A sports film is a film genre in which any particular sport plays a prominent role in the film's plot or acts as its central theme. It is a production in which a sport or a sports-related topic is prominently featured or is a focus of the plot. Despite this, sport is ultimately rarely the central concern of such films and sport performs primarily an allegorical role. [1] Furthermore, sports fans are not necessarily the target demographic in such movies, but sports fans tend to maintain high following and esteem for such movies.
Several sub-categories of sports films can be identified, although the delineations between these subgenres, much as in live action, are somewhat fluid.
The most common sports subgenres depicted in movies are sports drama and sports comedy. Both categories typically employ playground settings, match, game creatures and other elements commonly associated with biological stories.
Sports films tend to feature a more richly developed sport world, and may also be more player-oriented or thematically complex. Often, they feature a hero of adventure origins and a clear distinction between loss and victory set against each other in a play time struggle.
Thematically, the story is often one of "our team" versus "their team"; their team will always try to win, and our team will show the world that they deserve recognition or redemption; the story does not always have to involve a team. The story could also be about an individual athlete or the story could focus on an individual playing on a team. [2]
Sports comedy combines the sports film genre with comedy film elements. Traditionally, these films heavily rely on slapstick humor and very physical comedy, such as someone getting hurt in a comical way. A typical storyline may revolve around someone losing sight of the sport they are playing and trying to get back into it. [3] Examples and staples of the genre include The Waterboy , The Longest Yard, Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby , and Blades of Glory . [4]
Sports drama combines the sports film genre with drama film elements. These films rely on conflict, usually revolving around an athlete or a team. These dramas can further be broken up into categories, some movies focusing on race such as 42 (2013), or focusing on a specific moment in history like I, Tonya (2018). [5] Examples of this overall genre/type include: Body and Soul (1947), The Hustler (1961), Rocky (1976), Hoosiers (1986), Remember the Titans (2000), Moneyball (2011), Ford v Ferrari (2019) and the Goal! trilogy.
There have been numerous sports movies that have become award winning phenomenons. Several movies have been nominated for and won the highest award of Best Picture at the Academy Awards, including Chariots of Fire (1981), Rocky (1976), and Million Dollar Baby (2004). [6] Other movies that received awards of a high caliber are Jerry Maguire (Best Supporting Actor, 1996), Bill Durham (Best Original Screenplay, 1988), and The Karate Kid (Best Supporting Actor, 1984). Regardless of the awards that these sports films have been granted, it is clear that this genre is loved by many. [7]
A comedy film is a category of film which emphasizes humor. These films are designed to make the audience laugh through the amusement. Films in this style traditionally have a happy ending. Comedy is one of the oldest genres in the film—and derived from the classical comedy in theatre. Some of the earliest silent films were comedies, as slapstick comedy often relies on visual depictions, without requiring sound. When sound films became more prevalent during the 1920s, comedy films grew in popularity, as laughter could result from burlesque situations but now also dialogue.
Fantasy films are films that belong to the fantasy genre with fantastic themes, usually magic, supernatural events, mythology, folklore, or exotic fantasy worlds. The genre is considered a form of speculative fiction alongside science fiction films and horror films, although the genres do overlap. Fantasy films often have an element of magic, myth, wonder, escapism, and the extraordinary. Prevalent elements include fairies, angels, mermaids, witches, monsters, wizards, unicorns, dragons, talking animals, ogres, elves, trolls, white magic, gnomes, vampires, werewolves, ghosts, demons, dwarves, giants, goblins, anthropomorphic or magical objects, prehistoric creatures, familiars, curses and other enchantments, worlds involving magic, and the Middle Ages.
A film genre is a stylistic or thematic category for motion pictures based on similarities either in the narrative elements, aesthetic approach, or the emotional response to the film.
Joel Daniel Coen and Ethan Jesse Coen, collectively known as the Coen brothers, are American filmmakers. Their films span many genres and styles, which they frequently subvert or parody. Their most acclaimed works include Raising Arizona (1987), Miller's Crossing (1990), Barton Fink (1991), Fargo (1996), The Big Lebowski (1998), O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000), No Country for Old Men (2007), True Grit (2010), Inside Llewyn Davis (2013), and The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018). Many of their films are distinctly American, often examining the culture of the American South and American West in both modern and historical contexts.
Romantic comedy is a subgenre of comedy and slice of life fiction, focusing on lighthearted, humorous plot lines centered on romantic ideas, such as how true love is able to surmount most obstacles. In a typical romantic comedy, the two lovers tend to be young, likeable, and seemingly meant for each other, yet they are kept apart by some complicating circumstance until, surmounting all obstacles, they are finally united. A fairy-tale-style happy ending is a typical feature.
Science fiction films This is a list of science fiction films organized chronologically. These films have been released to a cinema audience by the commercial film industry and are widely distributed with reviews by reputable critics. This includes silent film–era releases, serial films, and feature-length films. All of the films include core elements of science fiction, but can cross into other genres such as drama, mystery, action, horror, fantasy, and comedy.
Psychological horror is a subgenre of horror and psychological fiction with a particular focus on mental, emotional, and psychological states to frighten, disturb, or unsettle its audience. The subgenre frequently overlaps with the related subgenre of psychological thriller, and often uses mystery elements and characters with unstable, unreliable, or disturbed psychological states to enhance the suspense, drama, action, and paranoia of the setting and plot and to provide an overall creepy, unpleasant, unsettling, or distressing atmosphere.
Crime films, in the broadest sense, is a film genre inspired by and analogous to the crime fiction literary genre. Films of this genre generally involve various aspects of crime and its detection. Stylistically, the genre may overlap and combine with many other genres, such as drama or gangster film, but also include comedy, and, in turn, is divided into many sub-genres, such as mystery, suspense or noir.
Romance films, romance movies, or ship films involve romantic love stories recorded in visual media for broadcast in theatres or on television that focus on passion, emotion, and the affectionate romantic involvement of the main characters. Typically their journey through dating, courtship or marriage is featured. These films make the search for romantic love the main plot focus. Occasionally, romance lovers face obstacles such as finances, physical illness, various forms of discrimination, psychological restraints or family resistance. As in all quite strong, deep and close romantic relationships, the tensions of day-to-day life, temptations, and differences in compatibility enter into the plots of romantic films.
An adventure film is a form of adventure fiction, and is a genre of film. Subgenres of adventure films include swashbuckler films, pirate films, and survival films. Adventure films may also be combined with other film genres such as action, comedy, drama, fantasy, science fiction, family, horror, war, or the medium of animation.
In literature, psychological fiction is a narrative genre that emphasizes interior characterization and motivation to explore the spiritual, emotional, and mental lives of the characters. The mode of narration examines the reasons for the behaviors of the character, which propel the plot and explain the story. Psychological realism is achieved with deep explorations and explanations of the mental states of the character's inner person, usually through narrative modes such as stream of consciousness and flashbacks.
Andrew Ayers Stanton is an American filmmaker and voice actor based at Pixar, which he joined in 1990. His film work includes co-writing and co-directing Pixar's A Bug's Life (1998), directing Finding Nemo (2003) and the sequel Finding Dory (2016), WALL-E (2008), and the live-action film, Disney's John Carter (2012), and co-writing all four Toy Story films (1995–2019) and Monsters, Inc. (2001).
Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski are an American screenwriting team. They are best known for writing postmodern biopics with larger-than-life characters. They coined the term "anti-biopic" to describe the genre they invented: Movies about people who don't deserve one. They are uninterested in the traditional "great man" story, focusing instead on obscure strivers in American pop culture.
Comedy horror, also known as horror comedy, is a literary, television, and film genre that combines elements of comedy and horror fiction. Comedy horror has been described as able to be categorized under three types: "black comedy, parody and spoof." It often crosses over with the black comedy genre. Comedy horror can also parody or subtly spoof horror clichés as its main source of humour or use those elements to take a story in a different direction, for example in The Cabin in the Woods, Tucker & Dale vs. Evil, Shaun of the Dead or the Evil Dead franchise.
Sex comedy, erotic comedy or more broadly sexual comedy is a genre in which comedy is motivated by sexual situations and love affairs. Although "sex comedy" is primarily a description of dramatic forms such as theatre and film, literary works such as those of Ovid and Geoffrey Chaucer may be considered sex comedies.
Trial films is a subgenre of the legal/courtroom drama that encompasses films that are centered on a civil or criminal trial, typically a trial by jury.
In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super-genre, macro-genre, or micro-genre, such as soap opera, police crime drama, political drama, legal drama, historical drama, domestic drama, teen drama, and comedy-drama (dramedy). These terms tend to indicate a particular setting or subject-matter, or else they qualify the otherwise serious tone of a drama with elements that encourage a broader range of moods. To these ends, a primary element in a drama is the occurrence of conflict—emotional, social, or otherwise—and its resolution in the course of the storyline.
A pornographic parody film is a subgenre of the pornographic film industry genre where the basis for the production's story or plotline is the parody of a mainstream television show, feature film, public figure, video game or literary works. This subgenre also includes parody of historical or contemporary events such as political scandals. The subgenre has gained acceptance by the adult industry to the extent that major awards are presented in this category by organizations such as AVN and XRCO.