, he states, even go watch horror movies for fun, which closes the gap between normalcy and insanity. A patron can go to the movies, and watch someone get mutilated and killed, and it's considered normal, everyday behavior. This, as a horror lover, feels very targeted. I absolutely watch horror movies for fun and I will do so with my bucket of heart-attack-buttered popcorn and sip on my Coke Zero. The most insane thing about all of that? The massive debt accumulated from one simple movie date.

Watching Horror Movies Allows Us to Release Our Insanity

King states that we use horror movies as a catharsis to act out our nightmares and the worst parts of us. Getting to watch the insanity and depravity on the movie screen allows us to release our inner insanity, which in turn, keeps us sane. He writes that watching horror movies allows us to let our emotions have little to no rein at all, and that is something that we don't always get to do in everyday life. Society has a set of parameters that we must follow with regard to expressing ourselves to maintain the air of normalcy and not be seen as a weirdo. When watching horror movies, we see incredibly visceral reactions in the most extreme of situations. This can cause the viewer to reflect on how they would react or respond to being in the same type of situation. Do we identify more with the victim or the villain? This poses an interesting thought for horror lovers because sometimes the villain is justified. Are we wrong for empathizing with them instead?

Let's take a look at one of the more popular horror movies of recent years. Mandy is about a woman who is murdered by a crazed cult because she is the object of the leader's obsession. This causes Red ( Nicolas Cage ) to ride off seeking revenge for the love of his life being murdered. There are also movies like I Spit On Your Grave and The Last House On The Left where the protagonist becomes the murderer in these instances because of the trauma they experienced from sexual assault. Their revenge makes audiences a little more willing to side with the murderer because they took back their power and those they killed got what was deserved. This is where that Lucille Bluth meme that says "good for her" is used. I'll die on the hill that those characters were justified and if that makes me mentally ill then King might be right!

What Does Stephen King Mean When He Tells Us to "Keep the Gators" Fed?

At the end of the essay, King mentions he likes to watch the most extreme horror movies because it releases a trap door where he can feed the alligators. The alligators he is referring to are a metaphor for the worst in all humans and the morbid fantasies that lie within each of us. The essay concludes with "It was Lennon and McCartney who said that all you need is love, and I would agree with that. As long as you keep the gators fed." From this, we can deduce that King feels we all have the ability to be institutionalized, but those of us that watch horror movies are less likely because the sick fantasies can be released from our brains.

With that release, we can walk down the street normally without the bat of an eye from walkers-by. Perhaps this is why the premise for movies like The Purge came to fruition. A movie where for 24 hours all crime, including murder, is decriminalized couldn't have been made by someone who doesn't get road rage or scream into the void. It was absolutely made by someone who waited at the DMV for too long or has had experience working in retail around Black Friday. With what King is saying, The Purge is a direct reflection of that catharsis. Not only are you getting to watch a crazy horror movie where everyone is shooting everyone and everything is on fire, but it's likely something you've had a thought or two about. You can consider those gators fed for sure.

Do Horror Movies Offer Us True Catharsis or Persuasive Perspective?

Catharsis as a concept was coined by the philosopher Aristotle . He explained that the performing arts are a way to purge negative types of emotions from our subconscious, so we don't have to hold onto them anymore. This viewpoint further perpetuates what King is trying to explain. With that cathartic relief, the urgency to act on negative emotion is less likely to happen because there is no build-up of negativity circling the drain from our subconscious to our reality. However, some who read the essay felt like King was just being persuasive and using fancy imagery rather than identifying an actual reason why horror is popular. Some claim the shock and awe factor of his words and his influence on horror would cause some readers to believe they are mentally ill deep down. I have to say, as a millennial who rummages through the ends of social media multiple times a day, everyone on the internet thinks they're mentally ill, and we all have the memes to prove it. It is exciting and fascinating to watch a horror movie after working a 9-5 job where the excitement is low. Watching Ghostface stalk Sidney Prescott ( Neve Campbell ) in Scream isn't everyone's idea of winding down, but for the last 20-something years, it has been my comfort movie when I'm feeling sad or down. The nostalgia of Scream is what makes it feel cathartic to me and that's free therapy!

What is the Science Behind Loving Horror Movies?

Psychology studies will tell us that individuals who crave and love horror are interested in it because they have a higher sensation-seeking trait . This means they have a higher penchant for wanting to experience thrilling and exciting situations. Those with a lower level of empathy are also more likely to enjoy horror movies as they will have a less innate response to a traumatic scene on screen. According to the DSM-V , a severe lack of empathy could potentially be a sign of a more serious psychological issue, however, the degree of severity will vary. I do love rollercoasters, but I also cry when I see a dog that is just too cute, so horror lovers aren't necessarily the unsympathetic robots that studies want us to be. Watching horror films can also trigger a fight-or-flight sensation , which will boost adrenaline and release endorphins and dopamine in the brain. Those chemicals being released make the viewers feel accomplished and positive, relating back to the idea that watching horror movies is cathartic for viewers.

Anyone who reads and studies research knows that correlation does not imply causation, but whether King's perspective is influenced by his position in the horror genre or not, psychology and science can back up the real reasons why audiences love horror movies. As a longtime horror lover and a pretty above-average horror trivia nerd, I have to wonder if saying we are mentally ill is an overstatement and could maybe be identified more as horror lovers seeking extreme stimulus. Granted, this essay was written over 40 years ago, so back then liking horror wasn't as widely accepted as it is today. It's possible that King felt more out of place for his horror love back then and the alienation of a fringe niche made him feel mentally ill. Is King onto something by assuming that everyone has mental illness deep down, or is this a gross overestimation of the human psyche? The answer likely falls somewhere in between, but those that love horror will continue to release that catharsis through the terrifying and the unknown because it's a scream, baby!