Movies can be divided into several different genres.

There are exciting action movies with gun fights and car chases,
and horror movies that make us jump in our seats. There are comedies that make us laugh, and dramas that make us
cry. Sci-fi movies show us what the future might be like, historical films tell us stories from the past, and
documentaries show us real people and events.
After watching a movie, you might want to ask questions like:
"Which character did you like the best?"
"What did you think of the plot?"
"Did you like the cast?"
"What was your favourite scene?"
The list below includes some basic vocabulary for talking and reading about your favourite movies, directors and
movie stars.
action movie (noun): a movie with many exciting and violent scenes - Our teenage boys love watching action movies.
cast (noun): all the actors and actresses in a movie or TV show - It had a good cast, but the story wasn't very
interesting.
character (noun): one of the people in a story - Harry likes movies with lots of interesting and unusual characters.
cinema (noun): a place where movies are shown on a big screen - Let's meet in front of the cinema just before the
movie starts.
comedy (noun): a film with lots of funny scenes - Let's see a comedy and have a good laugh.
director (noun): the person in charge of making a movie - The director gets really angry when actors forget their
lines.
documentary (noun): a film that's about real people, events or issues - How can you eat junk food after seeing that
documentary Super Size Me?
drama (noun): a movie about realistic characters in dramatic situations - Maria loves legal dramas with lots of
courtroom scenes.
entertainment (noun): enjoyment from movies, concerts, TV shows, etc. - Airlines offer plenty of entertainment on
their flights these days.
family movie (noun): a movie that both children and adults can enjoy - Which entertainment company made the
family movies Cinderella and 101 Dalmatians?
film (noun): another word for "movie" (also "motion picture") - This year's Academy Award for Best Picture was won
by a British film.
genre (noun): a kind or style of music, movie, TV show, painting, etc. - For film class we had to compare movies from
two different genres, such as comedy and horror.
horror movie (noun): a movie that frightens and shocks people - If you love horror movies, you've got to see Fright
Night.
movie star (noun): a very popular movie actor or actress - Movie stars earn millions of dollars every time they play a
role.
plot (noun): the series of events that form the main story - It was a good film, but the plot was difficult to
follow at times.
scene (noun): a small part of a film - The opening scene showed a young man leaving prison and walking to
a bus stop.
sci-fi (or "science fiction") (noun): a genre with stories set in the future or in outer space - Have you seen
that sci-fi film Interstellar yet?
screen (noun): the flat surface that a movie is projected onto - Do you like sitting at the back, or close to the
screen?

ACTION MOVIES
If you love movies with lots of high-speed car chases, martial arts fights, gun battles and big explosions,
you're a fan of action movies. This genre includes superhero movies like the Batman and X-Men movies,
spy movies like the James Bond and Mission Impossible movies, martial arts movies like Japanese samurai
films and Chinese kung fu movies, and action-packed thrillers like the Fast and Furious films and the Mad
Max movies. The most successful action movies are usually from major Hollywood studios like Universal
Pictures, 20th Century Fox and Sony Pictures. These are the movies with the biggest budgets, the most
famous actors, the most expensive special effects and the most spectacular action scenes. Millions of action
movie fans all over the world flock to see them as soon as they're released.
To create these special effects and spectacular action scenes, directors use computer-generated images, or
CGI. When we see a superhero like Spider-Man swinging from building to building, or we see an entire city
collapsing and burning, we're probably watching scenes created with CGI. Before the invention of CGI,
directors had to film real explosions and fires created by experts in pyrotechnics, and they had to use
specially-trained actors to perform dangerous stunts like jumping from moving trains and falling off
speeding motorbikes. While these older techniques are sometimes still used, most of the special effects and
stunts we see nowadays are created with CGI.
Action movies are usually about a conflict between a hero or a group of heroes and one or more villains. In
the Batman movies, for example, Batman's the hero and he's always in conflict with a criminal who's the
villain. We see them trying to defeat one another in exciting action scenes, but we also see other scenes that
build up to and follow on from these scenes. Movies like these almost always reach a climax near the end in
which the hero and the villain meet for a final battle. This climax usually includes some of the movie's most
spectacular scenes and special effects.
Since the invention of CGI, more and more action films have been based on comic-book superheroes like
Superman, Batman and The X-Men. Before CGI, directors found it difficult to create realistic scenes of
superheroes using their superhuman powers, but with CGI they can make it look like Superman really is
flying between buildings and crashing through walls. Big-budget action movies like these are often followed
by a sequel in which the same hero faces new enemies, or faces an archenemy they've been in conflict with
for a long time. If a movie has many sequels, they form a series like the X-Men series.
Not all action movies feature heroes and villains. Some feature anti-heroes like Rambo and Mad Max who
face terrible dangers and will do whatever they have to do to survive. Anti-heroes don't have all the good
qualities of a hero like James Bond, but we still enjoy watching them face these dangers and battle against
others who are also trying to survive. Most action movie fans don't care if the main character is a hero or an
anti-hero. If the story is good, the special effects are amazing and the action scenes are exciting, fans will
leave the cinema satisfied.

Recommended action movies

Seven Samurai (1954) - often considered one of the best samurai movies ever made, directed by
Akira Kurosawa
Paths of Glory (1957) - a classic war movie starring Kirk Douglas and directed by Stanley Kubrick
Dr. No (1962) - the first and, some say, still one of the best James Bond movies, starring Sean
Connery
The French Connection (1971) - an exciting crime thriller set in New York, starring Gene Hackman
Dirty Harry (1971) - a crime thriller starring Clint Eastwood, followed by four equally-good sequels
Enter the Dragon (1973) - a classic martial arts movie starring kung fu legend Bruce Lee
First Blood (1982) - Sylvester Stallone stars as Rambo, a Vietnam War veteran on the run from the
police
Die Hard (1988) - an exciting crime thriller starring Bruce Willis as the hero and Alan Rickman as
the villain
The Bourne Identity (2002) - the first of the Bourne series in which Matt Damon plays the assassin
Jason Bourne
Casino Royale (2006) - a fan favourite James Bond film, starring Daniel Craig, Eva Green and Judi
Dench
The Dark Knight (2008) - Batman film starring Christian Bale, regarded by many as the best of the
series
Drive (2011) - an action thriller starring Ryan Gosling, directed by Danish director Nicolas Winding
Refn
The Avengers (2012) - a big-budget superhero movie starring Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans and
Mark Ruffalo
Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) - often considered one of the best Mad Max movies, starring Tom
Hardy and Charlize Theron

anti-hero (noun): a central character without the qualities of a typical hero - If I need an actor to play an
anti-hero, I'll get Tom Hardy.
archenemy (also "nemesis") (noun): a hero's biggest enemy - Will Sherlock Holmes finally defeat his
archenemy Moriarty?
big-budget (adjective): well-funded, with lots of money for production - My son loves those big-budget
Hollywood movies.
CGI (noun): computer-generated imagery used in film and TV production - Those old movies were made
without CGI, you know.
climax (noun): the moment when something reaches its greatest intensity - She finally defeats her enemy in
the climax near the end.
conflict (noun): a serious disagreement between people or groups - The story's about a conflict between two
street gangs.
hero (female: heroine) (noun): a main character with good or "heroic" qualities - Brad's the hero and
Angelina's the heroine.
kung fu (noun): Chinese martial art in which hands and feet are used as weapons - Was Bruce Lee a kung fu
champion in real life?
martial art (noun): an Asian style of fighting such as judo, karate, kung fu and taekwondo - I only like the
fight scenes in martial arts films.
pyrotechnics (noun): the use of fireworks and explosions for entertainment - Before CGI, experts in
pyrotechnics staged explosions.
samurai (noun): traditional Japanese warrior who worked as a guard or a soldier - Those samurai swords
are incredibly sharp.
sequel (noun): a book or movie that continues the story of an earlier one - If a film's successful, they usually
make a sequel.
series (noun): a set of books, films or TV shows with the same main characters - How many movies are
there in the James Bond series?
special effect (also "FX") (noun): an amazing or strange visual effect, usually CGI - The special effects in
the space scenes were impressive.
spectacular (adjective): extremely impressive or visually amazing - The action scenes were really
spectacular!
spy movie (noun): a movie about secret agents and espionage - Those Mission Impossible films are spy
movies, aren't they?
star (verb): to be the main actor or actress in a movie or TV show - It's an action film starring Hugh
Jackman and Jennifer Lawrence.
stunt (noun): a dangerous act performed by a highly-trained stuntman or stuntwoman - If you try doing
these stunts at home, you'll hurt yourself.
superhero (noun): a hero in comic books, movies, etc with special powers who does good in the world - My
favourite superhero is Superman.
thriller (noun): a book or film that tells an exciting story with lots of action and suspense - Drive is an
exciting, action-packed thriller.
villain (noun): the most important bad or evil character in a story - Anthony Hopkins is great at playing
villains.

HORROR MOVIES
If you like scary movies about ghosts and monsters and crazy killers, you're a fan of horror movies. Many
early horror movies were based on old stories about scary creatures like vampires. Classic horror movies
like 1922's Nosferatu and 1931's Dracula were based on Bram Stoker's vampire novel Dracula. Like all
vampires, Count Dracula terrifies his victims by biting their necks and drinking their blood. We see him
again in Francis Ford Coppola's 1992 film Bram Stoker's Dracula, but in 1994's Interview With the Vampire
we see stylish vampires played by Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt who are more handsome and youthful than
Dracula, but just as deadly.
Some of the scariest creatures in horror movies are flesh-eating corpses called zombies. One of the first
zombie films was 1932's White Zombie, but it was George A. Romero's zombie classics Night of the Living
Dead and Dawn of the Dead that set the pattern for later zombie films like 2003's 28 Days Later and for
Frank Darabont's popular TV series The Walking Dead.
Movies about scary monsters have always been popular and one of the first was 1931's Frankenstein about a
scientist who tries to make a human body from the body parts of corpses. Since the early 80s most monster
movies have featured CGI monsters like those in sci-fi horror movies like John Carpenter's The Thing,
David Cronenberg's The Fly and James Cameron's Aliens. In Frank Darabont's 2007 movie The Mist
terrifying monsters drive people crazy with fear and in 2008's Cloverfield giant monsters tear down
skyscrapers and huge spiders run through subways.
Horror movies about nature's scary creatures can also be terrifying. If you're afraid of sharks you shouldn't
watch Steven Spielberg's Jaws, if you have a fear of spiders you shouldn't see Arachnophobia, and if you're
afraid of being attacked by flocks of angry birds you'd better not watch Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds either.
If you see 2005's The Descent you might have nightmares about being trapped underground in a cave full of
scary creatures, and if you see the classic Australian horror movie Long Weekend you might never go
camping again.
Films about supernatural beings like ghosts and spirits and movies about spooky places like haunted
houses can be very scary as well. The classic horror movie The Haunting is an early example, and more
recent examples include The Babadook and 1408 in which a writer of books about haunted houses is driven
crazy by a hotel room's evil power. These movies use sound effects like banging doors and sudden screams
to scare us, and they often use spooky music as well. Some of the finest music in a horror movie score can
be heard in 1977's Suspiria in which young dancers are terrorized by evil witches who run a ballet school.
In paranormal horror movies we see forces and powers that can't be explained by science. In Tobe Hooper's
Poltergeist we see objects being moved by invisible forces and in Brian De Palma's Carrie we see a teenage
girl using her telekinetic powers to control objects with her mind whenever she's angry. In David
Cronenberg's The Dead Zone a teacher wakes from a coma with the power to see into the past and the future,
and in M. Night Shyamalan's The Sixth Sense we see a boy with special powers talking with spirits until a
twist at the end changes the story.
Supernatural movies with religious themes are often the scariest of them all, and The Exorcist is widely-
regarded as the most terrifying movie ever made. It begins with a girl becoming possessed by Christianity's
most powerful demon and ends with a Catholic priest performing an exorcism. In Roman Polanski's
Rosemary's Baby we see witches arranging the birth of a very special demon, and in The Omen we see a
powerful demon possess the body of a young boy.
2002's Frailty is about a mentally-ill Christian who "talks to God" and kills neighbours because they're
"demons". It has a religious theme but it's a psychological horror movie because the supernatural elements
arise from a mental illness. The 1962 classic What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? is about a mentally-ill
woman who mistreats her disabled sister, and Stanley Kubrick's 1980 masterpiece The Shining is about a
mentally-ill writer who sees supernatural beings as his illness worsens. The Shining is based on a horror
story by the American writer Steven King, as is 1990's Misery in which a mentally-ill nurse terrorizes one of
her favourite writers after finding him injured in a car accident.
People who do terrible things without feeling pity or shame are called psychopaths. Not many psychopaths
are as bad as the polite and pretty little eight-year-old girl in 1956's The Bad Seed, or as cruel and crazy as
the teenage psychopath who terrorizes his family in 2011's We Need to Talk About Kevin. But the most
famous film about a psychopath is Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 horror masterpiece Psycho. Hitchcock is widely-
regarded as one of cinema's greatest directors, and studying the shots, the editing, the sound effects and the
music in the shower scene from Psycho can help us understand why.
At first we hear the gentle sound of running water as a woman takes a shower in a motel bathroom. Then a
shot filmed from in front of the woman shows a shadowy figure sneaking up behind her - a classic horror
movie angle. Suddenly we see the curtain torn open and hear violins screaming as the killer attacks her with
a knife. Over thirty quick close-ups draw us into the scene; close-ups of the knife cut to close-ups of the
woman as she fights her killer off, and close-ups of her hand pulling the shower curtain down are edited
together with shots of her slowly sliding down the wall as she dies. The music stops and we hear the sound
of running water once again as her blood drains away and the camera pans back from a lifeless eye.
In recent years many of the scariest horror movies have been made in Asia. They include paranormal
thrillers like Ringu and Pulse in which evil forces travel through television signals and telephone lines,
supernatural thrillers like Thailand's Shutter and Japan's Ju-On: The Grudge, and shockingly violent movies
about psychopaths and serial killers like Japan's Audition and Confessions and South Korea's A Tale Of Two
Sisters and I Saw the Devil. If you're brave enough to watch these movies, at least make sure you're not
alone...

Recommended horror movies

 Classic: Nosferatu (1922), Dracula (1931), Frankenstein (1931), Vampyr (1932), Cat People (1942),
The Haunting (1963)

Vampires: Horror of Dracula (1958), Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992), Interview with the Vampire
(1994), Let Me In (2010)

Zombies: White Zombie (1932), Night of the Living Dead (1966), Dawn of the Dead (1978), 28
Days Later (2003)

Monsters: The Thing (1982), The Fly (1986), Aliens (1986), The Host (2006), The Mist (2007),
Cloverfield (2008)

Creatures: The Birds (1963), Jaws (1975), Long Weekend (1979), Arachnophobia (1990), The
Descent (2005)

Supernatural: Suspiria (1977), The Changeling (1980), 1408 (2007), Insidious (2011), The
Babadook (2014)

Paranormal: Carrie (1976), Poltergeist (1982), The Dead Zone (1983), The Sixth Sense (1999), The
Conjuring (2013)

Religious: Rosemary's Baby (1968), The Wicker Man (1973), The Exorcist (1973), The Omen
(1976), Frailty (2002)

Psychological: What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962), The Shining (1980), Misery (1990),
Black Swan (2010)

Psychopaths: The Bad Seed (1956), Psycho (1960), The Vanishing (1988), We Need to Talk About
Kevin (2012)

Serial Killers: The Silence of the Lambs (1990), Seven (1995), American Psycho (2000), Saw
(2004), Zodiac (2007)

Slasher: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), Halloween (1978), A Nightmare on Elm Street
(1984), Scream (1996)

Horror Drama: The Night of the Hunter (1955), Funny Games (1997), Eden Lake (2008), Buried
(2010), You're Next (2011)

Found Footage: The Blair Witch Project (1999), Paranormal Activity (2007), [REC] (2007), The
Sacrament (2013)

Asian: Ringu (1998), Audition (1999), Ju-On: The Grudge (2002), A Tale of Two Sisters (2003), I
Saw the Devil (2011)

angle (noun): the position of the camera in a shot - The angle allows the viewer to see something the
victim can't.

close-up (noun): a shot taken from very close to the subject - There's a close-up of her eyes while
she's screaming.

corpse (noun): the body of a dead person - That scene of a corpse rising from the grave is really
scary!
 creature (noun): anything that's alive except for people and plants - The scariest creatures I've ever
seen are bird-eating spiders.

demon (noun): a powerful evil spirit - A demon was crawling along the ceiling, snarling and hissing
like a snake.

edit (verb): to combine different shots when making a movie - I love the way they edited that scene.

evil (adjective): extremely bad or wicked - They think there's something evil in the house.

exorcism (noun): a ritual that forces a spirit to leave a possessed person - Priests don't still perform
exorcisms, do they?

found footage (noun): footage of real events, or footage that looks real - We're making a found
footage horror movie.

ghost (noun): the spirit of a dead person - Have you ever seen a ghost?

haunted (adjective): occupied by ghosts or evil spirits - The house could be haunted, you know.

horror movie (noun): a movie that frightens and shocks people - You'll have nightmares if you watch
too many horror movies.

mentally-ill (adjective): having an illness that affects a person's mind - Her mentally-ill mother did
some terrible things to her.

paranormal (adjective): strange and unexplained by science - It's about people who investigate
paranormal events.

possessed (adjective): controlled by an evil spirit - They don't really think she's possessed, do they?

psychological (adjective): related to or affecting the mind - His problem's psychological, so he needs
to see a therapist.

psychopath (noun): a person with a mental illness that makes them violent and cruel - I think my
boss is a psychopath.

scary (adjective): frightening or causing fear - We sat around the campfire telling scary stories.

serial killer (noun): a psychopath who often kills people - On the news it said that the serial killer
has already murdered four young business women.

shot (noun): a view of something in a movie - The films opens with a shot of children playing in a
park.
slasher film (noun): a film about a very violent psychopath - Im terrified of chainsaws because of a
slasher film I watched as a child.
sound effects (noun): recorded sounds used in films, TV shows, etc - Spooky sound effects like
footsteps and creaking doors are often used in horror movies.
spirit (noun): a supernatural being without a physical body - In Thailand they build little houses for
spirits to live in.
spooky (adjective): makes you think of scary things like ghosts - He told us a scary story about a
spooky old house.
supernatural (adjective): related to an invisible world of ghosts and spirits - They think he has
supernatural powers.
 terrify (verb): to make someone feel very frightened - The thought of being buried alive terrifies me.
terrorize (verb): to use threats or violence to keep someone scared - The kidnapper terrorized his
victims, so they didnt try to escape.
twist (noun): an event that changes a story's meaning - Don't tell us what the twist is. You'll spoil the
movie!
vampire (noun): a scary creature that bites necks and drinks blood - It's about a vampire who lives in
an old castle.
witch (noun): a person who uses magic or supernatural powers - There was a coven of witches living
in the apartment building.
zombie (noun): a dead body that comes alive - After a week of studying for exams with no sleep, we
all looked like zombies.
COMEDIES
Since the early days of cinema, comedy has been one of its most popular and successful genres. A good
comedy has lots of scenes with funny characters or funny situations that make us laugh. Characters can be
funny if they're clever and say or do witty things, or if they're socially inept and say or do embarrassing
things, or if they're not very clever and they say and do stupid things. Scenes can be funny if something
unexpected or shocking happens or if something embarrassing or ridiculous happens.
In early silent movies a form of visual comedy called slapstick was often used. Comical slapstick actions
like slapping, slipping and falling over had been used in live theatre for centuries before they were used in
silent films like Harold Lloyd's Safety Last, Charlie Chaplin's The Kid and Buster Keaton's stunt-filled
comic adventure The General. Many later film-makers have also used visual comedy. French film-maker
Jacques Tati created complex sight gags that were as perfectly timed as a ballet dance and M. Hulot's
Holiday, Mon Oncle and Playtime are now regarded as some of the best comedies ever made. American
film-maker Woody Allen also used visual comedy in films like Bananas and Sleeper, although in later films
he focused on spoken comedy more than visual comedy. Like Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton, Jacques
Tati and Woody Allen wrote, directed and starred in their own films, and these four artists are now seen by
many as being among the greatest comedy film-makers of all time.
After it became possible to use sound in films in the early 1930s, American screwball comedies became very
popular. These films were often about smart women getting what they wanted at a time when men had the
power to control nearly every aspect of a woman's life. In screwball comedies this "battle of the sexes" was
part of a farce full of gags and witty banter. A farce is a comedy about a ridiculous or improbable situation,
and slapstick farces like the Marx Brothers' Duck Soup and A Night at the Opera and W.C. Fields' The Bank
Dick were as popular as screwball farces in the 30s and 40s. Later farces include the 1959 film Some Like It
Hot in which two musicians disguise themselves as women and join an all-girl band in order to escape from
dangerous gunmen, and the 1968 farce The Party in which Peter Sellers plays an Indian actor who is
mistakenly invited to a fancy Hollywood party. More recently, farces like Raising Arizona and O Brother,
Where Art Thou? by Joel and Ethan Coen and The Hangover by Todd Phillips have been hits with
moviegoers.
A farce in which we see carefully planned robberies and murders go terribly wrong is called a caper. British
capers of the 40s and 50s like Kind Hearts and Coronets and The Ladykillers set the pattern for later capers
like Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, A Fish Called Wanda, The Big Lebowski and Snatch. One of the darkest and
funniest capers is Fargo by the Coen Brothers in which a car salesman plans the kidnapping of his wife.
Fargo finds comedy not only in the failed kidnapping, but also in the failure of a business and the failure of a
marriage. Films that find humour in these and other serious topics like war, illness and death are often called
black comedies.
One of the most famous black comedies is Dr Strangelove, a film in which a crazy general causes a nuclear
war. Black comedies about death and murder include Man Bites Dog, Heathers and God Bless America, and
black comedies about terrorism include Charlie Wilson's War and a 2010 British movie about a group of
inept would-be terrorists called Four Lions. Similar movies that aren't quite as "black" as these films are
sometimes called dark comedies. These movies are often about less serious personal or social problems, and
one of the most famous is a movie that won five Academy Awards in 2000 called American Beauty.
American Beauty is about a middle-aged family man who dreams of sleeping with his neighbour's teenage
daughter, and many people see it as a dark satire that pokes fun at the "American dream", or the idea of
living a perfect life with a perfect family in a perfect American home. Another film that satirizes the
American dream is The Truman Show starring Jim Carrey, but not all satires target this topic. In movies like
Network, Broadcast News and Anchorman it's television news that's targeted, and in political satires like
Being There, Wag The Dog, Bulworth and In The Loop it's politicians who are targeted. The entertainment
industry has also been targeted in satires like Mel Brooks' The Producers and Robert Altman's The Player.
There are also films that poke fun at particular movie genres by copying their style and adding humour to
the mix. These movies are called parodies or "spoofs" and some of the funniest include Airplane!, a disaster
movie spoof starring Leslie Nielson, and Blazing Saddles, Mel Brooks' farcical parody of the cowboy-filled
Western. Also popular are detective movie spoofs like A Shot in the Dark with Peter Sellers and The Naked
Gun - From the Files of Police Squad! with Leslie Nielson, spy movie spoofs like the Austin Powers movies
and 2015's Spy, and parodies of the horror genre like Young Frankenstein, Ghostbusters, Zombieland and
Shaun of the Dead.
Movies that feature very strange or very crazy humour are often called absurd comedies. In the 1960s a team
of British comedy writers and performers used absurd humour in their TV series Monty Python's Flying
Circus, and in the 70s they produced a series of Monty Python movies that are now regarded as some the
funniest comedies ever made. More recently the American screenwriter Charlie Kaufman has used a very
clever style of absurd humour in movies like Being John Malkovich, Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless
Mind and Adaptation.
While most of the characters in Charlie Kaufman's movies are very smart, a style of comedy that features
very stupid characters is called goofball comedy. When watching a goofball comedy, we can't help laughing
at the stupid things the characters say and do and cringing at all their social faux pas. Many moviegoers love
goofball comedies like The Jerk starring Steve Martin and Dumb and Dumber starring Jim Carrey and Jeff
Daniels.
In the 1960s underground film-maker John Waters used offensive or bad-taste humour in dark satires of
American life such as Pink Flamingos and Female Trouble in which characters like Divine, a very loud, very
large woman played by a transvestite actor, did things that were so disgusting that audience members either
cringed and laughed or cringed and left. In the 1980s mainstream studio movies called gross-out comedies
with the same sort of disgusting scenes, but without the satire, became quite popular. Two of the most
successful were 1978's Animal House and 1999's American Pie.
Movies that tell funny stories about teenagers and their lives are called teen comedies, and those that show
the humour of teen life without making fun of teenagers include the 1988 movie Hairspray directed by John
Waters, the 1998 high-school comedy Rushmore directed by Wes Anderson, and a very original 2011
Japanese teen comedy directed by Sion Sono called Love Exposure. Many of these movies are about teenage
love and romance, but movies about the same topics in relation to adults belong to a different genre called
romantic comedy or "rom com".
Romantic comedies show the funny side of sexual attraction, dating, falling in love, getting married, and so
on. In the mid-1970s Woody Allen began making romantic comedies like Annie Hall, Manhattan and
Hannah and Her Sisters instead of the slapstick comedies he'd been making before. In these films he plays
the part of a very funny neurotic New Yorker who constantly talks about his anxieties and his difficult love
life. Many romantic comedies were made in the 1990s following the success of When Harry Met Sally in
1989, including Say Anything, Four Weddings and a Funeral and Chasing Amy. Many romantic comedies
have also been made in Asia since the success of the popular Korean film My Sassy Girl in 2001.
Another popular kind of comedy is the road movie in which characters have a series of funny adventures
while travelling together. These movies often include an element of farce and some of the most popular
include: National Lampoon's Vacation with Chevy Chase; the Australian transvestite comedy Priscilla,
Queen of the Desert; and the award-winning Mexican road movie Y Tu Mam Tambin starring Gael Garca
Bernal which mixes comedy, drama, sex and teen romance.
Some of the funniest comedies ever made have been spoofs of documentaries or satires that look like serious
documentaries. These films are called mockumentaries and they often include interviews with what seem to
be, or sometimes are, real people in the real world. Some of the most popular mockumentaries include This
is Spinal Tap which documents the career of a rock group, Waiting for Guffman about an amateur theatre
group, and Best in Show which looks at the world of competitive dog shows. Other very funny
mockumentaries include Sacha Baran Cohen's Borat and Bruno and Shane and Clayton Jacobson's
Australian mockumentary Kenny which documents the life and career of a plumber who specializes in
portable toilets.

Comedy genres and recommended movies

Slapstick: The Kid (1921), Duck Soup (1933), The Bank Dick (1940), Mon Oncle (1958), Playtime (1969),
Sleeper (1973)
Screwball: My Man Godfrey (1936), Bringing Up Baby (1938), His Girl Friday (1940), Sullivan's Travels
(1941)
Farce: Some Like It Hot (1959), The Party (1968), Raising Arizona (1987), O Brother, Where Art Thou?
(2000)
Caper: The Ladykillers (1955), A Fish Called Wanda (1988), Fargo (1996), The Big Lebowski (1998),
Snatch (2001)
Black: Dr Strangelove (1964), Heathers (1988), Man Bites Dog (1992), God Bless America (2009), Four
Lions (2014)
Dark: Harold and Maude (1971), Whitnail and I (1987), American Beauty (1999), World's Greatest Dad
(2009), Wild Tales (2014)
Satire: Being There (1979), Broadcast News (1987), The Player (1992), The Truman Show (1998), In The
Loop (2009)
Spoof: A Shot in the Dark (1964), Airplane! (1980), The Naked Gun (1988), Shaun of the Dead (2004), Spy
(2015)
Absurd: Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975), Life of Brian (1979), Brazil (1985), Being John
Malkovich (1999)
Goofball: The Jerk (1979), Caddyshack (1980), Wayne's World (1992), Dumb and Dumber (1994),
Zoolander (2001)
Gross-out: Pink Flamingos (1972), Animal House (1978), There's Something About Mary (1998),
Bridesmaids (2011)
Teen: Hairspray (1988), Dazed and Confused (1993), Rushmore (1998), Election (1999), Love Exposure
(2011)
Rom Com: Annie Hall (1977), Say Anything (1989), Chasing Amy (1997), My Sassy Girl (2001), Knocked
Up (2007)
Road: National Lampoon's Vacation (1983), Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994), Y Tu Mam Tambin
(2001), Little Miss Sunshine (2006)
Mockumentary: This is Spinal Tap (1984), Bob Roberts (1992), Best in Show (2000), Borat (2006), Kenny
(2008)

absurd (adjective): ridiculous, totally unreasonable or impossible - The idea that dogs can read our minds is
absurd, Josie.
bad-taste (adjective): deliberately shocking and offensive - Peter made bad-taste films before directing the
Lord of the Rings movies.
banter (noun): witty conversation - Can you understand the banter between drinkers at the pub yet?
black comedy (noun): comedy about topics like death, war, illness, etc. - My friends hate black comedies,
but I love them.
caper (noun): a comedy about a crime that goes wrong - Is Fargo a typical crime thriller or a black comedy
caper?
comedy (noun): a novel, TV show or movie that's meant to make us laugh - We could do with a laugh, so
let's watch a comedy.
comical (adjective): strange or silly enough to be funny - It's full of funny characters in comical situations.
cringe (verb): to react to something that's embarrassing or disturbing - When she vomited on her husband,
everyone cringed.
farce (noun): a comedy of silly or unlikely events - It's an old-fashioned farce about a wedding that goes
wrong.
faux pas (also "gaffe") (noun): something embarrassing that's said or done in a social situation - His worst
faux pas was telling the queen a dirty joke.
gag (noun): a witty joke - Thinking up gags for a movie script isn't easy, you know.
goofball comedy (noun): a comedy with a very stupid but funny main character - It's a goofball comedy, so
it's OK to laugh.
gross-out (adjective): disgusting enough to make you feel sick - It's a gross-out movie, so your teenage sons
will love it.
humour (also "humor") (noun): the quality that makes something seem funny - She's got a good sense of
humour, so I'm sure she'll get the joke.
inept (adjective): lacking ability, skill or training - Playing with an inept golfer can be very funny, but you
mustn't laugh.
make fun of (verb): to tease, mock or make unkind jokes about someone - Why does your brother always
make fun of gay people?
mockumentary (noun): a comedy that looks like a serious documentary - We just saw this really funny arts
mockumentary.
poke fun at (verb): to make something or someone look silly - Lots of comedians poke fun at politics and
make fun of politicians.
romantic comedy (also "rom com") (noun): a funny love story - My wife loves romantic comedies, but I
can't stand them!
ridiculous (adjective): very silly, or unreasonable enough to make people laugh - You can't swim to China.
That's a ridiculous idea!
satire (noun): a book, play, movie, etc that uses comedy to criticize something - A good satire can change
the way you think.
satirize (verb): to use humour to poke fun at something or someone - I like the way it satirizes lawyers and
the legal system.
screwball comedy (noun): a farcical romantic comedy of the 30s or 40s - I've only seen Cary Grant in
screwball comedies.
slapstick (noun): comedy based on sight gags - Those Mr Bean movies are full of slapstick comedy.
spoof (noun): a funny parody of a movie genre - Is it a horror movie spoof, or just a funny horror movie?
Western (noun): a cowboy movie about the old American West - There were lots of Westerns on TV when I
was a kid.
witty (adjective): clever and funny at the same time - Oscar Wilde was famous for saying witty things.

DRAMAS
Drama and comedy were the earliest genres of cinema, and they're still the most popular genres today.
Comedies entertain us by making us laugh, but dramas entertain us by telling interesting stories. A good
drama does more than just tell a good story, however. It makes us care about the characters and feel many
emotions. If something good happens we feel like smiling, if something sad happens we feel like crying, and
if something bad is done to a character we like we might even feel angry. If we feel emotions like these we'll
get involved in the story and find it more entertaining. But dramas can do even more than this. They can also
make us think about important issues and teach us important lessons about life and how to live.
There are many different genres of drama and one of the most popular is the mystery genre. In this genre,
suspense keeps us anxious while we watch what happens. A classic example is Alfred Hitchcock's Rear
Window in which a photographer sees something suspicious through a neighbour's window and then tries to
discover what's happened. In many mysteries a private detective is hired to help a client who's in trouble, as
in The Long Goodbye and Chinatown. A similar genre is the police drama in which crimes are often
investigated by police detectives. Two good examples are In The Heat of the Night about an African
American detective who faces racism while investigating a murder, and Mystic River in which something
terrible happens while police are trying to solve a serious crime.
Not all police dramas are mysteries, however. Some are about important issues like police brutality and
corruption. The 2013 drama Fruitvale Station is based on the true story of an innocent young man who's
beaten and then shot dead by rogue police officers on a train platform in San Francisco. Academy Award-
winning police drama L.A. Confidential is based on a fictional story by crime writer James Ellroy about
police corruption in Los Angeles. Many political dramas are also about corruption. For example All The
President's Men is about corruption in American politics and the 2014 drama Leviathan is about a corrupt
mayor in a small Russian town.
A popular genre that focuses on criminals rather than the police is the gangster movie. Francis Ford
Coppola's famous gangster series that begins with The Godfather is about an Italian-American crime family
while Martin Scorsese's Goodfellas is about low-level gangsters who work for the mafia. Movies about
gangsters and other criminals can also be called crime dramas, and one of the most violent crime dramas is
1983's Scarface in which Al Pacino plays the part of a brutal cocaine dealer. One of the most realistic crime
dramas is City of God, a powerful film about teenage drug dealers in a Brazilian slum, while dramas like
Drugstore Cowboy and The Basketball Diaries teach us about the dangers of using hard drugs. But not all
crime dramas are as serious as these. American director Quentin Tarantino has made highly-acclaimed crime
dramas like Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction and the Kill Bill series that mix drama, action and comedy in
exciting new ways.
Other popular genres related to crime include the courtroom drama and the prison drama. 12 Angry Men and
To Kill a Mockingbird are classic courtroom dramas, while more recent examples include The Verdict and A
Time to Kill, one of many courtroom dramas based on the novels of John Grisham. Prison dramas tell stories
about prisoners and their guards, and two of the most highly-rated are Cool Hand Luke starring Paul
Newman and The Shawshank Redemption, an award-winning movie about an imprisoned lawyer who helps
corrupt guards while planning his escape.
Movies about espionage and spying are also very popular. Good examples include The Conversation, Fair
Game and A Most Wanted Man, a suspense-filled drama about an espionage agent who's investigating
terrorism. Many action movies like the James Bond series are also about spying, but espionage dramas are
usually more realistic than these action movies.
Most dramas about crime and espionage are pure entertainment, but dramas about serious issues like
violence, racism, bullying and sexual harassment can teach us something important while they entertain us.
Fritz Lang's terrifying movie Fury, and dramas like Wake in Fright and Straw Dogs, teach us about the
dangers of mob violence, and in Sleeping with the Enemy and New Zealand's Once Were Warriors we learn
about the problem of domestic violence. Dramas that teach us about bullying and violence in schools include
Larry Clark's 2001 film Bully and Gus Van Sant's 2003 film Elephant in which boys who've been bullied
take guns to school.
Dramas set in the workplace like The Salt of The Earth and Made in Dagenham show us workers being
treated badly before they go on strike, while in North Country we see a woman fighting against sexual
harassment in an iron mine. Many dramas have also been made about medical issues like mental illness,
AIDS and abortion. In One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest Jack Nicholson plays a likable character who's
being treated for a mental illness he doesn't really have. In Philadelphia and Dallas Buyers Club we learn
about AIDS, and in Mike Leigh's Vera Drake and the award-winning Romanian film 4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2
Days we see what can happen when abortion is illegal.
But not all dramas are about serious topics like these. Many movies tell inspirational stories like the one in
Sylvester Stallone's sports drama Rocky about an aging boxer with one last chance to become the world
champion. Another uplifting movie is the British drama Billy Elliot about a young boy who wants to be a
ballet dancer even though his father hates the idea. Other inspirational dramas about the arts include Lust for
Life about Vincent van Gogh and 'Round Midnight about a jazz musician who finds success in Paris.
Romantic dramas like Before Sunrise and Samson and Delilah can also be uplifting, while others like
Romeo + Juliet and Titanic begin with happiness and romance but end in tragedy. More and more dramas
about same-sex romance are also being made, and one of the most famous is Brokeback Mountain about two
American cowboys who fall in love. Others include the British film Weekend, the French film Blue Is the
Warmest Colour, and an inspiring Brazilian drama about two teenage boys who fall in love called The Way
He Looks.
Many dramas about friendship have also been made including 1997's Good Will Hunting, the Australian
drama September, and an inspirational drama about a wealthy Frenchman and a poor young black man
called The Intouchables. Many road movies are also about friendship like Gus Van Sant's 1991 drama My
Own Private Idaho and 2004's The Motorcycle Diaries, a movie that follows Che Guevara and his best
friend Mial as they ride their motorbikes through South America. Friendship is also a theme in many
coming-of-age dramas like Stand By Me about a gang of teenage boys and Thirteen about a girl who gets
into lots of trouble while she's growing up.
Another popular genre is the family drama. Some family dramas show the joys of family life, but most are
about the problems and conflicts in dysfunctional families. Highly-rated examples include Robert Redford's
Ordinary People, Mike Leigh's Secrets & Lies, and 2009 Academy Award winner Precious about the many
problems faced by members of a dysfunctional African American family. A more uplifting family drama is
the 2014 movie Boyhood in which we follow twelve years in the lives of a boy and his family.
Biopics about real people and docudramas about real events are also very popular, and good examples
include Ray about the blind musician Ray Charles, The Insider about the tobacco industry's attacks on Dr
Jeffrey Wigand, and a movie about gay activists who supported Welsh coal miners during a 1984 strike
called Pride.
Some of the most highly-acclaimed dramas contain several plot lines related to different genres. In Robert
Altman's classic movie Nashville there are plot lines about the country music business, plot lines about
American politics, and plot lines about various romances. Other complex dramas that mix genres in this way
include Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia, Paul Haggis's Crash and several movies by Mexican director
Alejandro Gonzlez Irritu including his 2000 drama Amores Perros and Birdman (or The Unexpected
Virtue of Ignorance) which won the 2014 Academy Award for Best Picture.

Drama genres and recommended movies

Mystery: Rear Window (1954), The Long Goodbye (1973), Chinatown (1974), Blue Velvet (1986), Inherent
Vice (2015)
Police: In the Heat of the Night (1967), Serpico (1973), Cop Land (1997), L.A. Confidential (1997), End of
Watch (2012)
Crime: Get Carter (1972), Scarface (1983), Pulp Fiction (1994), The Usual Suspects (1995), Traffic (2000),
City of God (2007)
Gangster: The Godfather (1972), GoodFellas (1990), Miller's Crossing (1990), The Departed (2006),
Gomorrah (2008)
Courtroom: 12 Angry Men (1957), To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), The Accused (1988), The Verdict (1992),
A Time to Kill (1996)
Prison: Cool Hand Luke (1967), Scum (1979), The Shawshank Redemption (1994), A Prophet (2010),
Starred Up (2013)
Political: The Candidate (1974), All the President's Men (1976), Recount (2008), The Ghost Writer (2010),
Leviathan (2014)
Espionage: The Manchurian Candidate (1962), The Conversation (1974), Fair Game (2010), A Most
Wanted Man (2014)
Violence: Fury (1936), Wake in Fright (1971), Straw Dogs (1971), Once Were Warriors (1994), Elephant
(2003)
Workplace: Salt of the Earth (1950), Comrades (1989), Glengarry Glen Ross (1992), North Country (2005),
Made in Dagenham (2010)
Medical: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), Dallas Buyers Club (2013), 4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2
Days (2008), Still Alice (2015)
Sport: Rocky (1976), Hoosiers (1986), Million Dollar Baby (2004), The Wrestler (2008), The Fighter
(2010), Rush (2013)
Arts: Lust For Life (1956), 'Round Midnight (1986), Billy Elliot (2000), Sraphine (2009), Mr Turner
(2014)
Romance: Before Sunrise (1995), Romeo + Juliet (1996), Titanic (1997), Lost in Translation (2003),
Samson and Delilah (2010)
Same-sex: Brokeback Mountain (2005), Weekend (2011), Blue Is the Warmest Colour (2013), The Way He
Looks (2014)
Friendship: Midnight Cowboy (1971), Good Will Hunting (1997), September (2007), The Intouchables
(2011)
Road Movie: Easy Rider (1969), My Own Private Idaho (1991), Thelma & Louise (1991), The Motorcycle
Diaries (2004)
Coming-of-age: The 400 Blows (1959), Kes (1969), Stand By Me (1986), What's Eating Gilbert Grape
(1993), Thirteen (2003)
Family: Ordinary People (1980), Secrets & Lies (1996), Precious (2009), A Separation (2009), Boyhood
(2014)
Docudrama: The Insider (1999), Erin Brockovich (2000), Argo (2012), Fruitvale Station (2013), Pride
(2014)
Biopic: Coal Miner's Daughter (1980), Wilde (1997), Iris (2001), Ray (2004), Capote (2005), Milk (2008),
W. (2008)
Mixed genre: Nashville (1975), Magnolia (1999), Amores Perros (2001), Mulholland Dr. (2001), Crash
(2004), Birdman (2014)

biopic (noun): a film based on a real person's life - Have you seen that new biopic about Michael Jackson
yet?
bully (verb): to scare or hurt someone weaker or less powerful - My daughter was being bullied by the other
workers.
coming-of-age (adjective): to do with becoming an adult - I'm reading a coming-of-age novel called The
Catcher In The Rye.
corruption (noun): illegal or dishonest activity by state officials - He made millions from corruption while
he ruled the country.
courtroom drama (noun): a drama set in a court of law - My husband loves those John Grisham courtroom
dramas.
crime drama (noun): a drama about crime and criminals - The Coen Brothers love making crime dramas.
docudrama (noun): a drama based on a real event - Are there any docudramas about that flood in New
Orleans in 2005?
domestic violence (noun): violence among family members - Domestic violence causes many women to flee
with their children.
dysfunctional (adjective): not working well, of relationships, families, etc. - I come from a dysfunctional
family full of addicts and alcoholics.
espionage (noun): activity involving spies and spying - It's one of those espionage dramas, so we'll have to
concentrate.
gangster movie (noun): a movie about a criminal organisation like the mafia - I like any films about crime,
especially gangster movies about drug lords.
inspirational (adjective): giving inspiration or enthusiasm - He's one of the most inspirational leaders we've
ever had.
investigate (verb): to try to find facts that lead to the truth - How many detectives are investigating the
case?
issue (noun): an important subject that should be discussed - They discussed issues like climate change and
inequality.
mob violence (noun): violence by a crowd of angry people - Mob violence against women is getting even
worse in those countries.
mystery (noun): something you don't know - Where do my missing socks go? It's a mystery to me.
plot line (noun): a series of events in a story - If it's got too many plot lines, it'll be difficult to follow.
police brutality (noun): violent attacks on citizens by police - Why is there so much police brutality these
days?
police drama (noun): a drama about police or a police force - Is it a real police drama, or one of those silly
police comedies?
political drama (noun): a drama about politics and politicians - It's a political drama about corruption and
the abuse of power.
prison drama (noun): a drama set in a prison or a jail - What's that old prison drama with Morgan Freeman
called?
private detective (also "private investigator") (noun): someone who's paid to find out information - The
woman hired a private detective to find out if her husband was cheating on her.
same-sex romance (noun): a romantic story about two people of the same sex - I don't think they made
same-sex romances back then.
sexual harassment (noun): using sexual words or actions to upset or harass people - You can be arrested for
sexual harassment, you know.
strike (noun): stopping work because of low pay or bad conditions - If they don't treat us fairly, we'll go on
strike.
suspense (noun): excitement or anxiety caused by not knowing something - Alfred Hitchcock was a master
of mystery and suspense.
suspicious (adjective): thinking someone might be guilty of something - The police were suspicious because
of the way he was acting.
tragedy (noun): a very sad event or situation - The sinking of the Titanic was a tragedy.
uplifting (adjective): making you feel happy and hopeful - We thought it'd be depressing, but it was a really
uplifting movie.
workplace (noun): the place where you work - There are lots of workplace comedies, but not many
workplace dramas.
SCIENCE FICTION MOVIES
If you love watching movies about the future or movies set in outer space, you're a fan of science fiction or
"sci-fi". In sci-fi movies we might see spectacular CGI scenes of battles in outer space, or we might see what
living in a high-tech future world could be like. We might see people travelling in time, or androids that look
like human beings, or huge starships that travel to distant galaxies. But sci-fi movies can do much more than
show us amazing things like these. They can tell stories that make us think about the world as it is today, and
think about the sort of world we want to pass on to our children and grandchildren in the future.
Many early sci-fi films like the silent classic Metropolis and 1936's Things To Come showed moviegoers
amazing visions of the future. In the 40s and 50s many low-budget B-movies were made about scary aliens
like The Thing from Another World and Invaders from Mars, but highly-rated sci-fi films were also made
like Forbidden Planet, Invasion of the Body Snatchers and The Day the Earth Stood Still in which a friendly
alien warns of the dangers of nuclear war.
The theme of aliens and extraterrestrials visiting Earth is also found in later sci-fi movies like 2002's Signs
and Steven Spielberg's 2005 remake of the classic sci-fi thriller War of the Worlds. Spielberg also made
Close Encounters of the Third Kind and E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial in which a boy and a homesick
extraterrestrial become good friends. The 1999 animated sci-fi film The Iron Giant is also about a friendship
between a boy and an alien, but in this movie soldiers try to destroy the boy's alien friend. The Iron Giant is
widely-regarded as one of the finest animated sci-fi movies ever made, especially for its powerful message
about the terrible things that can happen when military power is used in the wrong way.
Many sci-fi movies of the 70s also contained important messages like this, but in the 70s they were mostly
about environmental issues like pollution, global warming and overpopulation. They include 1972's Silent
Running, 1976's Logan's Run and 1973's Soylent Green, a sci-fi murder mystery set in a dystopian future in
which air pollution, high temperatures and water shortages have made farming almost impossible. Only a
tiny elite of rich and privileged people can afford fresh food while everyone else has to eat "soylent", a
processed substance made from secret and shocking ingredients. A more recent movie with an
environmental theme is the CGI blockbuster Avatar in which a mining company from Earth destroys a
distant planet's natural environment while killing peaceful indigenous aliens. Others include the Academy
Award-winning animated movie WALL-E about a trash-collecting robot, and the post-apocalyptic sci-fi
thriller Snowpiercer.
Snowpiercer is about a time in the future after the Earth has been turned into a frozen planet by a failed
attempt to stop global warming. Other post-apocalyptic movies include the Mad Max series and 2009's The
Road in which a father and son battle to survive in a dangerous and lawless post-apocalyptic world. Movies
that are set during apocalyptic events include the 1983 drama Testament in which we follow a family caught
in a nuclear attack and 2007's Sunshine in which we follow a mission sent into space to stop the sun from
dying. Movies set just before a future apocalypse include the critically-acclaimed 2012 Japanese black
comedy Fish Story in which the Earth is about to be destroyed by a comet, and Lars von Trier's art-house
drama Melancholia in which the Earth is about to collide with another planet.
While most of these movies have messages about environmental themes, in other sci-fi movies we can find
political and social themes. Many of these films have been dystopian dramas about the dangers of
authoritarian government, corporate power, and social inequality. One of the first was 1966's Fahrenheit 451
in which an oppressive authoritarian government orders the burning of all books in case they contain views
and knowledge that lead to a revolution. Another was George Lucas' 1971 film THX 1138 in which a
totalitarian government controlled by a powerful corporate elite uses brutal android police, electronic
surveillance and sedative drugs to control workers and increase corporate profits. In the classic dystopian
drama 1984 a political elite controls the minds of an underclass of workers by forcing them to watch
propaganda broadcasts and use a language of propaganda called "newspeak" in which words like "freedom"
are banned and new words like "thought crime" are invented.
Examples of more recent dystopian dramas include V for Vendetta, Elysium and The Hunger Games, the
first of a series of films set in a brutal totalitarian state in which teenagers from the underclass are forced to
fight to the death on a reality TV show. As in many dystopian dramas, the Hunger Games series follows a
group of heroic rebels who lead an uprising against an oppressive society.
A closely-related sci-fi subgenre is cyberpunk. Cyberpunk films are also set in dystopian future worlds, but
in these movies black comedy and an art-house style are often added to the mix. The film that set the pattern
for cyberpunk was Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange in which a clever but rebellious and violent
young man undergoes an experimental treatment to control his violent thoughts. In the 1982 cyberpunk
classic Blade Runner, genetically-engineered slaves escape and search for the people who made them, and in
Robocop a cyborg policeman discovers the truth about the security company that built him and runs the
police department he works for.
Not all high-tech sci-fi movies are set in dystopian futures, however. In Steven Spielberg's 1986 sci-fi
blockbuster Jurassic Park dinosaurs from the distant past are recreated from their DNA, and in his 2001
movie AI Artificial Intelligence a high-tech company markets a new line of androids that look and act like
children. In 2015's Ex Machina an AI company develops an advanced android that uses its high level of
artificial intelligence to escape to freedom, while in the 1999 high-tech rom-com Eternal Sunshine of the
Spotless Mind customers pay to have unwanted memories erased from their minds by a brain-scanning
machine.
Films like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind can make us think about the nature of the mind and reality,
and films like this are sometimes called mind-bending movies. Popular examples include The Matrix in
which most of the characters are trapped inside an artificial or "virtual" reality, and the sci-fi espionage
drama Inception in which a corporate spy enters the minds of other people to steal valuable information. But
of all the mind-bending ideas that science fiction has explored, the most popular has been the idea of time
travel.
One of the first movies to explore this idea was the classic 1960 film The Time Machine, and one of the
most popular was the 1985 sci-fi comedy Back to the Future. But many of the most successful time travel
movies have been in a series that began with The Terminator in 1984. The most highly-rated of the
Terminator movies is Terminator 2: Judgment Day in which a powerful cyborg is sent from the future to kill
a teenage boy before he grows up to become the leader of a future uprising.
Many sci-fi movies have also been made about space travel, and some of the most critically-acclaimed are
Stanley Kubrick's sci-fi classic 2001: A Space Odyssey, the Academy Award-winning film Gravity, and
Christopher Nolan's 2014 film Interstellar about a group of manned spaceships sent to find other planets for
humans to live on after they can no longer survive on Earth. But the most popular movies about space travel
have been historical space epics, or "space operas", like the Star Trek series and the Star Wars movies.
Soon after making his dystopian 1971 sci-fi film THX 1138, George Lucas began planning a series of
blockbuster space epics about a war between a group of planetary nations called the Rebel Alliance and its
evil enemy the Galactic Empire. The first of many films in this series was 1977's Star Wars featuring the
young rebel warrior Luke Skywalker and one of cinema's greatest villains, the Galactic Empire's Darth
Vader. With its epic plot, spectacular action scenes, and its many and various characters, robots and alien
creatures, the Star Wars series has helped to make science fiction one of modern cinema's most popular and
successful genres.

Recommended science fiction movies

Early classics: Metropolis (1927), Things to Come (1936), The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951),
Forbidden Planet (1956)

Alien Invasion: Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956 & 1993), They Live (1988), Signs (2002), War
of the Worlds (2005)

Extraterrestrial: Alien (1979), E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), Contact (1997), The Iron Giant
(1999), District 9 (2009)

Environmental: Silent Running (1972), Soylent Green (1973), WALL-E (2008), Avatar (2009),
Snowpiercer (2014)

Apocalyptic: Mad Max 2 (1981), Testament (1983), Sunshine (2007), The Road (2009),
Melancholia (2011), Fish Story (2013)

Early Dystopian: The War Game (1966), Fahrenheit 451 (1966), THX 1138 (1971), Logan's Run
(1976), 1984 (1984)
 Later Dystopian: V for Vendetta (2006), Children of Men (2006), The Hunger Games: Catching
Fire (2013), Elysium (2013)

Cyberpunk: A Clockwork Orange (1971), Blade Runner (1982), Robocop (1987), Akira (1988),
Dark City (1998)

High-tech: Jurassic Park (1986), Gattaca (1997), A.I. (2001), Minority Report (2002), Her (2013),
Ex Machina (2015)

Mind-bending: The Matrix (1999), Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), Inception (2010),
Source Code (2011)

Time Travel: The Terminator (1984), Back to the Future (1985), Terminator 2 (1991), 12 Monkeys
(1995), Looper (2012)

Space Travel: 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), Solaris (1976 & 2002), Moon (2009), Gravity (2013),
Interstellar (2014)

Space Epic: Star Wars (1977), The Empire Strikes Back (1980), Star Trek 2 (1982), Star Trek
(2009), Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes (2014)

alien (noun): a creature from outer space - The aliens were scary, but they looked amazing.
android (noun): a robot that looks and acts like a person - I loved that scene when they fought with the
androids.
animated (adjective): made with drawn images or CGI graphics - Our kids love animated movies like
WALL-E and Inside Out.
apocalyptic (adjective): causing great destruction and death - They think the world will end with an
apocalyptic catastrophe.
art-house (adjective): experimental and non-commercial - Linda likes art-house films, but Mike likes big-
budget action movies.
artificial intelligence (also "AI") (noun): computer-based intelligence - They found the android's artificial
intelligence circuits.
authoritarian (adjective): using force and strict rules to control people - Our new boss is one of those
authoritarian types, I'm afraid.
B-movie (noun): a low-budget movie - Some of those B-movies from the 50s are great.
corporate (adjective ): relating to large companies - A corporate state uses the media to control the way we
think.
cyberpunk (noun): a dystopian, high-tech sci-fi subgenre - My brother's writing a cyberpunk novel about
computer games.
cyborg (noun): a creature that's part machine and part human - Robocop's a cyborg, isn't he?
dystopian (adjective): of an oppressive or dangerous future world - It's another one of those dystopian cyberpunk
movies.
elite (noun): the people with the most power and money - If the elite doesn't stop being so greedy, there'll be
trouble.
extraterrestrial (also "ET") (noun): an alien from another planet - She says extraterrestrials took her into their
spaceship.
global warming (noun): temperature increases from burning fossil fuels - Global warming's causing catastrophic
climate change.
high-tech (also "hi-tech") (adjective): having highly-advanced technology - We're using the latest high-tech security
system.
mind-bending (adjective): having complex ideas about the mind and reality - Those mind-bending sci-fi stories can be
hard to follow.
oppressive (adjective): using authoritarian power to limit freedom - Our country's becoming more and more
oppressive.
outer space (noun): anywhere in the universe beyond Earth and its atmosphere - The monsters came from outer
space.
post-apocalyptic (adjective): after a terrible event like a nuclear war or an asteroid strike - Max lived in a violent post-
apocalyptic world.
propaganda (noun): false information meant to control public opinion - That's not news! It's just propaganda.
rebel (also "revolutionary") (noun): someone who opposes a government or fights for freedom - The rebels escaped
to freedom at the end of the movie.
robot (noun): an intelligent machine that can move itself - The robots in the Star Wars movies are so cute.
science fiction (also "sci-fi") (noun): a genre with stories set in the future or in outer space - Have you seen any good
sci-fi movies lately?
spaceship (also "spacecraft") (noun): a vehicle that can travel in outer space - After the spaceship's door opened, the
aliens came out.
starship (noun): a very large spaceship, esp one that can travel to other galaxies - The starship in the new Star Trek
movie is awesome!
surveillance (noun): the close watching of people's behaviour - They kept us under electronic surveillance day and
night.
theme (noun): the main subject of a novel, movie, poem, etc - What do you think the theme of Blade Runner is?
time travel (noun): moving through time to the past or the future - Our physics teacher said time travel might be
possible one day.
totalitarian (adjective): having total power and not allowing opposition - The Hunger Games is set in a repressive
totalitarian society.
underclass (noun): a society's poorest and most oppressed people - Rebels from the underclass eventually defeated
the greedy elite.

HISTORICAL DRAMAS
Movies that tell dramatic stories about events in the past are called historical dramas, and like all dramas they involve
conflicts. They can be conflicts between characters and they can also be larger historical conflicts. These larger
conflicts can be wars between countries, conflicts between religious groups, uprisings against governments or
monarchs, conflicts between indigenous people and those who colonize their land, or conflicts between slaves and
their masters or workers and their bosses.
A popular subgenre of the historical drama is the epic. An epic is a spectacular movie that tells a long and
complicated story about important historical events. Many epics have been made about the ancient worlds of Egypt
and Greece and the ancient empires of Rome and China. Famous epics include 1960's Spartacus about a slave
uprising against the Roman Empire, the Academy Award-winning film Gladiator about a Roman general who's
captured by slave traders, and the 2008 epic Mongol about Genghis Khan's rise to power in the Mongol Empire.
Until the 1960s, most American historical dramas were Westerns about European colonization of the western regions
of North America in the nineteenth century. These areas belonged to indigenous Native Americans or were in
Mexican states like California, Arizona and Texas. In early Westerns, Native Americans were portrayed as "savages"
and Mexicans were portrayed as villains, while the Europeans who were trying to take their land were portrayed as
brave heroes or victims of these savages and villains. Movies like this include Fort Apache, Red River and The
Searchersa classic Western about a group of people who are searching for a European girl who's been kidnapped
by Native Americans.
Westerns that were set later in the nineteenth century were often about law and order instead of colonization. Most
Native Americans had already been killed or forced to live on reservations, and Mexicans had already lost their states
during the 1846 Mexican-American War, so the villains in these films were usually outlaws or greedy landowners and
businessmen instead, and the heroes were sheriffs or brave gunmen. Westerns of this type include Shane, Rio Bravo,
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and the suspense-filled classic High Noon. A Western that doesn't follow this
formula is the 1943 classic The Ox-Bow Incident in which an angry mob of townspeople kill three cowboys they
mistakenly blame for a murder.

During the 60s, many Westerns were made by Italian directors. Italian Westerns, also called Spaghetti Westerns, were
popular worldwide thanks to their powerful stories, their visual style and their beautiful music. Director Sergio Leone
made several highly-acclaimed Westerns like A Fistful of Dollars, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly and Once Upon A
Time In The West. Sergio Corbucci also made highly-rated Spaghetti Westerns like Django, The Mercenary and The
Great Silence, a dark and violent film with a score by the acclaimed Italian composer Ennio Morricone. Morricone
also wrote scores for dozens of other movies, including most of Sergio Leone's films, and he's now regarded as one of
cinema's greatest composers.
Since the 60s, most Westerns have been revisionist Westerns in which Native Americans and Mexicans are no longer
portrayed as savages or villains. The most popular of these include 1970's Little Big Man about a 118-year-old white
man who lived most of his life as a Native American, and 1990's Dances with Wolves about a former soldier who
marries a Native American woman. Many remakes of earlier Westerns have also been made like Clint Eastwood's
Unforgiven, James Mangold's 3:10 To Yuma and the Coen brothers' True Grit. Other recent Westerns include 2010's
Meek's Cutoff about a small group of European settlers travelling across Oregon in 1864, and Quentin Tarantino's
Django Unchained which mixes elements of the Spaghetti Western with other genres like black comedy and the road
movie.
Many Westerns were based on historical Japanese action dramas called samurai films. In Japanese history, samurai
warriors were highly-skilled swordsmen who worked as soldiers or bodyguards for wealthy warlords. Some of the
most highly-acclaimed samurai films are Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai on which the American Western The
Magnificent Seven was based, and Yojimbo on which Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars was based. Many samurai
films are now regarded as being among the finest historical dramas ever made, and other classics include Kurosawa's
Rashomon and several movies by Masaki Kobayashi such as Harakiri and Samurai Rebellion.
Kobayashi also made a nine-hour film released in three parts called The Human Condition based on his own terrible
experiences during the Second World War. While action movies often glorify war and portray it as an exciting
adventure, realistic dramas like The Human Condition show the shocking truth about war. Historical dramas like this
are often called anti-war films, and others include the Australian World War One drama Gallipoli and a film set during
the 1937 Nanking massacre in China called City of Life and Death. Similar films set during the Vietnam War include
Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket and Oliver Stone's Platoon, while films set during more recent wars include the
Israeli anti-war drama Lebanon and the American film Battle for Haditha, a docudrama about the massacre of 24 Iraqi
men, women and children by American soldiers on November 19, 2005.
Historical dramas have also been made about revolutions and uprisings like 1983's Danton about the French
Revolution, Ken Loach's Land and Freedom about a fascist uprising that led to the Spanish Civil War, and Steven
Soderbergh's exciting two-part biopic Che about the Cuban Revolution. Italian director Gillo Pontecorvo's powerful
historical dramas Queimada and The Battle of Algiers are also about uprisings. Queimada, also known as Burn! and
starring Marlon Brando, is about a slave uprising in a Portuguese colony in Central America, while The Battle of
Algiers is based on the brutal repression of a 1956 uprising in the French colony of Algeria. The highly-acclaimed 2001
French docudrama Rebellion is about similar events on the French colony of New Caledonia in 1988. Movies have
also been made about Scottish uprisings against England like Mel Gibson's Braveheart and Irish uprisings against
British control like 2002's Bloody Sunday and 2007's The Wind That Shakes the Barley, while highly-rated films about
workers going on strike include Matewan about the 1920 US coal miners' strike and Comrades about striking British
farm workers in the 1830s.
Matewan and Comrades are based on true stories, and films like this can be called historical docudramas. Others
include Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List about how a German businessman saved hundreds of Jewish lives in Nazi
Germany, Clint Eastwood's Invictus about how Nelson Mandela helped the South African rugby team win the 1995
Rugby World Cup, and 2014's Selma about the brutal repression of a peaceful civil rights march in the US city of
Selma in 1965. Many biopics based on the lives of famous people in history have also been made. Two of the most
highly-acclaimed are David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia about the British spy T.E. Lawrence who helped Arabs in their
uprising against Turkish rule during World War One, and Richard Attenborough's Gandhi about the man whose non-
violent uprising led India to freedom in 1947 after nearly 200 years of repressive British rule.
Not all historical dramas are about famous people and events, however. Some are about the everyday lives of
ordinary people in the past. In Mel Gibson's Apocalypto we see what life was like in the Mayan civilization of Central
America before Spanish colonization, and in Rolf de Heer's Ten Canoes we see how indigenous Australians lived
before their country was colonized by the British, while in a series of three films called The Apu Trilogy by Indian
director Satyajit Ray we see what life was like in a poor Indian village in the 1910s.
Watching films like these is a great way to learn about life in the past, and you will find many more highly-rated
historical dramas in the list below

Recommended historical movies

Epic: Ben-Hur (1959), Spartacus (1960), War and Peace (1966), Gladiator (2000), Asoka (2001), Troy (2004),
Mongol (2008)

Early Western: The Ox-Bow Incident (1943), Red River (1948), High Noon (1952), Shane (1953), The Searchers
(1956), Rio Bravo (1959)

Italian Western: The Big Gundown (1966), Django (1966), Once Upon a Time in the West (1968), The
Mercenary (1968), The Great Silence (1968)

Later Western: Little Big Man (1970), Pale Rider (1985), Dances With Wolves (1990), Unforgiven (1992), True
Grit (2010), Meek's Cutoff (2010)

Samurai: Yojimbo (1961), Harakiri (1962), Sword of Doom (1966), Samurai Rebellion (1967), Twilight Samurai
(2004), 13 Assassins (2011)

WW 1: All Quiet on the Western Front (1930), Paths of Glory (1957), Johnny Got His Gun (1971), Gallipoli
(1981), Beneath Hill 60 (2010)

WW 2: Das Boot (1981), Come and See (1985), Europa Europa (1990), Saving Private Ryan (1998), Letters
from Iwo Jima (2006), City of Life and Death (2011)

Vietnam War: The Deer Hunter (1978), Apocalypse Now (1979), Full Metal Jacket (1987), Platoon (1989),
Casualties of War (1989)

Recent Wars: No Man's Land (2001), Battle For Haditha (2007), Waltz with Bashir (2008), Lebanon (2009),
The Hurt Locker (2009), Kajaki (2014)

Asia: Apu Trilogy (1955-59), Passage to India (1984), Farewell My Concubine (1993), The Killing Fields (1984),
Kundun (1997), The Rising (2005)

Africa: Battle of Algiers (1967), A Dry White Season (1989), Lumumba (2001), Hotel Rwanda (2004), Beyond
the Gates (2005), Timbuktu (2015)

Middle East: The Message (1976), Osama (2004), Paradise Now (2005), Turtles Can Fly (2005), When I Saw
You (2012), Omar (2014)

Europe: Danton (1983), Land and Freedom (1996), The Pianist (2002), Amen (2003), The White Ribbon
(2009), A Royal Affair (2012)

UK & Ireland: Comrades (1986), Braveheart (1995), Amazing Grace (2007), The Wind That Shakes the Barley
(2007), The Imitation Game (2014)

Nth America: Matewan (1987), Mississippi Burning (1988), Glory (1989), Black Robe (1991), The New World
(2005), 12 Years a Slave (2015)

Central Am: Burn! (1969), Under Fire (1983), Salvador (1986), Romero (1989), 1492: Conquest of Paradise
(1992), Apocalypto (2006)
 Sth Am: Aguirre, Wrath of God (1974), Missing (1982), The Mission (1986), Elite Squad (2007), The Liberator
(2013), No (2013)

Australasia: The Piano (1993), Rabbit-Proof Fence (2002), The Tracker (2002), The Proposition (2005), Ten
Canoes (2006)

Docudrama: Schindler's List (1993), Bloody Sunday (2002), Carandiru (2003), Munich (2005), Invictus (2009),
Rebellion (2011), Selma (2015)

Biopic: Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Reds (1981), Gandhi (1982), The Last Emperor (1987), JFK (1991),
Malcolm X (1992), Che: Parts 1 & 2 (2008)
ancient (adjective): very old or from a very long time ago - We're studying the ancient civilizations of India this week.
anti-war film (noun): a film that shows how terrible war really is - Mum made us watch some anti-war films after she
caught us playing war games.
civil rights (noun): freedom and equality for all races, genders, classes, etc - They were attacked during a civil rights
march.
colonize (verb): to take control of a foreign land and live there - They colonized our land, made us slaves, and stole
everything we had.
empire (noun): a large group of foreign lands colonized by one country - The loss of the Thirteen Colonies was a big
blow to the British Empire.
epic (noun): a long and spectacular film about famous events in history - Some epics are great, but others are just
long and boring.
fascist (adjective): very right-wing, racist and militaristic - Hitler, Franco and Mussolini were fascist dictators, weren't
they?
glorify (verb): to make something seem great while hiding its bad side - We don't let our kids watch movies that
glorify violence.
historical drama (noun): a drama that's set in the past - I love historical dramas that show what life was really like.
indigenous people (noun): the original owners of colonized lands - Are indigenous people being treated any better
these days?
massacre (noun): the brutal killing of many people - Genghis Khan was responsible for many massacres.
monarch (noun): royal head of state, like a king, queen, emperor, etc - How many monarchs are there in Europe?
Native American (noun): an indigenous American - She lives in New York, but she's never met a Native American.
outlaw (noun): someone who breaks the law - In those old Westerns, the outlaws were the guys in black hats.
portray (verb): to show something in a particular way - Why did they portray women as being so weak and afraid all
the time?
remake (noun): a new version of an existing movie - She likes the original French movie better than the American
remake.
repression (noun): the use of violence or force to control people - Brutal repression by soldiers still didn't stop the
protests.
reservation (noun): an area Native Americans were restricted to - They were forced to live on reservations far from
home.
revisionist Western (noun): a Western expressing modern views - Revisionist Westerns were pretty popular in the
70s.
revolution (noun): a successful uprising that forms a new political system - The French Revolution was too violent, so
it didn't end well.
samurai film (noun): a Japanese drama about samurai warriors - My cousin's a huge fan of those old samurai films.
savage (noun): a cruel, violent and uncivilized person - Why did they call Native Americans "savages" in those old
movies?
score (noun): music written for a film - Who's composing the score for your next film?
sherif (noun): the most senior police officer in a US town - The sheriff gets the outlaw in the end, of course.
Spaghetti Western (noun): a subgenre of Westerns made by Italian directors - I loved Spaghetti Westerns when I was
a kid.
uprising (noun): an attempt to bring down a government - There wouldn't have been an uprising if they'd treated
everyone better.
Western (noun): a cowboy movie about the old American West - I used to have an old cowboy hat that I wore while
watching Westerns on TV.
DOCUMENTARIES

If you like learning about the real world and real people, you probably like watching documentaries. Some
documentaries are feature films shown in cinemas, and some are made for television. Television documentaries are
often made as a series, and many of the most popular are wildlife documentaries like the BBC's The Life of Mammals.
Some of the most popular feature film documentaries are also about wildlife, including 2001's Winged Migration and
the box office hit March of the Penguins in which we follow a colony of emperor penguins on their long journey
across Antarctica. Educational documentaries like these usually include voice-overs in which we hear a narrator
telling us about the things we're seeing. They can also include title screens on which information is written or a host
who appears on-screen and talks to us directly.
One of the most successful documentary filmmakers is Michael Moore who often acts as the host in his own films.
His political documentary Fahrenheit 9/11 was so successful that it broke box office records and won top prize at the
2004 Cannes Film Festival. The film reveals how US President George W Bush used the 9/11 terrorist attacks as an
excuse to start wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that made huge profits for companies linked to his own political party.
A documentary like Fahrenheit 9/11 that reveals hidden truths is called an expos. Other exposs include Taxi to the
Dark Side about the US military's terrible treatment of its prisoners, and the multi-award-winning film No End in Sight
about all the mistakes made during and after the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Another recent war documentary is 2010's
Restrepo, an observational documentary made by photojournalists who spent a year living with US soldiers in
Afghanistan. An observational documentary makes us feel as if we're in a place observing things for ourselves, and
one of the earliest was the 1922 silent film Nanook of the North in which we see the daily lives of Inuit people in
Canada's Arctic north.
Even though Nanook of the North is about people who lived a long time ago, it isn't what we'd call an historical
documentary. These are films that use archival footage and interviews with witnesses and historians to explain
events in history. Examples include 1974's Hearts and Minds about the Vietnam War and 2002's The Pinochet Case
about the destruction of democracy in Chile. If you're interested in history, you can find more films like these in the
list of recommended documentaries below. If you're interested in Asian history, for example, check the list of
documentaries about Asia. You'll find films like Burma VJ and The Act of Killing in which you'll see mass killings in
Indonesia in the 1960s re-enacted in some of the scariest scenes ever filmed for a documentary.
If you check the list you'll also find science-related documentaries like 1989's For All Mankind about the Apollo moon
missions and 2006's An Inconvenient Truth about man-made climate change. Health-related documentaries include
Michael Moore's Sicko, an expos of the American healthcare system, and Morgan Spurlock's Super Size Me in which
he documents the unhealthy effects of living on a diet of junk food for a month. Documentaries about economic
issues include the 2010 Academy Award-winning film Inside Job about greedy bankers who caused an economic
collapse in 2008 in which millions of people lost their jobs, their homes and their life savings.
You can also find films about crime like Bus 174 in which live television footage is used to tell the story of a young
man who held up a bus in Rio de Janeiro, and Into The Abyss in which acclaimed German director Werner Herzog
explores all aspects of a multiple murder by getting to know the murderers, the victims' families, and the detectives
who solved the crime.
Documentaries on injustice include Paradise Lost and Murder on a Sunday Morning, an Academy Award-winning film
about a 15-year-old boy who was sent to trial for a murder he didn't commit. Films that try to persuade us of the
importance of issues like injustice are called expository documentaries. They've addressed many issues like
homelessness (2000's Dark Days), gun control (2002's Bowling for Columbine), pollution (2009's Crude), bullying
(2012's Bully), unemployment (2014's The Overnighters) and the use of religion to attack gay people (2007's For the
Bible Tells Me So and 2013's God Loves Uganda).
Not all documentaries are about serious issues like these, however. If you're interested in sports you can find
inspiring films like Hoop Dreams about a pair of teenage basketballers who dream of becoming professional players,
and the Academy Award-winning film Undefeated about a high school football team's struggle to win a
championship. You can also find films about boxing (1996's When We Were Kings), car racing (2010's Senna) and
mountain climbing (2015's Meru).
Interesting films about the arts include Paris Is Burning, an award-winning documentary about gay and transgender
people who invented an exciting new style of dancing in the 1980s, and the biographical documentary Jean-Michel
Basquiat: The Radiant Child that chronicles the short life of an African-American graffiti artist whose paintings now
sell for million of dollars. Music documentaries include concert films like Monterey Pop and Woodstock, biographical
films like the Amy Winehouse documentary Amy, and films in which musicians talk about their lives and their music
like the Nick Cave documentary 20,000 Days on Earth.
Documentaries about other interesting people include the 2009 Academy Award-winning film Man On Wire about
French tightrope walker Philippe Petit and his incredibly dangerous high-wire walk far above the streets of New York,
and Werner Herzog's documentary Grizzly Man about a man who spent years among the wild bears of Alaska before
being eaten alive in 2003.
Herzog also made the experimental documentary Lessons of Darkness in which we see strangely beautiful footage of
Kuwait's burning oil fields after the first Gulf War in 1990. Koyaanisqatsi: Life Out Of Balance is another experimental
documentary in which we see amazing slow motion and time-lapse footage of both the natural world and the man-
made world. Unlike most documentaries, Koyaanisqatsi has no voice-over narration, no interviews, and no host
explaining what the film's about. The only clues are on a title screen at the very end that shows translations of Hopi
songs that composer Philip Glass used in what's widely-regarded as one of the finest musical scores ever written for a
documentary.

Recommended documentary films

Wildlife: Winged Migration (2001), March of the Penguins (2005), The Cove (2009), The Last Lions (2011),
Blackfish (2013)

Political: Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky (1993), Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004), Control Room (2004),
Citizenfour (2014)

War: Hearts and Minds (1974), The Fog of War (2003), No End in Sight (2007), Restrepo (2010), Dirty Wars
(2013)

Asia: The Story Of The Weeping Camel (2003), Nanking (2007), Burma VJ (2008), The Act of Killing (2012)

Africa: Congo: White King, Red Rubber, Black Death (2003), War Dance (2007), Big Men (2014), Virunga
(2014)

Europe: The Sorrow and the Pity (1969), Into The Arms Of Strangers (2000), Happy People; A Year in the Taiga
(2010)

Nth Am: Nanook of the North (1922), Harlan County, U.S.A. (1976), Four Little Girls (1997), Which Way Home
(2009)

Sth Am: The Pinochet Case (2002), Chavez: Inside the Coup (2003), War on Democracy (2007), Nostalgia for
the Light (2010)

Middle East: Promises (2002), Iraq For Sale (2006), 5 Broken Cameras (2012), The Square (2013), The
Gatekeepers (2013)

Science: For All Mankind (1989), Darwin's Nightmare (2004), An Inconvenient Truth (2006), Merchants Of
Doubt (2015)

Health: Sicko (2007), Food, Inc. (2008), How to Survive a Plague (2012), The Waiting Room (2012), Fed Up
(2014)

Economics: Roger and Me (1989), The Corporation (2004), Inside Job (2010), Inequality for All (2013), This
Changes Everything (2015)
 Crime: The Thin Blue Line (1988), Bus 174 (2002), Capturing the Friedmans (2003), Into the Abyss (2011),
Valentine Road (2012)

Injustice: Paradise Lost (1996), Murder on a Sunday Morning (2001), The House I Live In (2012), Kids for Cash
(2014)

Issues: Dark Days (2000), Bowling for Columbine (2002), Crude (2009), Bully (2012), The Overnighters (2014)

Religion: Jesus Camp (2006), Deliver Us from Evil (2006), For the Bible Tells Me So (2007), God Loves Uganda
(2013)

Sport: Hoop Dreams (1994), When We Were Kings (1996), Murderball (2005), Senna (2010), Undefeated
(2011), Meru (2015)

Arts: Style Wars (1983), Paris Is Burning (1991), Jean-Michel Basquiat: Radiant Child (2010), Ai Weiwei: Never
Sorry (2012)

Music: Monterey Pop (1968), Woodstock (1970), Beware of Mr Baker (2012), 20,000 Days on Earth (2014),
Amy (2015)

People: Grey Gardens (1975), The Times of Harvey Milk (1984), Grizzly Man (2005), Man on Wire (2008),
Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia (2013)

Experimental: Koyaanisqatsi (1983), Sans Toit ni Loi (1985), Close-Up (1990), Lessons of Darkness (1992),
Manakamana (2013)

archival footage (also "stock footage") (noun): footage from the past used in a new film - The archival footage was
from old news broadcasts.
biographical documentary (noun): a documentary about a person's life - Is it a biopic or a biographical
documentary?
box office hit (noun): a film many people have paid to see - If our film's a box office hit, we'll be rich!
box office record (noun): a record for highest ticket sales or box office earnings - It broke the box office record in
China!
chronicle (verb): to make a record of a series of events - The film chronicles the events that led to World War One.
document (verb): to record something on film or in writing - We should document our trip and make a movie about
it.
documentary (also "doco") (noun): a film or TV show about real events or real people - Let's see that new rap music
documentary.
experimental documentary (noun): any documentary made in a new style - My brother is doing an experimental
documentary that combines home movies and historical footage.
expos (noun): a report or a film that reveals hidden facts - You should do an expos on companies that avoid paying
tax.
expository documentary (noun): a documentary that tries to persuade us of something - Brad loves making
expository documentaries on social issues.
feature film (noun): a full-length film made for release in cinemas - Most feature films are between 80 and 140
minutes long.
host (noun): a presenter who appears on-screen during a film or TV show - David Attenborough's the host in lots of
wildlife documentaries.
interview (noun): a meeting in which one person asks another person questions - I enjoy watching interviews where
journalists are on location with their guests rather than in the studio.
narrator (noun): a person who does voice-overs for films or TV shows - Why don't you get Morgan Freeman to be the
narrator?
observational documentary (noun): one in which we see whatever the camera records - Observational
documentaries make you feel like you're really there.
photojournalist (noun): someone who reports news by filming or taking photographs - Being a photojournalist can
be really dangerous.
political documentary (noun): a documentary about the use or abuse of political power - My dad loves watching
political documentaries.
re-enact (verb): to recreate a past event by acting, wearing costumes, etc - We saw an American Civil War battle re-
enacted at Gettysburg.
slow motion (also "slo-mo") (noun): a film technique that slows down movement on screen - The birds are shown in
slow motion.
time-lapse (adjective): of a film technique that speeds up movement on screen - Check out the time-lapse shots of
traffic from above.
title screen (noun): written information on screen for viewers to read - Did you read everything on the title screen
before it disappeared?
voice-over (noun): recorded words heard during a film or TV show - Have you recorded the voice-overs yet?