Genre can be a useful tool for describing and categorizing movies, but there are some movies which defy genre classification. In these cases, genre can be more of a hindrance, as audiences bring their own preconceived notions to a movie without allowing it to unfold organically. Some of the most interesting movies are those which don’t conform to stringent genre traditions.
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It’s common for a movie to straddle two or even three genres at once, but some combinations are more natural than others. When a movie starts to incorporate elements of more genres, especially those that seem directly opposed, it can create a lot of argument over how it should be classified. Genres rarely matter after the fact, but they can often be a reference for analysis and discussion.
You are watching: 10 Movies That Make Viewers Argue Over Which Genre They Belong To
10
Fight Club (1999)
Fincher’s Dark Psychological Thriller Is Surprisingly Funny
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8.8/10
Fight Club
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Release Date
October 15, 1999
Director
David Fincher
Cast
Brad Pitt
, Meat Loaf
, Edward Norton
, Jared Leto
, Helena Bonham Carter
David Fincher’s Fight Club is often classified as either a psychological drama or a crime movie, but it doesn’t slot neatly into either one of these genres. Fincher himself has described it as a love story, which places more emphasis on the relationship between Ed Norton’s Narrator and Helena Bonham Carter’s Marla. Fight Club‘s ending certainly draws attention to this element of the story, but it isn’t always in the spotlight.
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Another thing that muddles the genre classification of Fight Club is the movie’s dark satire. Fight Club often resembles a comedy movie, with the same anti-corporate streak as other 1990s movies like Office Space and Clerks. Brad Pitt’s charismatic performance as Tyler Durden gets a lot of laughs, even as his enlightened rhetoric takes a turn towards violence and terrorism. In this way, Fight Club seems to take common anti-work sentiments to their extreme limits.
9
Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009)
Fantastic Mr. Fox Looks Like A Children’s Movie, But Its Story Suggests Otherwise
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Fantastic Mr. Fox
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Release Date
November 13, 2009
Director
Wes Anderson
Cast
George Clooney
, Meryl Streep
, Jason Schwartzman
, Bill Murray
, Willem Dafoe
, Owen Wilson
Fantastic Mr. Fox is one of Wes Anderson’s best movies, but it initially confounded some critics who weren’t sure whether it should be classified as a children’s movie. The story is taken from Roald Dahl’s beloved children’s book of the same name, but Anderson only uses the novel as a jumping-off point. From there, he adds plenty of more mature story beats, like Mr. Fox’s anxieties about settling down and raising his family. Fantastic Mr. Fox also throws in elements of heist capers and prison movies.
Many of Anderson’s movies use his picture-book aesthetic to conceal something much darker.
Many of Anderson’s movies use his picture-book aesthetic to conceal something much darker. The Grand Budapest Hotel tracks the rise of fascism in Central Europe, The Life Aquatic is a meditation on grief, and Asteroid City displays Anderson’s own artistic insecurities. Fantastic Mr. Fox is even harder to classify than these other movies, since it so clearly sports the visual style of a quirky children’s movie, but much of it is incomprehensible to a young audience.
8
Pulp Fiction (1994)
Quentin Tarantino Often Blends Different Genres
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8.6/10
Pulp Fiction
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Release Date
October 14, 1994
Director
Quentin Tarantino
Cast
John Travolta
, Bruce Willis
, Ving Rhames
, Samuel L. Jackson
, Uma Thurman
, Christopher Walken
, Tim Roth
, Harvey Keitel
, Eric Stoltz
, Rosanna Arquette
Quentin Tarantino’s passion for cinema can be seen in each of his movies, as they are filled with homages and genre pastiches. Some of these are more straightforward, like his stylized Westerns or the tributes to Eastern martial arts movies throughout Kill Bill. Pulp Fiction is a response to crime movies, like Reservoir Dogs which came before it, but it straddles multiple genres at once.
Within the sprawling, non-linear story of Pulp Fiction, the tone often jerks quickly from comedy to drama.
Pulp Fiction‘s dialogue is frequently hilarious, even when it feels like the tension should be rising. Tarantino blends this comedy with some bursts of frenetic action and personal drama. Within the sprawling, non-linear story of Pulp Fiction, the tone often jerks quickly from comedy to drama, which allows Tarantino to constantly surprise and entertain his audience. While it’s primarily seen as a crime movie, this stringent classification doesn’t encompass all that Pulp Fiction has to offer.
7
American Animals (2018)
The Heist Drama Examines What Audiences Expect From Genres
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American Animals
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Release Date
August 14, 2018
Director
Bart Layton
Cast
Evan Peters
, Blake Jenner
, Barry Keoghan
, Jared Abrahamson
, Eddie Kingston
American Animals is a heist movie unlike any other, because it also uses elements of documentary filmmaking to intercut interviews with the criminals and recreations of the story. Most of the action unfolds within the layer of fiction, but there are always enough reminders of the reality. There are very few heist movies based on real life, so American Animals explores the chasm between actual crime and the sanitized, glamorized version that exists in heist capers.
American Animals displays the falsehoods of the heist genre. The criminals hatch an elaborate scheme using disguises, misdirection and an international smuggling network, but the grim reality is far from what they imagine. By showing the conflicting narratives of each wannabe criminal, American Animals also uncovers that the documentary genre revolves around half-truths and dramatized narratives. American Animals poses serious questions about both heist movies and documentaries. It’s both of these things, but it doesn’t conform to what audiences might expect from it.
6
Parasite (2019)
Horror And Pyschological Drama Supplant Comedy
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9.3/10
Parasite
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Release Date
November 8, 2019
Director
Bong Joon Ho
Cast
Yeo-Jeong Jo
, Myeong-hoon Park
, Jeong-eun Lee
, Sun-kyun Lee
, Ji-so Jung
, So-dam Park
, Keun-rok Park
, Kang-ho Song
, Ji-hye Lee
, Woo-sik Choi
, Seo-joon Park
, Hye-jin Jang
Bong Joon-ho’s Oscar-winner is one of the funniest comedies of recent years, but it’s also one of the scariest psychological thrillers. Parasite starts out as more of a comedy, and there’s an element of a crime caper to the Kim family’s scheme to gradually embed themselves in the home of the Parks. Bong keeps up a snappy pace, with an enjoyable blend of witty dialogue and physical humor.
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Eventually, Parasite morphs into a tense psychological thriller that takes a more urgent approach to its social commentary. The Kim family find the tables turning against them, and they get into some real physical danger that seemed unthinkable in Parasite‘s early scenes. This dissonance between comedy and drama is part of what makes Parasite so intriguing and rewatchable, and it’s also what makes it unique.
5
Sorry To Bother You (2018)
Sorry To Bother You Suddenly Shifts Out Of The Confines Of Its Genre
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Sorry to Bother You
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Release Date
July 13, 2018
Director
Boots Riley
Cast
Omari Hardwick
, Steven Yeun
, Tessa Thompson
, Michael X. Sommers
, Armie Hammer
, Jermaine Fowler
, Kate Berlant
, Forest Whitaker
, LaKeith Stanfield
, Terry Crews
, Danny Glover
, Robert Longstreet
Sorry to Bother You is a quirky social comedy about a Black man who finds himself rising through the ranks at his telemarketing company when he learns to adopt a white voice on the phone. Or, at least, this is what Sorry to Bother You is about for most of its runtime. A bizarre third act twist sends the plot rocketing into a completely unexpected direction, and the movie’s wry comedy is replaced by body horror and sci-fi.
A bizarre third act twist sends the plot rocketing into a completely unexpected direction.
The common thread that ties Sorry to Bother You‘s disjointed parts together is its fantasy critique of corporate culture and capitalist structure, but it seems to have two completely different approaches to these themes, one after the other. Ultimately, calling Sorry to Bother You a comedy risks diminishing the impact of the ending. In another movie, the confronting horror would be much more frightening, but given everything that precedes it, it’s more perplexing than anything else.
4
O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000)
The Coens Often Abandon Genre When It Doesn’t Suit Them
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O Brother, Where Art Thou?
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Release Date
February 2, 2001
Director
Joel Coen
, Ethan Coen
Cast
George Clooney
, John Turturro
, Tim Blake Nelson
, John Goodman
, Holly Hunter
, Charles Durning
The Coen brothers have always had an interesting approach to movie genres. They often directly parody certain genres, like with Miller’s Crossing and The Big Lebowski, or they create their own unique blends, like with No Country For Old Men and A Serious Man. O Brother, Where Art Thou is arguably their most singular mix, combining elements of comedy, crime, musicals, fantasy and Westerns, but refusing to fit neatly into any one of these boxes.
As a loose adaptation of The Odyssey, it helps O Brother, Where Art Thou to break out of the confines of modern film genres.
O Brother, Where Art Thou is one of the best Coen brothers movies, and its genre-bending style is one of its great strengths. As a loose adaptation of The Odyssey, it helps O Brother, Where Art Thou to break out of the confines of modern film genres. It’s a story that often feels incidental and non-linear, like The Odyssey and other ancient works that were created with an earlier form of storytelling syntax.
3
I’m Thinking Of Ending Things (2020)
Charlie Kaufman Has Never Cared For Film Genres
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I’m Thinking of Ending Things
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Release Date
September 4, 2020
Director
Charlie Kaufman
Cast
Jessie Buckley
, Jesse Plemons
, Colby Minifie
, Toni Collette
, David Thewlis
, Jason Ralph
Jessie Buckley has steadily evolved into one of the most interesting actors working today, and I’m Thinking of Ending Things is a great showcase for her talents. She plays a woman who considers breaking up with her partner as they visit his parents for the first time. I’m Thinking of Ending Things could be classed as a psychological thriller, but there are plenty of surreal twists which show that Charlie Kaufman has no intention of sticking to any genre formula.
Throughout I’m Thinking of Ending Things, Buckley’s character is referred to by different names, and details of her life and her background become increasingly unclear. It starts to seem as though her character isn’t real, as if she’s an extension of her partner, or a manifestation of the audience’s understanding of her. This is where Kaufman’s refusal to align with genre seems less like indifference and more like a deliberate act to provoke his audience into deconstructing their own assumptions about fiction.
2
Psycho (1960)
Hitchcock Abruptly Shifts Gears And Surprises His Audience
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9.5/10
Psycho
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Release Date
September 8, 1960
Director
Alfred Hitchcock
Cast
Janet Leigh
, Martin Balsam
, Anthony Perkins
, John Gavin
, Vera Miles
Psycho starts out in typical Alfred Hitchcock territory, with the story of a woman on the run with a car full of stolen money feeling very much like a nervy crime thriller, and Hitchcock brings in more elements of horror once she meets Norman Bates at his roadside motel. However, Psycho‘s first unexpected twist comes when Marion dies in the iconic shower scene, and the movie then shifts from horror into a murder mystery.
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While elements of horror persist throughout the investigation, the second half of Psycho isn’t too dissimilar to Hitchcock’s other murder mysteries, especially Dial M for Murder, in which the entire plot hinges on the smallest of details. Psycho returns to full-blown horror in its closing moments, but the entire story is colored by the elements of crime and detective movies that change the course of the narrative.
1
The Martian (2015)
The Martian Sparked A Debate Over Its Genre
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9/10
9/10
The Martian
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Release Date
October 2, 2015
Director
Ridley Scott
Cast
Kristen Wiig
, Sean Bean
, Matt Damon
, Jessica Chastain
, Kate Mara
Ridley Scott first rose to prominence with a couple of dark sci-fi hits, but The Martian shows he can also make sci-fi movies much lighter and more comedic than Alien and Blade Runner. Matt Damon plays an astronaut stranded on Mars when his crew believes him to be dead. Despite these dire circumstances, his performance highlights a lot of the humor in the movie, especially during his video logs.
The Martian won the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy, but its selection was extremely controversial.
The Martian won the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy, but its selection was extremely controversial. Some critics suggested that a few one-liners don’t make The Martian a comedy, and the plot itself follows all the beats of a sci-fi drama. The Martian beat comedies like Trainwreck and Spy at the Golden Globes, and it seems to force it into the same genre as these movies.
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Category: Entertainment