Film generes Film genres are types of films that have recognizable story patterns and settings. Audiences can recognize a film genre by film techniques of plot, situations, character, locations, mood and themes. Genres could be classified as falling under two main ancient categories of drama and comedy and from this synthesis of those two types spring the main genre.  Since the beginning of cinema there have been about twelve main film genres that have developed. Comedy Crime Thriller There were two directions that the pioneers of cinema followed which is the realists tradition of the Lumiere Brothers and the fantasy tradition of George Melies. Since then the main genres for mass consumption by audiences have been the action film which features physical action, the adventure films featuring exotic locations, comedy films with exaggerated situations, crime films featuring underworld characters, dramas emphasizing realistic plot driven stories, epic films that portray history. horror films that are intended to evoke hidden fears, musicals that entertain with choreographed dancing, science fiction films that evoke visionary imagination of other worlds, war films that depict the horrors of battle, the American Western which are eulogies to frontier history and documentaries that show pieces of life from the real world.