Introduction

This book is about film genres and genre films—what they are and how to understand them. If you are at all interested in movies, you likely have thought about them in generic terms, even if you are unaware of doing so. Mainstream cinema is comprised mostly of genre movies, and throughout film history genre movies have comprised the bulk of commercial filmmaking practice, both in Hollywood and elsewhere. While there are different genres in different countries, as discussed in Chapter 2, the movies that are made, distributed, and exhibited around the world are overwhelmingly genre movies.