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Movie Genres That Died Out Over Time

Westerns and sword & sandal flicks are basically dead. We get a new one every once in awhile, but public interest is tepid at best.

Felt like sword & sandal movies were coming back a decade ago. We had Troy, 300, Clash of the Titans, Wrath of the Titans, and Immortals all pretty close to each other. Decent sized budgets too. It seemed to fizzle out. Nobody has seemed to care about the recent attempts using Egypt.
 
A bit of a strange beast to suggest, but the Historical Comedy as a film genre is pretty much non-existent nowadays, though there's been some abortive attempts to bring it back into fashion (most notably and respectively, Adam Sandler and Seth McFarlane).

To clarify, I mean films where the primary setting is something we'd consider 'historical' - whether a western, medieval, or classical setting, to name but three examples - and well, it's mainly meant as a comedy, especially if the comedy is rooted in the period of the film. So films like Monty Python and the Holy Grail, the Life of Brian, much of the Carry On series, Blazing Saddles, and arguably even Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, even if the central narrative is set in the present. It's not too hard to see why this genre, though not everywhere, wasn't too uncommon in the latter half of the 20th century - it's relatively affordable while still offering a more 'fantastic' setting. But I think as general standards for filmmaking have increased, lower budget comedies are largely kept contemporary so as to spend the budget on other things. Hence the two most recent examples I could think of requiring lead actors with at least some name recognition and a fair bit of personal interest for the things to be even made, nevermind like, actually turn out good or anything (which sadly, they did not).
 
Historical Epics, particularly R-rated ones. Hollywood abandoned them over a decade ago. The only big budget historical Epics that have come out since around 2005 had 3 things in common: a) they were PG-13, b) they sucked, and c) they underperformed at the BO.

I don't understand why they can't try making them for adults. They'd be a hell of a lot more successful. Kids don't give a shit about this genre.

Also, the historical action subgenre that 300 made popular. Again, the only ones we get are shitty PG-13 flicks aimed at kids that flop at the BO. Every year we get two or three of them. No-one tries R-rated takes anymore even though they did better at the BO.
 
Original (i.e.not based on a book, comic book, or videogame) non franchise-driven action movies with sub 2 hour run-times and 15-18 certificates, ideally without ridiculous colour grading and/or shakycam.

I feel old
 
Are parody movies still a thing? Or did Friedberg and Seltzer successfully kill that genre off?

edit: Apparently they are making Star Worlds Episode XXXIVE=MC2: The Force Awakens the Last Jedi Who Went Rogue
 
Risque animated movies, at least in the Western market. Feels like we haven't anyone like Ralph Bakshi in a long time. Still waiting for Genndy Tartokovsky to give us his Fritz the Cat or Fire and Ice. Samurai Jack season 5 is a start.
 
Straight action-comedy. No, I don't mean Marvel movies and I don't mean comedy-action a la The Other Guys. I mean Lethal Weapon, Die Hard, Indiana Jones, Beverly Hills Cop, and everything Schwarzenegger did in the '90s, most Jackie Chan. I miss the hell out of that genre.

EDIT: It seems to me like most action movies are either comic-book (with comedy) or super serious (and also might still be comic-book). "Fun" straight action films are pretty hard to come by these days, I feel. The Nice Guys was a breath of fresh air.
Die Hard and Indy are action movies with a witty/sharp hero. Not any kind of "straight" action-comedy

Original (i.e.not based on a book, comic book, or videogame) non franchise-driven action movies with sub 2 hour run-times and 15-18 certificates, ideally without ridiculous colour grading and/or shakycam.

I feel old
The Raid, John Wick, Baby Driver, The Accountant, Train To Busan, etc
 
So is there just less genres than ever or what?
 
Ninja movies are really rare these days, after exploding in popularity in the 1980s and lasting until the mid late 90s. .

Except somewhat amusingly, Ninja Warrior the game show,
 
Ben-Hur flopping and the current political climate has probably killed big budget biblical epics in the foreseeable future.

TBH, Ben-hur wasn't very good, and the religious audiences mainly go see those Christian validation movies anyway.
Plus, the Hays code is no longer being enforced.
 
Offbeat Comedy/Fantasy/Science Fiction/Adventure movies. Stuff like Burton's Pee Wee's Big Adventure, Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, and movies like Time Bandits, Brazil, Adventures of Baron Munchausen, Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure/Bogus Journey, Meet the Hollowheads, Mom and Dad Save the World, Stay Tuned, Weird Science, Nothing But Trouble, Death Becomes Her, The Addam's Family and Better Off Dead. They banked heavily on "strange" concepts and leaned towards more fantastical or cartoonish ideas. I'd also lump the Super Mario Brothers movie into that category, as it shared similar offbeat tropes (the movie, itself, is a horrible video game movie, but a decent "offbeat sci-fi adventure"). Those movies were pretty common throughout the 80s and the early 90s, then died out around about the half-way point of that decade.

The most we got, nowadays, was stuff like Napoleon Dynamite and Wes Anderson and Christopher Guest's stuff, which lean more towards the grounded side (more "quirkiness" in real world) and are less "quirkiness in a fantastical version of our world".
 
What about dancing movies like Footloose, Dirty Dancing, Flashdance, and Saturday Night Fever.

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Step_up.jpg
They transitioned into the 2000's in the form of dance crew movies like Bring it On, Step Up, Take the Lead, and Stomp the Yard, then kinda dropped off when we got to the 2010's. I think we got maybe two, and one of those was Dancin': It's On.
 
What about dancing movies like Footloose, Dirty Dancing, Flashdance, and Saturday Night Fever. They transitioned into the 2000's in the form of dance crew movies like Bring it On, Step Up, Take the Lead, and Stomp the Yard, then kinda dropped off when we got to the 2010's. I think we got maybe two, and one of those was Dancin': It's On.
That's because nothing could top You Got Served. It was all downhill from there.
 
I think both of those are happening, at least sometime in the future. Matt Stone and Trey Parker opened up a live-action film studio a couple years back, and the idea was for Book of Mormon to be their first project, and the Wicked film got a 2019 release date scheduled earlier this year.

In addition to those HBO is doing American Idiot and I think In The Heights is supposed to be filming soon.

I wish we could get a better Rock of Ages movie instead of the watered down family friendly version we got.
 
Live action movies with kids as leads largely died out. There is the Diary of a Wimpy Kid and thats pretty much it.

They are almost exclusively merchandise vehicles these days and show up as superhero movies, CGI comedies, CGI adaptations and whatever Transformers is.
 
Thank you for your response! There were a couple of examples you listed there I wasn't actually aware of, so thanks for that!

Even though there are probably more musicals out there than I had previously considered, I still wouldn't mind seeing Hollywood come up with some higher budget Hollywood musicals...especially original, live-action musicals specifically created for the silver screen like many classic movie musicals from the Golden Age of Hollywood, or indeed akin to something to La La Land, in terms of the level of ambition and scale of the project. Maybe that's just overly wishful thinking on my part though, I dunno.

While we're on the subject of musicals, I also wouldn't mind a couple of film adaptations of Wicked and The Book of Mormon, I feel those could make for a couple of really fun movies if tackled the right way.

You have Hello Again musical film coming out this year
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gm5FF-S64I

You have a British Musical "Been So Long" coming out next year.

As others said, you have The Greatest Showman coming out in Christmas.

You're definitely getting Wicked as a film adaptation.

Jay-Z is producing along with The Weinsteins Lin Miranda's In The Heights as a film.

As much as I enjoy The Book of Mormon, I don't think a lot of the African jokes are going to fly for mainstream consumption as a film.

You have A Star Is Born remake being directed by Bradley Cooper and starring Bradley Cooper, Lady Gaga, Sam Elliot, Andrew Dice Clay, and Dave Chappelle coming out next year.

Disney's Marry Poppin's Return's comes out next year with Emily Blunt and Lin Manuel Miranda.
 
I miss the type of movies where group of children who are friends going on crazy deadly adventures, uncovering mysteries and stuff. Movies like Goonies, Super 8, harry Potter, and Netflix's Stranger things.
 
Super-Heroes movies have taken over.

There's really no point in remaking a Western when you can watch one of the old ones.
The improved special effects that are possible now don't add much those.

Plus, Westerns were a genre in comics (late 40s throughout the 50s) and novels.
Anybody waiting to read the latest Western from an author? There's not even a section devoted to that in most bookstores. So, it's just a lack of material worth turning into a movie.
 
I feel like there practically zero 'family' comedies made any more. I'm not really sure how to put it, but I guess comedies you as an adult could watch with your 10 year old and not feel incredibly uncomfortable at the content.

Stuff like Three Amigos, Sgt Bilko, What About Bob, Funny Farm, Fletch, Ferris Bueller, Father of the Bride, HouseSitter, Uncle Buck, Big, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, A League of Their Own, Turner & Hooch, Princess Bride, etc, etc.

Sure they've got their risque moments here and there but overall they're pretty clean. On the other hand, it seems like 90% of comedies released today are R-rated sex comedies.
 
Classic westerns glorified a not so great era of American history, and the modern ones were a pushback against that.

True, but try getting my dad to admit that.

They came out way more frequently than that.

Like, look at this list of westerns released between 1950 and 1954.

That's insane.

Yeah a more accurate way to phrase it would have been to say that they actually came out as often as complainers seem to think superhero movies come out today.
 
Really you just had The Kingsman and The Man from U.N.C.L.E. recently with Atomic Blonde coming out this month and The Kingsman sequel coming out later in the year.

those aren't real spy movies, damnit. That's the subgenre of superspy action movies. I was thinking Spy Game and Tinker Tailor Spy
 
Musicals. Thank god for La la Land and Moulin Rouge

There are a number of Musicals that come out every year.

Just this year you have Beauty and the Beast, The Greatest Showman, Pitch Perfect 3, Hello Again, My Little Pony: The Movie, and Pixar's Coco

Last year you had La La Land, Sing Street, Sing, Trolls, and Moana
 
Whatever happened to all the sexy thrillers that Michael Douglas used to in the 90's?
Indeed I used to love that stuff.

Also comedies like War of the Roses. These days comedy movies are all gutter trash with schoolboy gross out humour. And beginning with Bridesmaids they seem to think if they get the women to do/say the rude things instead then it makes it even funnier. Nope.

Movies were better in the 80s and early 90s. And superhero movies and 'comic book universes' can totally fuck off.
I feel like there practically zero 'family' comedies made any more. I'm not really sure how to put it, but I guess comedies you as an adult could watch with your 10 year old and not feel incredibly uncomfortable at the content.

Stuff like Three Amigos, Sgt Bilko, What About Bob, Funny Farm, Fletch, Ferris Bueller, Father of the Bride, HouseSitter, Uncle Buck, Big, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, A League of Their Own, Turner & Hooch, Princess Bride, etc, etc.

Sure they've got their risque moments here and there but overall they're pretty clean. On the other hand, it seems like 90% of comedies released today are R-rated sex comedies.
Yes, this! You got it. It feels like the comedy writers just don't exist these days. But you missed Planes Trains & Automobiles! We really need more family-friendly comedy movies.
 
I feel like there practically zero 'family' comedies made any more. I'm not really sure how to put it, but I guess comedies you as an adult could watch with your 10 year old and not feel incredibly uncomfortable at the content.

Stuff like Three Amigos, Sgt Bilko, What About Bob, Funny Farm, Fletch, Ferris Bueller, Father of the Bride, HouseSitter, Uncle Buck, Big, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, A League of Their Own, Turner & Hooch, Princess Bride, etc, etc.

Sure they've got their risque moments here and there but overall they're pretty clean. On the other hand, it seems like 90% of comedies released today are R-rated sex comedies.
Like almost all of those would be PG-13/R today
 
I find it very fascinating that a majority of the answers given here are genres that I'd hate to watch and glad that my preferred genres have replaced them. Westerns, musicals, machismo action movies, kung fu movies, "adventure" style movies, etc. I wonder how reflective I am of the pop culture demographic.

The only answers that have really stung are torture porn and found footage movies. Luckily, there's a steady drop of the latter to keep me satisfied. The former? Not so much.

Overall, glad comic book movies have completely taken over the blockbuster scene. Excellent time for cinema for me.
 
If it hasn't been mentioned already, spoof movies don't seem to be as popular as they were around 8-12 years ago. Back then there seemed to be a new one every 6 months or so. Who the fuck kept showing up to those awful movies?

Good comedy in films in general.

Popstar is one of the funniest films I have ever seen and nobody bothered with it. Shame.
 
What happened to those american teenage movies with boys and girls wanting to lose virginity and have the greatest party of all time?

There were hundreds of those movies at the beggining of the millenium, don't know why they dissapeared alongside those american garage bands
 
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