Movie Genre Wheel

Spin the 18 main genres to settle movie night, then narrow to one family and spin again for the sub-genre.

Movie Genre Wheel

Click the button or the wheel, or press Space or Enter. Press again to skip.Tap the button or the wheel. Tap again to skip.

AnimationFilm noirHorrorMartial artsKung fuWuxiaSpyPirateScrewball…Fantasy…Teen filmRoad movieNature…WerewolfZombieNatural…WhodunitPsychologi…CyberpunkDance filmContempor…Computer…Stop motionScreenlife

Sample result

Werewolf

Werewolves and other shapeshifters. The Wolf Man (1941) is an early cinematic example.

My list: 24 of 148 movie genres on the wheel

Your own go on the wheel with the movie genres.

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    The wheel shows a new part of the list on every spin.

    The wheel shows 24 of 148 movie genres. Every spin picks from all 148.

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        All 148 movie genres

        Romance 7

        • Comedy of remarriage A 1930s and 1940s American twist on romance: a couple divorce, flirt with strangers and then get back together.
        • Gothic romance Gothic films made with a female audience in mind, a Hollywood staple from 1940 to 1948.
        • Paranormal romance A love story with elements that science cannot explain, often a romance between a human and a vampire, shapeshifter or ghost.
        • Romantic comedy Romance played for laughs: light, funny plots built on romantic ideals, such as love conquering all.
        • Romantic fantasy Also called romantasy: a fantasy story run on the conventions of a romance, with relationships at its center.
        • Romantic thriller A romance and a suspense plot in the same film.
        • Screwball comedy A style of romantic comedy that pokes fun at the traditional screen romance. It ran from the early 1930s to the early 1950s.
        Show all 148 movie genres (141 more)

        Musicals and music 7

        • Backstage musical The plot revolves around putting on a play or a revue, and halts now and then for a performance.
        • Concert film A long live music performance, filmed so the viewer sees it as someone in the crowd would.
        • Dance film Also called screen dance: a film that tells its story and states its themes through dancing.
        • Jukebox musical A musical built from hit songs the audience already knows instead of a new score.
        • Opera film The film is the opera, start to finish, and usually a famous one.
        • Singing cowboy An early Western hero who breaks into song, echoing the ballads real cowboys sang around the campfire.
        • Sung-through musical Nearly every line is sung, and spoken dialogue is rare or absent.

        Fantasy 10

        • Dark fantasy Fantasy with horror mixed in, sometimes called fantasy horror.
        • Fantasy comedy Fantasy played for laughs, usually in an invented world and full of jokes at other fantasy stories' expense.
        • High fantasy Also called epic fantasy: set in an invented secondary world with its own consistent rules.
        • Historical fantasy A largely realistic historical story with magic or other fantastic elements added.
        • Isekai A Japanese sub-genre in which a person is transported to another world and has to survive there.
        • Magic realism The everyday world, shown realistically, except that magical things happen in it.
        • Science fantasy A hybrid that draws on the tropes of both science fiction and fantasy at once.
        • Sword and sorcery Heroes with swords in violent adventures where the stakes are personal, not the fate of the world.
        • Sword-and-sandal Also known as peplum: mostly Italian-made epics of ancient Greece and Rome, the Bible or the Middle Ages.
        • Urban fantasy The supernatural turns up in a present-day city.

        Westerns 11

        • Acid Western A 1960s and 1970s strain of Western shaped by the counterculture of its day.
        • Contemporary Western Also called neo-Western: the themes and character types of the Old West in a present-day setting.
        • Horror Western Horror on the frontier. An early example is Curse of the Undead (1959), with its vampire gunfighter.
        • Meat pie Western The Australian Western, set in the outback or the bush. Bushranger films count too.
        • Northern Like a Western, but set in the far north of North America around 1900, mostly western Canada or Alaska. The hero is often a Mountie.
        • Ostern The Western as remade in the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc. Ost is German for East.
        • Revisionist Western A Western that questions the old myths, with heroes and villains who are much harder to tell apart.
        • Science fiction Western A Western plot and setting with aliens, futuristic technology or other science fiction added.
        • Space Western Western themes and archetypes moved to outer space: new, lawless frontiers, sometimes with actual cowboys.
        • Spaghetti Western European-made Westerns, mostly from Italian producers and directors, that followed Sergio Leone's mid-1960s success.
        • Weird Western The Western blended with fantasy, science fiction and supernatural scares, often with a dash of steampunk.

        Drama and true stories 13

        • Alternate history A what-if story: some event in history goes another way, and the film follows the consequences.
        • Biopic The life story of a real person, told as drama with the real name kept.
        • Children's film Made for children first. A family film casts its net wider and is meant for all ages.
        • Comedy drama Also called dramedy: serious subjects treated realistically, with the tone kept light.
        • Coming-of-age Follows a protagonist growing from childhood to adulthood. The subjects are typically teenagers.
        • Docudrama Real events re-enacted by actors, part documentary and part drama.
        • Epic Big in scale, scope and spectacle, and often built around one heroic figure.
        • Legal drama Also called courtroom drama: lawyers, trials and the workings of the justice system.
        • Nature documentary A documentary about wildlife, plants or other living things, mostly filmed where they live.
        • Road movie A road trip takes the main characters away from home and changes how they see their ordinary lives.
        • Slice of life Depicts mundane, everyday experiences, often with little plot development or conflict.
        • Sports A sport is at the center of the plot or is the film's main theme.
        • Teen film Aimed at teenagers and young adults: coming of age, fitting in, first love and conflict with parents.

        Science fiction 10

        • Cyberpunk Science fiction about a bleak future where high technology and low living meet.
        • Dystopian An imagined society gone wrong: oppressive, tightly controlled, polluted or unstable.
        • Kaiju Japanese monster films in which creatures attack cities or towns. The word means strange beast.
        • Mecha Stories about giant robots or machines, usually human-shaped walking vehicles with a pilot inside or a mind of their own.
        • Military science fiction Soldiers are usually the main characters, and the spaceships and weapons of science fiction are put to military use.
        • Post-apocalyptic Civilization is ending or already gone, brought down by climate, an impact from space, nuclear war or a pandemic.
        • Science fiction comedy Plays science fiction conventions such as alien invasion or interstellar travel for laughs.
        • Space opera Large-scale adventure in outer space, with galactic empires, alien civilizations and wars between worlds in the background.
        • Steampunk Steam-powered technology that never was, usually in an alternative Victorian era or on the American frontier.
        • Tech noir Film noir meets science fiction, with technology as the threat.

        Action and adventure 16

        • Action comedy Action and comedy in one film, a mainstay of American action films since the 1980s.
        • Disaster A disaster, looming or under way, drives the plot: natural, accidental, an attack or a pandemic.
        • Heroic bloodshed Born in Hong Kong action cinema: stylized gunfights and themes of brotherhood, duty, honor and redemption.
        • Kung fu Hong Kong martial arts films in contemporary settings with realistic fighting and none of wuxia's fantasy.
        • Martial arts Action built around martial arts combat, which is usually the main appeal. Training scenes are common.
        • Mountain Climbers against the mountain. Those who make it back down return changed.
        • Pirate An adventure sub-genre. Its stock pirate comes from the imagined Caribbean sea robbers of the 18th-century Spanish Main.
        • Samurai Japan's chanbara, or sword fighting films, roughly equivalent to Westerns and swashbucklers.
        • Spy Espionage fiction, anywhere from realistic to pure fantasy.
        • Submarine A war film sub-genre set mostly aboard a submarine below the surface, with a small, determined crew.
        • Superhero People with extraordinary abilities who fight crime, save the world or help the innocent.
        • Survival One or more characters in a life-or-death struggle to stay alive.
        • Swashbuckler Sword fights and adventurous heroes. Heroes and villains alike often follow a code of honor.
        • Vigilante The courts fail the protagonist, who goes after justice personally. Most are revenge stories.
        • War Films about warfare, usually built around battles at sea, in the air or on land.
        • Wuxia Chinese stories of martial artists adventuring in ancient China. The name means martial arts and chivalry.

        Crime and thriller 14

        • Buddy cop Two mismatched partners, usually police officers or secret agents, have to solve a case together.
        • Comedy thriller A thriller that stays funny throughout: the danger is real, and so are the jokes.
        • Gangster A crime sub-genre about gangs and organized crime, from large criminal organizations to small gangs.
        • Giallo Italian murder mystery films that blend thriller suspense with horror. Giallo is Italian for yellow.
        • Heist Also called a caper film: a crew plans a big robbery, pulls it off and lives with what follows.
        • Hood film An American genre, popular from the 1990s, about city life in African American and Hispanic American communities.
        • Mafia A version of the gangster film dealing with Mafia organizations. Early ones overlap heavily with film noir.
        • Neo-noir Film noir revived from the 1970s on, with the old themes reworked for modern audiences, often in vivid color.
        • Political thriller A thriller played out inside a struggle for political power, where one person may hold a country's fate.
        • Prison Life behind bars, and very often a plan to break out.
        • Psychological thriller A thriller that works on the mind, a relative of Gothic fiction and the detective story.
        • Techno-thriller A thriller packed with technical detail, most often about military technology.
        • Whodunit A plot-driven puzzle: the viewer gets the clues and can work out who did it before the reveal.
        • Yakuza A Japanese genre about yakuza, the country's organized crime syndicates, and the lives they lead.

        Main genres 18

        • Action Stunts, chases, fights, shootouts and explosions do most of the talking.
        • Adventure A journey or a pursuit in a setting remote in time and place, led by a hero who tries to set the world right.
        • Animation A medium more than a genre: the images are created by hand or by computer, and it can carry any genre.
        • Comedy Made to make the audience laugh. One of the oldest film genres, and most end happily.
        • Crime Crime is the key to the plot, from gangster stories to heists and detective cases.
        • Documentary Nonfiction film that sets out to record reality, to teach, inform or keep a historical record.
        • Drama Serious storytelling, not played for laughs, built on emotion and conflict.
        • Fantasy Magic, supernatural events, mythology, folklore or invented worlds.
        • Film noir Cynical Hollywood crime drama, shot in shadowy black and white. Its classic period was the 1940s and 1950s.
        • Historical drama Set in the past, mixing real events and people with varying amounts of invention. Also called a period piece.
        • Horror Sets out to frighten, physically or psychologically, often with monsters, apocalyptic events or folk beliefs.
        • Melodrama Intense, exaggerated emotion and heightened dramatic situations come before everything else.
        • Musical Songs sung by the characters are woven into the story, sometimes with dancing.
        • Mystery A detective, professional or amateur, works through the clues to solve a crime or puzzle.
        • Romance A love story first: two people finding each other is the main plot.
        • Science fiction Speculative, science-based ideas such as alien life, spacecraft, robots and time travel.
        • Thriller Built on suspense: the audience knows what is coming, and the film makes them wait for it.
        • Western Stories of the American frontier, usually set somewhere between the 1849 California Gold Rush and the frontier's closing in 1890.

        Comedy 10

        • Beach party An American genre made between 1963 and 1968, created by American International Pictures with its surprise hit Beach Party.
        • Black comedy Finds humor in subjects most people consider taboo or too painful to joke about.
        • Body swap Two characters trade minds and wake up in the wrong bodies.
        • Buddy film Two people with contrasting personalities go on an adventure, a mission or a road trip.
        • Comedy horror Scares and laughs in one film. Black comedy, parody and spoof are the three types usually named.
        • Mockumentary A fictional story shot as if it were a documentary, often to satirize current events or the documentary form itself.
        • Parody Also called a spoof: a comedy that lampoons other films or whole film genres.
        • Silent comedy Comedy developed for the silent film era of the 1900s to the 1920s, before synchronized dialogue.
        • Slapstick Physical comedy: pratfalls, trips, falls and practical jokes matter more than dialogue or plot.
        • Zombie comedy Often called zom com: zombie horror motifs blended with slapstick and morbid humor.

        Horror 13

        • Body horror Also called biological horror: horror centered on grotesque changes to the body, such as mutation or disease.
        • Found footage Presented as recordings made by the characters and found later, seen through their own cameras.
        • Ghost Filed under horror, though a ghost story on screen can just as easily be a comedy, a drama or a love story.
        • Gothic Films drawn from Gothic fiction or its trappings, the source of much of horror's supernatural and nightmarish side.
        • Lovecraftian horror Also called cosmic horror: dread of what cannot be known or understood, named after the writer H. P. Lovecraft.
        • Monster movie One or more monsters attack, and the characters try to stay alive. The creature can be human-sized or enormous.
        • Natural horror Nature runs amok: ordinary animals or plants turn hostile toward people, often in isolated places.
        • Psychological horror Fear built from mental and emotional states, often with a mystery and characters whose minds cannot be trusted.
        • Slasher One killer or several hunt down a group of people, usually with a blade or other sharp tool.
        • Supernatural horror Ghosts, demons, possession and the afterlife, often with a religious thread.
        • Vampire A fixture of cinema since the silent era. Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula is the most adapted source.
        • Werewolf Werewolves and other shapeshifters. The Wolf Man (1941) is an early cinematic example.
        • Zombie Zombies are usually reanimated corpses or people infected by a virus. Mostly horror, with crossovers into action, comedy and even love stories.

        Animation and film styles 19

        • Anime Japan's animation. Outside Japan the word means animated work made there.
        • Anthology film Three or more short films in one feature, usually linked by a theme, a premise or an author.
        • Art film Independent, serious in its artistic aims and made for a niche audience, not the mass market.
        • B movie A low-budget commercial film. In Hollywood's Golden Age the name meant the lesser half of a double feature.
        • Claymation Stop motion in which every character and background is made of a malleable material, usually plasticine clay.
        • Computer animation Moving images generated digitally, today usually with 3D computer graphics.
        • Cult film A film with a devoted following who rewatch it, quote it and sometimes join in at screenings.
        • Experimental film Avant-garde filmmaking that sets aside standard conventions for non-narrative forms.
        • Hyperlink cinema Several characters, several storylines and one theme tying them together.
        • Independent film Made without a major studio behind it, and usually released by an independent company too.
        • Live-action animation Real actors and animated characters share the same frame.
        • Midnight movie A cheap genre picture or oddball film scheduled for a late-night slot, in a cinema or on television.
        • Mumblecore Low-budget independent films with naturalistic acting, sometimes improvised dialogue and a focus on young adults' relationships.
        • One-shot film A feature filmed in a single continuous take, or edited to look like one.
        • Screenlife The whole story plays out on the screen of a computer, tablet or phone, a format that took off in the 2010s.
        • Short film Brief by definition. The Academy behind the Oscars draws the line at 40 minutes, credits included.
        • Silent film No synchronized recorded sound. Key lines of dialogue are carried by intertitles when needed.
        • Stop motion Objects are nudged a little between each photographed frame, so that on playback they seem to move by themselves.
        • Traditional animation Hand-drawn animation, frame by frame. It dominated American animation for most of the 20th century, until computers took over.

        How this list was compiled: Genre names were taken from Wikipedia's Film genre article (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_genre) and the Film genres navigation box printed at the foot of it (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Film_genres), both read on 2026-09-18. The wheel keeps 148 names. Main genres are 15 of the 16 rows of the article's table of genres and sub-genres, plus Crime, Documentary and Mystery, which the navigation box lists as genres of their own. The other names are sub-genres from that table or entries in the navigation box. Adult and exploitation genres, national film movements and a few names that do not suit a general audience were left out, and so was any name whose own article could not supply a plain definition. The twelve groups are our own arrangement. A hybrid such as Horror Western sits in both of its groups. Each one-line description is in this site's own words and was checked against the definition, place or period given in that genre's own Wikipedia article, read on the same date: the facts are the article's, the wording is ours. Licence: own work

        How it works

        This movie genre wheel holds 148 film genres in 12 groups. Start on Main genres, a wheel of 18 that runs from Action to Western, and let it decide what kind of film tonight is. Then choose that family and spin again for a sub-genre such as heist, giallo or space opera. Every result comes with one line on what defines it.

        Read the full guide

        Two spins settle movie night

        Spin Main genres first: 18 broad names, from Action to Western. Say it lands on Horror. Choose Horror under Show only: the wheel redraws with 19 kinds of horror, from found footage to zombie comedy. Spin again, and there is far less left to argue about.

        A watch challenge in the deep groups

        A film club can use a smaller group as a syllabus. Westerns alone has 12 kinds. An Ostern is a Western made in the Soviet Union or the Eastern Bloc. A meat pie Western is set in the Australian outback. The line under each result is a one-sentence summary, checked against that genre's Wikipedia article, so a name you have never met still tells you something.

        • Film club: switch to Elimination, spin the whole season's order in one sitting and press Copy. No genre repeats.
        • Two people who never agree: one picks the group, the other spins. Romance has 7 sub-genres, from screwball comedy to romantic thriller.
        • Only a handful of genres your household will sit through? Type them into My list, one per line, up to 100, press Spin only mine, and the wheel spins those alone.

        Questions and answers

        Where do the 148 genres come from?

        From Wikipedia's Film genre article and the navigation box at the foot of it, both read on 18 September 2026. Genres a viewer can find a film for were kept. Adult and exploitation genres and national film movements were left out, and so was any name whose own article gave no plain definition.

        How does a spin the wheel movie genre night work?

        Everyone gets one spin on Main genres and one veto. The first genre nobody vetoes wins. Filter to that family, spin for a sub-genre, and whoever spun it picks a film that fits. With a bigger group, switch to Tally and spin ten times: the genre with the most wins under the wheel takes the night.

        Is animation a genre?

        Not strictly. Wikipedia's Film genre article calls animation a medium that can carry any genre, yet gives it a row in its table of genres, so it sits on the Main genres wheel. The Animation and film styles group is the same: anime, stop motion, silent film and found footage say how a film is made more than what it is about.

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