Genre is an ongoing conversation. In my short time here at TMDb, I've had a few engaging discussions about genre already.

What I got out of it all is to refer to these as genre tags. That way, any film that straddles borders or has several Venn circles overlapping can just get whatever tags it needs, and anyone searching for any single tag will always get a broader range of films, while adding tags to a search would narrow the list of hits down as the tag criteria sharpens the search.

Our conversations did a terrific job, for example, of fleshing out a way to differentiate horror and thriller, but it's not likely what we ironed out will be adopted by every other organization out there juggling these semantics. In the meantime, there will be those movies that retain both horror and thriller tags...as well as sci-fi, as well as action...

Having said that, I do think a "docudrama" is a little more than simply the affixing of the tags "documentary", "drama" (and perhaps "history"). Any dramatization of some true story that is attempting to illustrate a higher degree of historicity while filling in unknown blanks is not quite a documentary, but not quite a drama...or not...!!

Travis, I think your latest list seems very reasonable. And I see there is only one combo genre, and that one makes sense as a combo. Other combos would, I think, not be a good idea. Better to have singular genres and allow something to be labeled with more than one genre. I know some folks would probably like action and adventure to be a combo genre, but I think it's better to keep them separate. Keywords will handle everything else not included in a genre. Thanks for all your hard work on this issue.

I've been saying - threatening? - I'd do this, submit some additional genres for consideration, for a couple of weeks or more. About time I do it. These are genres I haven't seen discussed here yet, so I am not including other suggestions such as Sports; but that doesn't mean I don't support them.

Hopefully, these will give rise to discussion, rather than just dismissing them as "keyword" material or otherwise dusting by them. Hopefully, at least a couple of them will be accepted, as I find no really good alternatives among what is left. Hopefully, at least a couple of others can be re-named to expand coverable titles if they don't seem viable as presented here. I'm intending both movies and TV programs to be covered by the genres I'm presenting. In deciding about them, I do think it's important to not just look at today's movies and TV in America, but also the whole past of movies and TV, internationally, before determining if they are relevant.

Arts (Performing Arts or Fine Arts) Events such as concerts (rock to classical), operas & dance & theater, dramatized histories of the arts and biographies of artists, documentaries about any facet of the arts, etc.

Education Intended to instruct, whether higher math or how to build a birdhouse, or train; mostly found in TV and nontheatrical film (classroom), may include dramatized fictional or history components when accompanied by instruction.

Intrigue Spies and saboteurs, sure, but also plots and conspiracies, including "court intrigue" and "business spying". Good guy spies, too, like James Bond; Cold War tales, not just hot war.

Religion Dramatizations from sacred texts, documentaries on various faiths, fictional or factual stories presented to show the working of religious precepts, biographies and hagiographies of religious figures. Nothing really covers these, which presents problems such as whether to use "History" or "Fantasy", depending on your POV, without offending anyone.

Sitcom Around since TV began & going back to radio, a major type of comedy; also episodically found in movies.

Superhero Heroes of the comics and their derivatives, also the peplum films which were big in the 60s.

Swashbuckler Errol Flynn to Johnny Depp & beyond.

Miscellaneous Good, I think, to have a residual category for stuff which just doesn't seem covered adequately by the current genre lists, even general genres like "Drama" or "Comedy". Can periodically be searched by those interested to see if additional genre needed, or expand definitions to cover additional product.

Can we discuss please?

I'll chip in some responses here.

@Rich Wannen said:

I've been saying - threatening? - I'd do this, submit some additional genres for consideration, for a couple of weeks or more. About time I do it. These are genres I haven't seen discussed here yet, so I am not including other suggestions such as Sports; but that doesn't mean I don't support them.

Hopefully, these will give rise to discussion, rather than just dismissing them as "keyword" material or otherwise dusting by them. Hopefully, at least a couple of them will be accepted, as I find no really good alternatives among what is left.

I've suggested that we should not attempt to add a single "genre" to a film as though one genre can capture all aspects of a film; rather, use "genre tags" as times and ideas change. In this way, rather than coming up with on genre name that covers all aspects of any one film, we can apply tags sufficient to capture it.

Hopefully, at least a couple of others can be re-named to expand coverable titles if they don't seem viable as presented here. I'm intending both movies and TV programs to be covered by the genres I'm presenting. In deciding about them, I do think it's important to not just look at today's movies and TV in America, but also the whole past of movies and TV, internationally, before determining if they are relevant.

Agree

Arts (Performing Arts or Fine Arts) Events such as concerts (rock to classical), operas & dance & theater, dramatized histories of the arts and biographies of artists, documentaries about any facet of the arts, etc.

I think "dramatized histories" are effectively captured by existing tag combinations such as "history", "documentary", "biography", or "docudrama".

But a televised concert, is it a"movie" I'm not sure that should be included in a movie database (I'll say this frequently, see below).

Education Intended to instruct, whether higher math or how to build a birdhouse, or train; mostly found in TV and nontheatrical film (classroom), may include dramatized fictional or history components when accompanied by instruction.

Not sure an instructional video is a "movie". Even known actors appearing in infomercials don't warrant inclusion in a movie database, IMHO.

Intrigue Spies and saboteurs, sure, but also plots and conspiracies, including "court intrigue" and "business spying". Good guy spies, too, like James Bond; Cold War tales, not just hot war.

"Intrigue" is a decent title for a category I've thought of - I thought of using "espionage" or "spy", or "intelligence/counterintelligence".

Religion Dramatizations from sacred texts, documentaries on various faiths, fictional or factual stories presented to show the working of religious precepts, biographies and hagiographies of religious figures. Nothing really covers these, which presents problems such as whether to use "History" or "Fantasy", depending on your POV, without offending anyone.

Reasonable. However, if it is a retelling of factual events, "History" is sufficient. If it's a dramatization of a religious myth (Noah's Ark, for example), then "Religion" is helpful. (and hey folks, when I use Noah's ark as an example of religious myth, I'm not asserting that Jews, Christians or Muslims are wrong in

Sitcom Around since TV began & going back to radio, a major type of comedy; also episodically found in movies.

Does "Comedy" not suffice?

Superhero Heroes of the comics and their derivatives, also the peplum films which were big in the 60s.

Sure, but I think "Comic adaptation" can include stories focused on a villain (although, curiously, that hardly ever happens...I wonder why???) before a hero arises to vanquish them.

Swashbuckler Errol Flynn to Johnny Depp & beyond.

Does "Adventure" not suffice?

Miscellaneous Good, I think, to have a residual category for stuff which just doesn't seem covered adequately by the current genre lists, even general genres like "Drama" or "Comedy". Can periodically be searched by those interested to see if additional genre needed, or expand definitions to cover additional product.

I can't think of a movie maker who would ever attempt to market a film without some kind of indication of what general genre it is. If I had some people in a theatre expecting a horror film and other people in the same theatre expecting a family movie, yet the film was one or the other, no one would be happy.

In other words, I'm not sure there is such a thing as a movie that cannot be tagged with at least one genre.

Can we discuss please?

You witness, counselor.

@DRDMovieMusings said:

I've suggested that we should not attempt to add a single "genre" to a film as though one genre can capture all aspects of a film; rather, use "genre tags" as times and ideas change. In this way, rather than coming up with one genre name that covers all aspects of any one film, we can apply tags sufficient to capture it.

I agree, a single genre name is not likely possible for all films, or even most. Sometimes it may be possible, like the old b-westerns or b-mysteries it would be possible; but I would never impose that tight a limit. On the other hand, I don't feel comfortable when I see something with 5-6 genres listed as they are probably 1) being typed for minutiae which a keyword really could handle, and 2) being imported from IMDb on a cut-and-paste basis by someone who hasn't even seen the film, much less given it any thought. Two, rarely three, I think would be a standard, but I wouldn't shrink the TMDb interface field to prevent someone from adding more on rare occasion.

Arts (Performing Arts or Fine Arts) Events such as concerts (rock to classical), operas & dance & theater, dramatized histories of the arts and biographies of artists, documentaries about any facet of the arts, etc.

I think "dramatized histories" are effectively captured by existing tag combinations such as "history", "documentary", "biography", or "docudrama".

Maybe, but wouldn't it be clearer if you could see Arts, History or Arts, Biography, etc.? I think so, and, in any case, if the genre Arts is adopted at all that would likely happen sooner or later anyway. BTW, I absolutely agree that, if Documentary is going to be used as a genre, Docudrama should be also.

But a televised concert, is it a"movie" I'm not sure that should be included in a movie database (I'll say this frequently, see below).

Oh, I think all these genres should be open for either movies or TV programs. Also, some filmed concerts out there (WOODSTOCK, THE FIRST FILM CONCERT, etc.) which would go under Music currently; but this genre consolidates all kinds of music, and all kinds of media works about music, and if "Music Videos and Concerts" replaces Music, then you have even fewer options for works dealing with other aspects of music, and none of them as clear.

Education Intended to instruct, whether higher math or how to build a birdhouse, or train; mostly found in TV and nontheatrical film (classroom), may include dramatized fictional or history components when accompanied by instruction.

Not sure an instructional video is a "movie". Even known actors appearing in infomercials don't warrant inclusion in a movie database, IMHO.

Not looking just at videos here, but the whole range of "Educational Film". There are Educational TV shows going back to WATCH MR. WIZARD (50s) and THE BELL TELEPHONE HOUR (60s) and the whole TV regulatory business about having to broadcast a percentage of educational programming. Which gave rise to PBS. I don't know what TV's doing any more as I rarely watch it (except for viewing movies on DVD or tape), but aren't there still entire channels for cooking and weather and so on?

Intrigue Spies and saboteurs, sure, but also plots and conspiracies, including "court intrigue" and "business spying". Good guy spies, too, like James Bond; Cold War tales, not just hot war.

"Intrigue" is a decent title for a category I've thought of - I thought of using "espionage" or "spy", or "intelligence/counterintelligence".

Yeah, I tried all those options too. I settled on "Intrigue" after looking up the full meaning of the word; it covers a lot more than just contemporary bad-guy-spy stuff, which too often I find put under War because the story's set during hot war years, even though there's not a battlefield shot in the entire film. And what about Cold War activities: I love the old Cold War stories but you have to read through pages and pages of catalogues and descriptions to find new ones because they are parcelled out here and there amongst Action, Crime, Drama, etc. with little evident rhyme or reason.

Religion Dramatizations from sacred texts, documentaries on various faiths, fictional or factual stories presented to show the working of religious precepts, biographies and hagiographies of religious figures. Nothing really covers these, which presents problems such as whether to use "History" or "Fantasy", depending on your POV, without offending anyone.

Reasonable. However, if it is a retelling of factual events, "History" is sufficient. If it's a dramatization of a religious myth (Noah's Ark, for example), then "Religion" is helpful. (and hey folks, when I use Noah's ark as an example of religious myth, I'm not asserting that Jews, Christians or Muslims are wrong in [sic]

The problem is, what's a "factual event" where religion is concerned. Each religion has its own set of facts which, outside that religion, may be questioned by that faith's non-believers. Why risk offending, or giving fuel to trolls for flame-warring, when Religion covers all the faiths; and, even atheists agree there are religions and religious subject matter, it's just that they don't believe in any of it, which begs the question "what's the film about?" Religion as a genre defines a body of work which cannot be fairly classified anywhere else (except by the most vague of options).

Sitcom Around since TV began & going back to radio, a major type of comedy; also episodically found in movies.

Does "Comedy" not suffice?

Not for me; it's vague. "Drama" and "Comedy", and perhaps with "Documentary" to demarcate fact from fiction, are excruciatingly general. Do you realize, if we look at virtually all of the other genres offered, we usually think of them as being "Drama". Comedy becomes a qualifier, as in Horror, Comedy; but who does Horror, Drama? Comedy is less-well defined - Screwball, Slapstick, Satire, but what all else; and you rarely if ever see even those in genre systems. So I'm trying to tease out one type of Comedy that's big enough and well-enough defined to merit usage. That's a no-longer-hidden agenda, here, I guess; if I was going to reject one of my own suggestions, this would be the one. But this also gets back to the whole question of What Is A Genre.

Superhero Heroes of the comics and their derivatives, also the peplum films which were big in the 60s.

Sure, but I think "Comic adaptation" can include stories focused on a villain (although, curiously, that hardly ever happens...I wonder why???) before a hero arises to vanquish them.

True enough, although I don't know that I've ever heard anyone talking about "Supervillain" movies or shows. Yesterday I heard someone talking about WONDER WOMAN, saying it was of the "Superhero genre", which got me thinking more seriously about including that here. Although, would it be more correct to say "Superheroine"? What's a compromise? "Super-people"? - that could include the villains, too, should they ever come along. (But wait, now, don't we have supervillains already in our vampires and zombies and werewolves?)

Swashbuckler Errol Flynn to Johnny Depp & beyond.

Does "Adventure" not suffice?

Well, Adventure's not as vague as Drama or Comedy, but still not very specific. And I would be more inclined to use "Action" than "Adventure", since I tend to see adventures as involving exotic settings and peoples; mundane pirates and kings' swordsmen aren't necessarily particularly adventuresome, though they may well be the focal point of the movie or show, while jungle safaris or sea voyages on modern shipcraft would probably be even if they were relatively scholarly and inert.

Miscellaneous Good, I think, to have a residual category for stuff which just doesn't seem covered adequately by the current genre lists, even general genres like "Drama" or "Comedy". Can periodically be searched by those interested to see if additional genre needed, or expand definitions to cover additional product.

I can't think of a movie maker who would ever attempt to market a film without some kind of indication of what general genre it is... In other words, I'm not sure there is such a thing as a movie that cannot be tagged with at least one genre.

Probably not for high-profile, commercial ventures with a fictional story and lots of hype, true; but there is a smaller world of independent films (especially; I'm not so sure about TV) which don't fit that prototype, at least from the past; some here have suggested Experimental or LGBT films, and maybe some or all of those. But also I'm thinking there may be something somewhere, and especially in genres for films outside the US, that don't fit anything on the current list at the present time, and could best benefit by being placed "in storage" until someone can make an argument for One More Genre Still to cover some of them. Something even like Western, which covers American films about the American West, but is also used for storage of American-made films about the RCMP, which would probably better be called Northerns or Mounties; and what do we do with all the Mexico-and-southward films about Spanish-speaking cowboys and sheriffs and western-like whatnots. Also, what about works in genres specific to other cultures than the USA's? Besides reaching the international audience in its own "genre" language, allowing non-North-American genres might be interesting or useful to some of us English-speakers; but where to put the films and shows until we can see what they are, what they're called and when to add further genres in other languages.

You witness, counselor.

Back to you for re-cross, counselor.

@Rich Wannen said:

Back to you for re-cross, counselor.

OMG, no further questions! Thoughtful points, mate!

@DRDMovieMusings said:

@Rich Wannen said:

Back to you for re-cross, counselor.

OMG, no further questions! Thoughtful points, mate!

Thanks, friend. I'll sleep right peaceful tonight. :)

With all due respect, I think we're starting to get into "analysis paralysis" territory. I think Travis's latest list makes sense. Additional sub-categories can be specified via keywords. The IMDb sub-genre names are good examples of what some keywords might be. Sixties Holdout posted the IMDb sub-genres next to the IMDb genres a while ago on the first page of another thread.

Film noir please.

@auge28 said:

Film noir please.

It's already on Travis's latest list.

@travisbell said:

Hello everyone,

It's finally time to take a look at the genres we use and make some tweaks. This post might get a little lengthy but I'll try to cover what I know right now.

First, here's a list of the movie genres on TMDb:

TMDb

• Action
• Adventure
• Animation
• Comedy
• Crime
• Documentary
• Drama
• Family
• Fantasy
• Foreign
• History
• Horror
• Music
• Mystery
• Romance
• Science Fiction
• TV movie
• Thriller
• War
• Western

And if we wanted to compare this list to some other sources online...

Rotten Tomatoes

• Action & Adventure
• Adult
• Animation
• Anime & Manga
• Art House & International
• Classics
• Comedy
• Cult Movies
• Documentary
• Drama
• Faith & Spirituality
• Gay & Lesbian
• Horror
• Kids & Family
• Musical & Performing Arts
• Mystery & Suspense
• Romance
• Science Fiction & Fantasy
• Special Interest
• Sports & Fitness
• Television
• Western

IMDb

• Action
• Adventure
• Animation
• Biography
• Comedy
• Crime
• Documentary
• Drama
• Family
• Fantasy
• Film-Noir
• Game-Show
• History
• Horror
• Music
• Musical
• Mystery
• News
• Reality-TV
• Romance
• Sci-Fi
• Sport
• Talk-Show
• Thriller
• War
• Western

Amazon

• Action & Adventure
• African American Cinema
• Animation
• Anime
• Boxed Sets
• Classics
• Comedy
• Documentary
• Drama
• Educational
• Exercise & Fitness
• Faith & Spirituality
• Fantasy
• Foreign Language & International
• Gay & Lesbian
• Holiday & Seasonal
• Horror
• Indie & Art House
• Kids & Family
• Military & War
• Music Videos & Concerts
• Science Fiction
• Special Interests
• Sports

Onbviously, one of the things you might notice is that there are actually other genres in use on TMDb, but are not located in the above list. This is part of what we need to look at.

My initial proposal for TMDb's new set of genres is going to be the following:

• Action
• Adventure
• Animation
• Biography
• Comedy
• Crime
• Documentary
• Drama
• Family
• Fantasy
• Film-Noir
• Holiday
• History
• Horror
• Musical
• Music Videos & Concerts
• Mystery
• Romance
• Science Fiction
• Thriller
• War
• Western

Do you guys have anything else you think deserves to be on this list?

perhaps a fitness genre?

Eastern, Erotic, Martial Arts, Italowestern, Dance

Will this ever be put in place? I'm still waiting on a fix for the useless and terrible TV genres to be frank https://www.themoviedb.org/talk/588c938992514136d4007f38. We are at four years worth of submissions without reflection of the "proper" genres...

Eventually, for sure. It's just for 4 years there's been lots of other work to get done. In fact there's probably still 4 years of work to finish (not that I expect it to take that long, just saying, my list of things to get through are in the hundreds.)

@travisbell said:

Eventually, for sure. It's just for 4 years there's been lots of other work to get done. In fact there's probably still 4 years of work to finish (not that I expect it to take that long, just saying, my list of things to get through are in the hundreds.)

Sure but things hurting the quasi "integrity" of the data should probably be higher priority .