Intro to Genres (page 2)

Crime/Gangster

These genre films involve the underworld workings of mobsters, bank robbers, violent criminals, and general thugs. The main sub-genres are Film Noir, Gangster and Detective/Mysteries. Crime/Gangster movies generally show the secret life of a solitary underdog who must rob, steal, outwit and strong arm his/her way to the top only to fall back down in the end (usually in a bloody way). The films are usually morality tales of young immigrants or other outcasts who can't follow the "legitimate" avenues to the wealth, status and material possessions that make up the American Dream. Movies include The Godfather trilogy (Francis Ford Coppola, '72, '74, '90), Scarface (Brian De Palma, 1983) and Natural Born Killers (Oliver Stone, 1994).

Thriller/Suspense

These films often blend suspense with other genres such as Action, Crime, Western or Horror. The audience sits on the edge of its seat through these overly exciting, nail-biting, shoulder-tensing, hair-pulling 90-minutes of anxiety building towards a life-threatening climax. These adrenaline-pumping films cross a wide swath of plots, character types and settings as the genre itself crosses many boundaries. Thriller/Suspense films include Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960), The Shining (Stanley Kubrick, 1980) and Saving Private Ryan (Steven Spielberg, …