Thriller film , also known as suspense film or suspense thriller , is a broad film genre that evokes excitement and suspense in the audience. The suspense element found in most films' plots is particularly exploited by the filmmaker in this genre. Tension is created by delaying what the audience sees as inevitable, and is built through situations that are menacing or where escape seems impossible.
134-501: Merisairas (Finnish: Seasick ) is a 1996 thriller film directed by Veikko Aaltonen and starring Bob Peck , Katrin Cartlidge and Peter Firth . An English-language film, it was a co-production between Sweden , Finland and France . The screenplay concerns eco-terrorists who attack a ship carrying toxic waste . This article related to Finnish film is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This article related to
268-426: A thriller that uses suspense to augment attention to abuses of power and instances of oppression in society. This new subgenre gained notoriety in 2017 with the release of Get Out . Other examples include The Tall Man , Dirty Pretty Things , Parasite , and The Constant Gardner . Spy film is a genre in which the protagonist is generally a government agent who must take violent action against agents of
402-475: A Duckling , Tenebrae , Opera , and Sleepless . A subgenre involving horror . Legal thriller is a suspense film in which the major characters are lawyers and their employees. The system of justice itself is always a major part of these works, at times almost functioning as one of the characters. Examples include The Pelican Brief , Presumed Innocent , A Time to Kill , The Client , The Lincoln Lawyer , The Firm . Political thriller
536-416: A Hollywood feature went from $ 20,000 in 1914 to $ 300,000 in 1924. Silver and Ursini stated that the earliest crime features were by Austrian émigré director Josef von Sternberg whose films like Underworld (1927) eliminated most of the causes for criminal behavior and focused on the criminal perpetrators themselves which would anticipate the popular gangster films of the 1930s. The groundwork for
670-479: A Swedish film of the 1990s is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Thriller film The cover-up of important information from the viewer, and fight and chase scenes are common methods. Life is typically threatened in a thriller film, such as when the protagonist does not realize that they are entering a dangerous situation. Thriller films' characters conflict with each other or with an outside force, which can sometimes be abstract. The protagonist
804-458: A bomb that struggles to land in a snowstorm. Similar films about a group of survivors escape several locations, such as The Poseidon Adventure (1972), The Towering Inferno (1974) and Earthquake (1974) about a group of troubled people in Los Angeles. The films often featured all-star casts and often had the disaster happening early or mid-way into the story rather than at the climax with
938-478: A broader category called "film type", mystery and suspense as "macro-genres", and film noir as a "screenwriter's pathway" explaining that these categories are additive rather than exclusionary. Chinatown would be an example of a film that is a drama (film type) crime film (super-genre) that is also a noir (pathway) mystery (macro-genre). The definition of what constitutes a crime film is not straightforward. Criminologist Nicole Hahn Rafter in her book Shots in
1072-505: A change signaled by films like Chinatown (1974) and The Wild Bunch (1969) noting that older genres were being transformed through cultivation of nostalgia and a critique of the myths cultivated by their respective genres. Todd found that this found its way into crime films of the 1980s with films that could be labeled as post-modern , in which he felt that "genres blur, pastiche prevails, and once-fixed ideals, such as time and meaning, are subverted and destabilized". This would apply to
1206-709: A close relationship with horror films, both eliciting tension. In plots about crime, thriller films focus less on the criminal or the detective and more on generating suspense. Common themes include terrorism, political conspiracy, pursuit and romantic triangles leading to murder. In 2001, the American Film Institute (AFI) made its selection of the top 100 greatest American "heart-pounding" and "adrenaline-inducing" films of all time . The 400 nominated films had to be American-made films whose thrills have "enlivened and enriched America's film heritage". AFI also asked jurors to consider "the total adrenaline-inducing impact of
1340-569: A conservative era. For crime films, this led to various reactions, including political films that critiqued official policies and citizen's political apathy. These included films like Missing (1982), Silkwood (1983), and No Way Out (1987). Prison films and courtroom dramas would also be politically charged with films like Kiss of the Spider Woman (1985) and Cry Freedom (1987). While films about serial killers existed in earlier films such as M (1931) and Peeping Tom (1960),
1474-451: A crooked shell" and portrayed gangsters who showcased the "romantic mystique of the doomed criminal." The 1940s formed an ambivalence toward the criminal heroes. Leitch suggested that this shift was from the decline in high-profile organized crime, partly because of the repeal of Prohibition in 1933 and partly because of the well-publicized success of the FBI. Unlike the crime films of the 1930s,
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#17330853436091608-484: A film described as "crime/ action " or an "action/crime" or other hybrids was "only a semantic exercise" as both genres are important in the construction phase of the narrative. Mark Bould in A Companion to Film Noir stated that categorization of multiple generic genre labels was common in film reviews and rarely concerned with succinct descriptions that evoke elements of the film's form, content and make no claims beyond on how these elements combine. Leitch, stated that
1742-523: A film's artistry and craft". In his book on the genre, Martin Rubin stated that the label "Thriller" was "highly problematic" declaring that "the very breadth and vagueness of the thriller category understandably discourage efforts to define it precisely.". This was echoed by Charles Derry in his book The Suspense Thriller , which found that the terms "suspense thriller", "thriller" and "suspense film" are used continuously in popular press, academic writings and
1876-493: A genre in which the hero/heroine confronts a large, powerful group of enemies whose true extent only she/he recognizes. The Chancellor Manuscript and The Aquitaine Progression by Robert Ludlum fall into this category, as do films such as Awake , Snake Eyes , The Da Vinci Code , Edge of Darkness , Absolute Power , Marathon Man , In the Line of Fire , Capricorn One , and JFK . Crime thriller as an genre
2010-529: A harsher more conflict-riddled world closer to those of the anti-Bond spy films. These films were also harsher and more violent, mostly due to the demise of the Hays Code . The influence of the police thriller was long lasting, leading into the popular Die Hard and Lethal Weapon film series and attaching itself to other genres such as science fiction ( Mad Max , Blade Runner , RoboCop ), and comedy ( 48 Hrs. and Beverly Hills Cop ). Offshoots of
2144-481: A locker of the Hollywood Athletic Club. The Asphalt Jungle (1950) consolidated a tendency to define criminal subculture as a mirror of American culture. The cycle of caper films were foreshadowed by films like The Killers (1946) and Criss Cross (1949) to later examples like The Killing (1956) and Odds Against Tomorrow (1959). Leitch wrote that these films used the planning and action of
2278-672: A mobster known as The Snapper Kid. Regeneration (1915) was an early feature-length film about a gangster who saved from a life of crime by a social worker. These two early films and films like Tod Browning 's Outside the Law (1920) that deal with the world of criminal activity were described by Silver and Ursini as being gangsters "constrained by a strong moral code". Stuart Kaminsky in American Film Genres (1974) stated that prior to Little Caesar (1931), gangster characters were in films were essentially romances . European films of
2412-598: A more paranoid edge to their plots. Police thrillers returned to popularity around the period of law-and-order issues between 1968 and 1972 presidential campaigns through a general swing towards the right in the United States due to the Vietnam War . The police-centered were much less critical in their treatment of their justice obsessed lawmen and were showcased fighting to protect society where official institutions have failed them. The police thriller returned in 1967 with
2546-483: A peak of character development and moral complexity in the film thriller that was closer to the psychology films of Alfred Hitchcock than the action or mystery-oriented forms of the police thriller. Syndicate gangster films of the era had similarities to the anti-communist spy films and alien-invasion science fiction films of the era with films like The Enforcer (1951) while The Phenix City Story (1955) and The Brothers Rico which contained borderline breakdowns of
2680-522: A psychopathic personality." Drew Todd in Shots in the Mirror: Crime Films and Society described the character as different than films featuring rebellious characters from the 1940s and 1950s, with a character whose anger is directed against the state, mixed with fantasies of vigilante justice. Films like Dirty Harry , The French Connection and Straw Dogs (1971) that presented a violent vigilante as
2814-568: A remake of Get Carter (1971), and Black Mama, White Mama (1973) a remake of The Defiant Ones (1958). The cycle generally slowed down by the mid 1970s. During the 1970s, contemporary situations such as the Watergate scandal and disillusionment about the Vietnam War led to conspiracy thrillers. A cycle of these films included Executive Action (1973) about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy , The Parallax View (1974) about
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#17330853436092948-470: A remake of The Defiant Ones (1958). The cycle generally slowed down by the mid 1970s. Prison films closely followed the formulas of films of the past while having an increased level of profanity, violence and sex. Cool Hand Luke (1967) inaugurated the revival and was followed into the 1970s with films like Papillon (1973), Midnight Express (1978) and Escape from Alcatraz (1979). When Ronald Reagan became president in 1980, he ushered in
3082-747: A rival government or (in recent years) terrorists. The subgenre often deals with the subject of espionage in a realistic way (as in the adaptations of John Le Carré 's novels). It is a significant aspect of British cinema , with leading British directors such as Alfred Hitchcock and Carol Reed making notable contributions, and many films set in the British Secret Service . Thrillers within this subgenre include Berlin Express , Spy Game , Hanna , Traitor , Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy , The Tourist , The Parallax View , The Tailor of Panama , Mission Impossible , Unknown , The Recruit ,
3216-413: A robbery todramatize the "irreducible unreasonableness of life." The themes of existential despair made the these film popular with European filmmakers, who would make their own heist films like Rififi (1955) and Il bidone (1955). Filmmakers of the coming French New Wave movement would expand on these crime films into complex mixtures of nostalgia and critique with later pictures like Elevator to
3350-420: A savior. By the mid-1970s, a traditional lead with good looks, brawn and bravery was replaced with characters who Todd described as a "pathological outcast, embittered and impulsively violent." Hollywood productions began courting films produced and marketed by white Americans for the purpose of trying to attract a new audience with blaxploitation film. These films were almost exclusively crime films following
3484-505: A serial killer was another popular motif in the 1990s. A famous example is Jonathan Demme 's Best Picture–winning crime thriller The Silence of the Lambs (1991)—in which young FBI agent Clarice Starling ( Jodie Foster ) engages in a psychological conflict with a cannibalistic psychiatrist named Hannibal Lecter ( Anthony Hopkins ) while tracking down serial killer Buffalo Bill—and David Fincher 's crime thriller Seven (1995), about
3618-440: A sinister corporation linked to a series of political murders, and others like The Conversation (1974) and Winter Kills (1979). Unlike other films of the past, the paranoia of these films often focused on American institutions opposed to gangsterism or communists. A thriller-related movement in the 1970s was the disaster film , which came with the great financial success of Airport (1970), about an airplane crippled by
3752-527: A style coined by French critics in 1946 which arose in the mid-1940s. The film noir style was not acknowledge by American filmmakers, critics or audiences until the 1970s. Early films considered as harbingers of the movement include Fritz Lang's You Only Live Once (1937), the b-film Stranger on the Third Floor (1940) and I Wake Up Screaming (1941) and the first universally acknowledged major film noir : Billy Wilder 's Double Indemnity . During
3886-522: A way to escape the clutches of the villain—these devices influenced a number of thrillers in the following years. Rob Reiner 's Misery (1990), based on a book by Stephen King , featured Kathy Bates as an unbalanced fan who terrorizes an incapacitated author ( James Caan ) who is in her care. Other films include Curtis Hanson 's The Hand That Rocks the Cradle (1992) and Unlawful Entry (1992), starring Ray Liotta . Detectives/FBI agents hunting down
4020-456: A world where everything seems to fit together as part of an ever-widening web of conspiracy". This type of editing was later applied to numerous film noirs such as Robert Siodmak 's The Killers (1946) and Stanley Kubrick 's The Killing (1956). It was also used in Oliver Stone 's JFK (1991) and Bryan Singer 's The Usual Suspects . During the silent era, German Expressionism
4154-725: Is a hybrid type of both crime films and thrillers, which offers a suspenseful account of a successful or failed crime or crimes. Such films often focus on the criminal(s) rather than a policeman . Central topics include serial killers/murders, robberies , chases, shootouts , heists , and double-crosses . Some examples of crime thrillers involving murderers are Seven , No Country for Old Men , The French Connection , The Silence Of The Lambs , Memento , To Live and Die in L.A. , Collateral , and Copycat . Examples of crime thrillers involving heists or robberies are The Asphalt Jungle , The Score , Rififi , Entrapment , Heat , and The Killing . Erotic thriller
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4288-472: Is a psychological type of film (until the often violent resolution), the conflict between the main characters is mental and emotional rather than physical. Characters, either by accident or their own curiousness, are dragged into a dangerous conflict or situation that they are not prepared to resolve. To overcome their brutish enemies characters are reliant not on physical strength but on their mental resources. This subgenre usually has elements of drama , as there
4422-402: Is a style of crime film that originated from two cinematic precursors: the gangster film and the gentleman thief film. The essential element in these films is the plot concentration on the commission of a single crime of great monetary significance, at least on the surface level. The narratives in these films focus on the heist being wrapped up in the execution of the crime more or at as much as
4556-402: Is a suspenseful film in which the manipulation of sophisticated technology plays a prominent part. Examples include WarGames , The Thirteenth Floor , I, Robot , Source Code , Eagle Eye , Supernova , Hackers , The Net , Futureworld , eXistenZ , and Virtuosity . Crime films Crime films , in the broadest sense, is a film genre inspired by and analogous to
4690-477: Is a thriller film that has an emphasis on eroticism and where a sexual relationship plays an important role in the plot. It has become popular since the 1980s and the rise of VCR market penetration. The genre includes such films as Body Heat , Sea of Love , Basic Instinct , Chloe , Disclosure , Dressed to Kill , Eyes Wide Shut , In the Cut , Lust, Caution , and Single White Female . Giallo
4824-591: Is a type of film in which the protagonist must ensure the stability of the government. The success of Seven Days in May (1962) by Fletcher Knebel , The Day of the Jackal (1971) by Frederick Forsyth , and The Manchurian Candidate (1959) by Richard Condon established this subgenre. Other examples include Topaz , Notorious , The Man Who Knew Too Much , The Interpreter , Proof of Life , State of Play , and The Ghost Writer. Psychological thriller film
4958-509: Is an Italian thriller film that contains elements of mystery , crime fiction , slasher , psychological thriller , and psychological horror . It deals with an unknown killer murdering people, with the protagonist having to find out who the killer is. The genre was popular during the late 1960s-late 1970s and is still being produced today, albeit less commonly. Examples include The Girl Who Knew Too Much , Blood and Black Lace , Deep Red , The Red Queen Kills Seven Times , Don't Torture
5092-631: Is an in-depth development of realistic characters who must deal with emotional struggles. The Alfred Hitchcock films Suspicion , Shadow of a Doubt , Rear Window , and Strangers on a Train , as well as David Lynch 's bizarre and influential Blue Velvet , are notable examples of the type, as are The Talented Mr. Ripley , The Machinist , Shutter Island , Mirrors , Insomnia , Identity , Gone Girl , Red Eye , Phone Booth , Fatal Attraction , The River Wild , Panic Room , Misery , Cape Fear , 10 Cloverfield Lane , and Funny Games . Social thriller are
5226-423: Is different just as crime are different than horror, science fiction and period drama films. Rafter also suggested that Westerns could be considered crime films, but that this perception would only be "muddying conceptual waters." The history of the crime film before 1940 follows reflected the changing social attitudes toward crime and criminals. In the first twenty years of the 20th Century, American society
5360-457: Is possibly no such thing as a pure "thriller thriller". Rubin further expanded on the problematic usage of the genre due to its wide usage in media, such as the American magazine TV Guide listing Basket Case (1982) as a thriller, while its sequel Basket Case 2 (1990) was a comedy and that films as diverse as the horror film Halloween (1978), the detective film The Big Sleep (1946),
5494-632: Is usually set against a problem, such as an escape, a mission , or a mystery. Screenwriter and scholar Eric R. Williams identifies thriller films as one of eleven super-genres in his screenwriters' taxonomy , claiming that all feature length narrative films can be classified by these super-genres. The other ten super-genres are action , crime , fantasy , horror , romance , science fiction , slice of life, sports , war , and western . Thriller films are typically hybridized with other super-genres; hybrids commonly including: action thrillers, fantasy and science fiction thrillers. Thriller films also share
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5628-592: The Die Hard series, and the Bourne series. Comedy thriller is a genre that combines elements of humor with suspense. Such films include Silver Streak , Dr. Strangelove , Charade , Hera Pheri , Malamaal Weekly , Kiss Kiss Bang Bang , In Bruges , Mr. & Mrs. Smith , Grosse Point Blank , The Thin Man , The Big Fix , Pocket Listing , The Lady Vanishes , and Game Night . Conspiracy thriller
5762-617: The British Board of Film Censors or conveyed mostly through narration. Box-office receipts began to grow stronger towards the late 1960s. Hollywood's demise of the Hays Code standards would allow for further violent, risqué and gory films. As college students at the University of Berkeley and University of Columbia demonstrated against racial injustice and the Vietnam, Hollywood generally ignored
5896-496: The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in 1935), promoted bigger budgets and wider press for his organization and himself through a well-publicized crusade against such real world gangsters as Machine Gun Kelly , Pretty Boy Floyd and John Dillinger . Hoover's fictionalized exploits were glorified in future films such as G Men (1935). Through the 1930s, American films view of criminals were predominantly glamorized, but as
6030-542: The Harold Lloyd comedy film Safety Last! (1923), the Hitchcock spy film North by Northwest (1959), the disaster film The Poseidon Adventure (1972), and the science fiction monster movie Alien (1979) can all be considered thrillers. Due to what Rubin describe as a "wide, imprecise scope", it is unwieldy to attempt a comprehensive history of individual genres, including the thriller, and suggests it better to view
6164-684: The James Bond franchise, The Debt , The Good Shepherd , and Three Days of the Condor . Supernatural thriller films include an otherworldly element (such as fantasy or the supernatural ) mixed with tension, suspense, or plot twists. Sometimes the protagonist or villain has some psychic ability and superpowers . Examples include Fallen , Frequency , In Dreams , Flatliners , Jacob's Ladder , The Skeleton Key , What Lies Beneath , Unbreakable , The Sixth Sense , The Gift , The Dead Zone , and Horns . Techno-thriller
6298-1031: The Western film as they lack both the instantly recognizable or the unique intent of other genres such as parody films. Leitch and Rafter both write that it would be impractical to call every film in which a crime produces the central dramatic situation a crime film. Leitch gave an example that most Westerns from The Great Train Robbery (1903) to Unforgiven (1992) often have narratives about crime and punishment, but are not generally described as crime films. Films with crime-and-punishment themes like Winchester 73 (1950) and Rancho Notorious (1952) are classified as Westerns rather than crime films because their setting takes precedence over their story. Alain Silver and James Ursini argued in A Companion to Crime Fiction (2020) that "unquestionably most Western films are crime films" but that that their overriding generic identification
6432-736: The crime fiction literary genre. Films of this genre generally involve various aspects of crime and its detection. Stylistically, the genre may overlap and combine with many other genres, such as drama or gangster film , but also include comedy , and, in turn, is divided into many sub-genres, such as mystery , suspense or noir . Screenwriter and scholar Eric R. Williams identified crime film as one of eleven super-genres in his Screenwriters Taxonomy , claiming that all feature-length narrative films can be classified by these super-genres. The other ten super-genres are action, fantasy, horror, romance, science fiction, slice of life, sports, thriller, war and western. Williams identifies drama in
6566-490: The gangster film as both a genre on its own terms and a subgenre of the crime film. In these films, the gangster and their values have been imbedded through decades of reiteration and revision, generally with a masculine style where an elaboration on a codes of behavior by acts of decisive violence are central concerns. The archetypal gangster film was the Hollywood production Little Caesar (1931). A moral panic followed
6700-468: The spy film , horror film and various sub-genres of crime films more so than Westerns , musicals , and war films . Derry also suggested this, stating that the film was an "umbrella genre" that cuts across several more clearly defined genres. Rubin went as far to suggest that there was possibly no such thing as a pure "thriller thriller" as it was easier to apply it as a quality as a spy thriller , detective thriller, horror thriller , and that there
6834-602: The 1940s films were based more on fictional tales with gangsters played by Paul Muni in Angel on My Shoulder (1946) and Cagney in White Heat (1949) were self-consciously anachronistic. Filmmakers from this period were fleeing Europe due to the rise of Nazism. These directors such as Fritz Lang , Robert Siodmak , and Billy Wilder would make crime films in the late 1930s and 1940s that were later described as film noir by French critics. Several films from 1944 like The Woman in
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#17330853436096968-427: The 1940s, the influence of other foreign movements such as Italian neo-realism and American filmmaker's participation in making war documentaries and the audience's growing familiarity with these documentaries gritty and fact-based style led to Hollywood developing crime films that were shot in actual locations opposed to studio sets. These films included The House on 92nd Street and Call Northside 777 (1947) and
7102-408: The 1950s with I Was a Communist for the FBI (1951), The Red Menace (1949), and Samuel Fuller 's Pickup on South Street (1953). Crime was the significant focus of thrillers in the 1950s. The more realistic crime films of the 1940s and film noir merged into films about police detectives thrillers. Unlike the more clean-cut police officers of the 1940s realistic films, these films often had
7236-460: The 1960s thrillers with their sordid atmosphere. Another cross-fertilization between American and European thrillers was the French New Wave , a movement which arose in the late 1950s. The style of these films were generally more self-conscious and intrusive than that of Hollywood films. When these films had thriller aspects, these aspects of their story had a throwaway quality. The influence of
7370-676: The 1980s had an emphasis on the serial nature of their crimes with a larger number of films focusing on the repetitive nature of some murders. While many of these films were teen-oriented pictures, they also included films like Dressed to Kill (1980) and Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986) and continued into the 2000s with films like Seven (1995), Kiss the Girls (1997), and American Psycho (2000). In an article by John G. Cawelti titled " Chinatown and Generic Transformations in Recent American Films" (1979), Cawleti noticed
7504-638: The 1990s with films like Wild at Heart (1990). Quentin Tarantino would continue this trend in the 1990s with films where violence and crime is treated lightly such as Reservoir Dogs (1992), Pulp Fiction (1994) and Natural Born Killers (1994) while Lynch and the Coens would continue with Fargo (1996) and Lost Highway (1997). Other directors such as Martin Scorsese and Sidney Lumet would continue to more traditional crime films Goodfellas , Prince of
7638-673: The 19th century at fairgrounds and amusements parks with thrill-oriented rides and attractions such as Ferris wheels , Shoot the Chutes , which Rubin described as offering a "departure from humdrum reality that is merely a heightened version of that same humdrum reality.". Fairgrounds were the earliest venues for film exhibitions in peep-show arcades, which film historian Tom Gunning described as "the cinema of attractions". Film exhibitions were composed of novelty-oriented shorts that provided surprise, amazement, laughter, or sexual stimulation with no narrative. The sensation of motion in these early films
7772-442: The American crime film which began rejecting linear storytelling and distinctions between right and wrong with works from directors like Brian de Palma with Dressed to Kill and Scarface and works from The Coen Brothers and David Lynch whose had Todd described as having "stylized yet gritty and dryly humorous pictures evoking dream states" with films like Blood Simple (1984) and Blue Velvet (1986) and would continue into
7906-555: The Bond films, while still differentiating themselves from the patriotic and Anti-Nazi and anti-communist spy films of the past. These films deglamorized the nature of the Bond films while still remaining thrillers, such as The Ipcress File (1965), Funeral in Berlin (1966), The Defector (1966) and The Quiller Memorandum (1966). These films featured spies who seemed less invincible than James Bond and other super spies, and often featured
8040-518: The City (1980), Q & A (1990), and Casino (1995). Other trends of the 1990s extended boundaries of crime films, ranging from main characters who were female or minorities with films like Thelma and Louise (1991), Swoon (1991), Devil in a Blue Dress (1995), Bound (1996) and Dolores Claiborne (1996). Every genre is a subgenre of a wider genre from whose contexts its own conventions take their meaning, it makes sense to think of
8174-469: The French New Wave was seen on American thrillers such as Mickey One (1965), Point Blank (1967) and Bonnie and Clyde (1967) as well as later films ( Sisters (1972), Blue Velvet (1986), Reservoir Dogs (1992)). The spy film had been what Rubin described as "stagnating" for several years due to the limitations of post-war anti-communist films. The genre was dramatically revitalized by
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#17330853436098308-779: The Gallows (1958), Breathless (1960) and Shoot the Piano Player (1960). Following the classical noir period of 1940 to 1958, a return to the violence of the two previous decades. By 1960, film was losing popularity to television as the mass form of media entertainment. Despite To The crime film countered this by providing material no acceptable for television, first with a higher level of onscreen violence. Films like Psycho (1960) and Black Sunday (1960) marked an increase in onscreen violence in film. Prior to these films, violence and gorier scenes were cut in Hammer film productions by
8442-477: The Left (2009), P2 (2007), Captivity (2007), Vacancy (2007), and A Quiet Place (2018). Action scenes have also gotten more elaborate in the thriller genre. Films such as Unknown (2011), Hostage (2005), and Cellular (2004) have crossed over into the action genre. The thriller film genre includes the following sub-genres: Action thriller is a blend of both action and thriller film in which
8576-649: The Mirror: Crime Films and Society (2006) found that film scholars had a traditional reluctance to examine the topic of crime films in their entirety due to complex nature of the topic. Carlos Clarens in his book Crime Movies (1980), described the crime film as a symbolic representation of criminals, law, and society. Clarens continued that they describe what is culturally and morally abnormal and differ from thriller films which he wrote as being more concerned with psychological and private situations. Thomas Schatz in Hollywood Genres: Formulas, Filmmaking, and
8710-509: The Studio System (1981) does not refer to the concept of crime film as a genre, and says that "such seemingly similar "urban crime" formulas" such as the gangster film and detective film were their own unique forms. Thomas Leitch, author of Crime Films (2004) stated that the crime film presents their defining subject as a crime culture that normalizes a place where crime is both shockingly disruptive and completely normal. Rafter suggested
8844-457: The Window , Laura , Murder, My Sweet and Double Indemnity ushered in this film cycle. These works continued into the mid-1950s. A reaction to film noir came with films with a more semi-documentary approach pioneered by the thriller The House on 92nd Street (1945). This led to crime films taking a more realistic approach like Kiss of Death (1947) and The Naked City (1948). By
8978-479: The actions. Film serials , featuring stories broken up into regularly scheduled episodes, expanded on the suspense-inducing devices of the earlier chase films. Originally published in newspapers as fictional story installments, the Chicago Tribune came upon the idea in 1913 by running serialized stories in both newspapers and film versions. This led to The Adventures of Kathlyn , a serial in 13 parts which
9112-486: The best way to skirt complexities of various films that may be defined as crime films as works that focus primarily on crime and its consequences, and that they should be viewed as a category that encompasses a number genres, ranging from caper films , detective films, gangster films, cop and prison films and courtroom dramas. She said that like drama and romance film, they are umbrella terms that cover several smaller more coherent groups. The criminal acts in every film in
9246-596: The box office. The success of the film and its sequel The Godfather Part II (1974) reinforced the stature of the gangster film genre, which continued into the 1990s with films Scarface (1983), Once Upon a Time in America (1984), The Untouchables (1987), Goodfellas (1990) and Donnie Brasco (1997). Dirty Harry (1971) create a new form of police film, where Clint Eastwood 's performance as Inspector Callahan which critic Pauline Kael described as an "emotionless hero, who lives and kills as affectlessly as
9380-431: The character of Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle who Leitch described as a "tireless, brutal, vicious and indifferent" in terms of constraints of the law and his commanding officers. The film won several Academy Awards and was successful in the box office. This was followed in critical and commercial success of The Godfather (1972) which also won a Best Picture Academy Award and performed even better than The French Connection in
9514-446: The cityscapes of the thriller genre, they do not deploy the adventure nature of The Adventures of Kathlyn or The Spiders usually lacking in exaggerated methods of transport, such as parachute drops, safaris, submarines, or even high-speed chases. Like the spy film, another genre that grew popular due to the war-generated phenomena in the early to mid-1940s saw the rise of thrillers centered around various phases of crime films such as
9648-456: The cold war elements of the original novels and spy films of the past, locating their films in Jamaica, Istanbul and Miami over Cuba, Berlin or Israel. Rubin found that the Bond films important to the development of the thriller, but their own thriller dimensions was limited due to the Bond stories gravitating towards adventures, suspense sequences being moderate, and tensions kept simple compared to
9782-622: The concept of a thriller as an overarching, broad category is "traditionally unclear" due to the varied definitions between authors, with its "boundaries often blurred, overlapped, and hybridized with other genres." In his book The Suspense Thriller (1988), the genre-studies specialist Charles Derry found the "suspense thriller" to be crime films that lacked a traditional detective figure and featured non-professional criminals or innocent victims as protagonists and excluded films that are often labeled as thrillers such as hard-boiled detective stories, horror films, heist films and spy films. Derry found
9916-429: The continual breakdown and re-establishment of borders among criminals, crime solvers and victims, concluding that "this paradox is at the heart of all crime films." Rafter echoed these statements, saying crime films should be defined on the basis of their relationship with society. Leitch writes that crime films reinforce popular social beliefs of their audience, such as the road to hell is paved with good intentions ,
10050-412: The crime film was following changing attitudes towards the law and the social order that criminals metaphorically reflect while most film were also no more explicitly violent or explicitly sexual than those of 1934. White Heat (1949) inaugurated a cycle of crime films that would deal with the omnipresent danger of the nuclear bomb with its theme of when being threatened with technological nightmares,
10184-554: The criminal psychology and are characterized by and emphasis on the crime unfolding often though montage and extended sequences. The genre is sometimes used interchangeable with the term "caper". The term was used for the more dramatic films of the 1950s, while in the 1960s, it had stronger elements of romantic comedy with more playful elements as seen in films like The Thomas Crown Affair (1968) and Topkapi (1964). Leitch described combining genres as problematic. Screenwriter and academic Jule Selbo expanded on this, describing
10318-439: The criminal world and the lawful world. The gangsters of these films do not resemble conventional criminals of the past, they dressed casually while being non-confrontational with muted violence. The 1950s also saw the movement of the science fiction thriller, which previously was a relatively minor genre. The most prevalent was a hybrid of science fiction and horror in films like Them! (1954) and Tarantula (1955) while
10452-671: The decade ended, the attitudes Hollywood productions had towards fictional criminals grew less straightforward and more conflicted. In 1935, Humphrey Bogart played Duke Mantee in The Petrified Forest (1936), a role Leitch described as the "first of Hollywood's overtly metaphorical gangsters." Bogart would appear in films in the later thirties: Angels with Dirty Faces (1938) and The Roaring Twenties (1939). Unlike actor James Cagney , whose appeal as described by Leitch "direct, physical, and extroverted", Bogart characters and acting suggested "depths of worldly disillusionment beneath
10586-403: The development of the thriller with its "duplicitous, labyrinthine network of decadent nightspots and secret dens that are linked together by murky thoroughfares, twisting back alleys and subterranean passages." Lang's later film Spies (1928) extensively used crosscutting not only to enhance suspense and draw thematic parallels, but also to develop what Rubin described as a "paranoid vision of
10720-539: The doors on genres like the detective film, re-contextualizing genres like the neo-noir , and enhancing the popularity of some genres such as the spy film briefly and other genres like the police film for longer periods. The expansion of foreign-film exhibition in the United States of highly regarded thrillers was an influence on the American thriller film. Among the earliest of these was Henri-Georges Clouzot 's The Wages of Fear (1953) and Les Diaboliques (1955) and Jules Dassin 's Rififi (1955) which influenced
10854-401: The end of the decade, American critics such as Parker Tyler and Robert Warshow regarded Hollywood itself as a stage for repressed American cultural anxieties following World War II. This can be seen in films such as Brute Force , a prison film where the prison is an existential social metaphor for a what Leitch described as a "meaningless, tragically unjust round of activities." By 1950,
10988-497: The extended vulnerability of the enthralled protagonists and victims in the thriller anticipated the thriller genre, a statement echoed by Robert D. Hume's 1969 essay which asserts that the Gothic novel involved a reader in a new way, with increased emphasis on suspense, sensation and emotion opposed to moral and intellectual focuses. The gothics being considered thrillers is problematic as they are set in antiquated decaying worlds and fail
11122-777: The film industry with no clear agreement of what the definition is. Unlike other genres such as the Western which had recognizable iconography (cowboys, saloons, southwestern landscapes), the thriller lacks such unique iconography. Rubin went on to state that thrillers involve an excess of certain qualities beyond the narratives: they tend emphasize action, suspense and atmosphere and emphasize feelings of "suspense, fright, mystery, exhilaration, excitement, speed, movement" over more sensitive, cerebral, or emotionally heavy feelings. Rubin described thrillers as being both quantitative and qualitative as virtually all narrative films could be considered thrilling to some degree, while they could contain suspense to some degree, but at "a certain hazy point",
11256-439: The films become thrilling enough to be considered part of the genre. For Alfred Hitchcock , a director very associated with the genre, he proclaimed that the whodunnit generated "the kind of curiosity that is void of emotion, and emotion is essential ingredient of suspense" and thus for Hitchcock, "mystery is seldom suspenseful" In their discussions on the political thriller, Pablo Castrillo and Pablo Echart stated in 2015 that
11390-699: The films more attuned to the thriller occasionally saw an alien invasion theme, such as in Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) which Rubin described as being between "science-fiction mundaneness and film-noir moodiness". The science fiction thrillers of the era are not set on far off planets or but featured in present-day locales such as in It Came from Outer Space and The Incredible Shrinking Man . The 1950s also launched what Rubin called "a run of Hitchcock masterpieces", following an uneven part of experimentation in
11524-544: The films of Hitchcock or Lang. Following the success of the Bond films, the character became the standard which all other spy films of the era were defined by within their similarities or dissimilarities. These included having the spy being suave hero, colorful locations, attractive women and flamboyant decors. Many pre-1970s spy films were predominantly comedies with spy film elements, such as Our Man Flint (1966) and The Silencers (1966) and their sequels. Another style of spy films attempted to differentiate themselves from
11658-784: The focus of a major reevaluation of Hitchcock's artistic stature, which included with the first full-length books study of his work: Hitchcock (1957), by Eric Rohmer and Claude Chabrol as well as the first English-language assessment, with Robin Wood 's Hitchcock's Films (1965). The plots and themes of these films would be re-worked into later directors such as Jonathan Demme ( Last Embrace (1979)), Brian de Palma ( Dressed to Kill (1980), Body Double (1984), Obsession (1976)) and Curtis Hanson ( The Bedroom Window (1987)). Around 1960, Rubin described that key thriller categories went through major overhauls. This led to closing what he described as "subversive debunking" that nearly closed
11792-536: The gangster films of the early 1930s were influenced by the early 1920s when cheap wood-pulp paper stocks led to an explosion in mass-market publishing. Newspapers would make folk heroes of bootleggers like Al Capone , while pulp magazines like Black Mask (1920) helped support more highbrow magazines such as The Smart Set which published stories of hard-edged detetives like Carroll John Daly 's Race Williams. The early wave of gangster films borrowed liberally from stories for early Hollywood productions that defined
11926-448: The genre by literary roots, ideology and sociological backgrounds and that thrillers could be reduced to just two components: a hero and a conspiracy. Palmer noted the hero in a thriller must be professional and competitive and not an amateur or an average citizen and suggested and declared characters such as spy James Bond or private eye Mike Hammer to be "quintessential thriller heroes". Palmer also noted that audiences must approve of
12060-412: The genre represents a larger critique of either social or institutional order from the perspective of a character or from the film's narrative at large. The films also depend on the audience ambivalence towards crime. Master criminals are portrayed as immoral but glamourous while maverick police officers break the law to capture criminals. Leitch defined this as a critical to the film as the films are about
12194-566: The genre with films like Little Caesar (1931), The Public Enemy (1931), and Scarface (1932). In comparison to much earlier films of the silent era, Leitch described the 1930s cycle as turning "the bighearted crook silent films had considered ripe for redemption into a remorseless killer." Hollywood Studio heads were under such constant pressure from public-interest groups to tone down their portrayal of professional criminals that as early as 1931. Jack L. Warner announced that Warner Bros. would stop producing such films. Scarface itself
12328-518: The growing rage against the establishment spilled into portrayal police themselves with films like Bullitt (1968) about a police officer caught between mob killers and ruthless politicians while In the Heat of the Night (1967) which called for racial equality and became the first crime film to win an Academy Award for Best Picture . The French Connection (1971) dispensed Bullitt ' s noble hero for
12462-457: The hero's actions and adopt their moral perspective. Palmer included styles such as detective films as part of the genre. Rubin argued against Palmer's definition, noting that it would include melodramas and courtroom dramas such as Meet John Doe (1941) into the genre and eliminate such films as Purple Noon (1960) and Psycho (1960) from the genre. Rubin borrowed from G. K. Chesterton 's "A Defence of Detective Stories", stating that
12596-402: The late 1940s. Rubin noted as Hitchcock hitting his stride with Strangers on a Train (1951), Rear Window (1954), Vertigo (1958), North by Northwest (1959), and Psycho (1960). During this period, Anglo-American critics of the era preferred Hitchcock's lighter-hearted British classics of the 1930s, these films were declared as "more ambitious and mature works" by Rubin, which became
12730-656: The latter being more successful financially than any the previously mentioned thrillers. Like Bond, Bullitt featured much of the mystique as the James Bond series, with his stylish lifestyle and being an elite specialist working with a larger organization and is granted considerable autonomy on the course of his assignments. Bullitt ' s producer Philip D'Antoni featured even more elaborate variations in his later productions such as The French Connection (1971) and The Seven-Ups (1973) as car chases became staple to modern police thrillers. These police thrillers also featured
12864-445: The law is above individuals, and that crime does not pay. The genre also generally has endings that confirm the moral absolutes that an innocent victim, a menacing criminal, and detective and their own morals that inspire them by questioning their heroic or pathetic status, their moral authority of the justice system, or by presenting innocent characters who seem guilty and vice-versa. Crime films includes all films that focus on any of
12998-498: The main gangster Jody Jarrett fights fire with fire. These themes extended into two other major crime films by bring the issues down from global to the subcultural level: The Big Heat (1953) and Kiss Me Deadly (1955) which use apocalyptical imagery to indicate danger with the first film which the film persistently links to images of catastrophically uncontrolled power and the "traumatic consequences" of nuclear holocaust and Kiss Me Deadly literally features an atom bomb waiting in
13132-524: The mid-1930s as when the thriller entered its "classical period" with the emergence of key genres that were previously either non-existent or minor. These included the spy film, detective film, the film noir , the police film and the science fiction thriller. The horror films of the early 1930s with their Europeanized settings and villains led to what Rubin described as a "growing uneasiness towards Europe" Such anxieties were directly registered with spy thriller films, that were previously marginalised but grew as
13266-404: The most acclaimed of these films, The Naked City (1948) which re-created a police manhunt for a brutal killer. These films eventually began toning down their factuality to be applied to more noir styles, such as with Kiss of Death (1947), The Street with No Name (1948), and He Walked by Night (1949). Rubin found that placing these films in actual locations increased the tension of
13400-507: The most significant European venue for serials was Germany, with Fritz Lang writing serials like The Mistress of the World (1919) and later directing films like The Spiders (1919). Lang would make films similar to those of Feuillade, with his films based on Dr. Mabuse that were set in a contemporary time. Lang's Dr. Mabuse the Gambler (1922) was described by Rubin as an important part of
13534-445: The multiple-Oscar winning film In the Heat of the Night (1967), which was more about social issues than being a straight thriller, the films' use of racial epithets and strong-arm methods paved the way for films featuring characters like Dirty Harry and Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle for the upcoming police cycle. Early films in the cycle included Madigan (1968), The Detective (1968), Coogan's Bluff (1968) and Bullitt (1968),
13668-446: The narrative focusing on the group of survivors. The genre ended following overt sequels, television films and parodies. The genre had a brief revival in the late 1990s through the science-fiction and disaster hybrid Independence Day (1996), which was followed by Dante's Peak (1997), Volcano (1997) and Titanic (1997). In the early 1990s, thrillers had recurring elements of obsession and trapped protagonists who must find
13802-511: The non-professional or victim being placed in unfamiliar situations enhanced their vulnerability and thus increased greater suspense. Derry specifically noted the "innocent-on-the-run" theme a coherent in the genre, presenting them in films such as The 39 Steps (1935), North by Northwest (1959) and conspiracy thriller films like The Parallax View (1974) and the comedy-tinged Silver Streak (1976). Alternatively, British communication professor Jerry Palmer in his book Thrillers defined
13936-405: The only or first gangster film following the fall of the production code, The Godfather (1972) was the most popular and launched a major revival of the style. The film followed the themes of the genres past while adding new emphasis on the intricate world of the mafia and its scale and seriousness that established new parameters for the genre. The heist film, also known as the "big caper" film
14070-423: The ordinary world opposed to the limited confines of the studio sets. Further spy films were made, including The House on 92nd Street began encompassing anti-communist themes. This was inaugurated with films like The Iron Curtain (1948). These titles drew on 1930s gangster film conventions, with the American branch of the communist parties being depicted like a gangster organization. This cycle continued into
14204-438: The period, Rubin stated that Hitchcock became a "top rank" filmmaker specialising in the classical film thrillers, opposed to his prior output, which only sporadically included films that could be considered thrillers. Compared to Lang, Hitchcock approach to the spy thriller was described by Rubin as "less abstract, less epic" with "a greater emphasis on individual psychology and subjective points of view" while Lang's primary focus
14338-580: The police officer following darker paths. These included The Man Who Cheated Himself (1951), The Prowler (1951), Pushover (1954). A smaller wave of similar police thrillers had the police detective having moral weakness, but excessiveness. These included Where the Sidewalk Ends (1950), On Dangerous Ground (1952), The Big Heat (1953). Rubin declared Orson Welles ' Touch of Evil (1958) as another major film of this flawed-cop style. Rubin found that these late noirs collectively represent
14472-521: The police thriller is the vigilante film , in which an avenger in an urban setting throws off the restraints of the super cop of the police thrillers to operate as a loner without a badge or uniform. The main characters usually revolve around personal revenge and desire to cleanse society of its evil doers. Examples include the Death Wish film series, Taxi Driver (1976) and Ms. 45 (1981). A cycle of action films featuring black leads that came from
14606-521: The police thriller, vigilante films, and blaxploitation films arrived with the 1970s. The films predominantly feature loose-cannon private eyes such as in Shaft (1971), Slaughter (1972) and Coffy (1973) or hustlers such as in Super Fly (1972) and The Mack (1973). The films were often derivations of earlier films such as Cool Breeze (1972), a remake of The Asphalt Jungle , Hit Man (1972)
14740-469: The protagonist confronts dangerous adversaries, obstacles, or situations which he/she must conquer, normally in an action setting. Action thrillers usually feature a race against the clock, weapons and explosions, frequent violence, and a clear antagonist. Examples include, Face/Off , Hard Boiled , Dirty Harry , Taken , The Fugitive , Snakes on a Plane , Speed , The Dark Knight , The Hurt Locker , The Terminator , The Equalizer ,
14874-585: The proto-types to the thriller was early detective and mystery fiction, such as Edgar Allan Poe 's " The Murders in the Rue Morgue " (1841), which is widely considered the first detective story. The detective story drew upon the previously mentioned forms, and is shown through stories such as the Sherlock Holmes novel The Hound of the Baskervilles . The roots of the thriller also generally associated with
15008-459: The realm of mundane and modern-day urban existence. In his book Crime Movies: An Illustrated History , Carlos Clarens discussed location being related to thrillers as well, stating that crime films as emphasized broad, socially symbolic characters such as the criminal, the Law, and society while thrillers were more concerned with violence or disturbances within a private sphere. Rubin declared that thrillers attached itself to other genres such as
15142-434: The release of the early gangster films following Little Caesar , which led to the 1935 Production Code Administration in 1935 ending its first major cycle. As early as 1939, the traditional gangster was already a nostalgic figure as seen in films like The Roaring Twenties (1939). American productions about career criminals became possible through the relaxation of the code in the 1950s and its abolition in 1966. While not
15276-779: The rise in popularity of detective films. These ranged from B-film detectives such as Michael Shayne , The Falcon , Boston Blackie , the Crime Doctor as well as modernized Sherlock Holmes stories having him battle Nazis. These smaller budget films led to more major productions such as John Huston 's The Maltese Falcon (1941) while Murder, My Sweet (1944) introduced the character Philip Marlowe to film. Marlowe would appear again in The Big Sleep (1946). These detective films drew upon thriller and thriller-related genres with their nocturnal atmosphere and style influenced by expressionism. They often overlapped with film noir ,
15410-401: The rise of and fall of the criminal with Rubin noting that suspense in these films was "relatively slight", with both genres leaving an imprint on subsequent forms of the thriller with mid-1930s G-Man films, the early detective films of the 1940s, and the gangster films of the 1950s. The gangster film itself imbued the modern urban environment with larger-than-life overtones. Rubin described
15544-462: The rise of the urban-industrial society in the 19th century which created new and expanded mass audience, along with new forms of entertainment. This included stage play melodramas such as Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852) in which an escaped slave escapes over an ice-choked river and the rural-set melodrama Blue Jeans (1890) which features a heroine who unties the hero just before he is cut by and advancing buzz saw. Other forms of entertainment arrived in
15678-560: The search for a serial killer who re-enacts the seven deadly sins . Another notable example is Martin Scorsese 's neo-noir psychological thriller Shutter Island (2010), in which a U.S. Marshal must investigate a psychiatric facility after one of the patients inexplicably disappears. In recent years, thrillers have often overlapped with the horror genre, having more gore/sadistic violence, brutality, terror and frightening scenes. The recent films in which this has occurred include Disturbia (2007), Eden Lake (2008), The Last House on
15812-532: The silent era differed radically from the Hollywood productions, reflecting the post-World War I continental culture. Drew Todd wrote that with this, Europeans tended to create darker stories and the audiences of these films were readier to accept these narratives. Several European silent films go much further in exploring the mystique of the criminal figures. These followed the success in France of Louis Feuillade 's film serial Fantômas (1913). The average budget for
15946-423: The style in terms of cycles. Prior to the development of films, the genre has its connections to broadly-based fiction of the 18th century. Elements of the thriller are traced to the earliest gothic novel with Horace Walpole 's The Castle of Otranto (1765) which led to Matthew Lewis 's The Monk (1796) and Ann Radcliffe 's The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794) and The Italian (1797). Rubin noted that
16080-410: The success of Shaft (1971) which led to studios rushing to follow it's popularity with films like Super Fly (1972), Black Caesar (1973), Coffy (1973) and The Black Godfather (1974) The films were often derivations of earlier films such as Cool Breeze (1972), a remake of The Asphalt Jungle , Hit Man (1972) a remake of Get Carter (1971), and Black Mama, White Mama (1973)
16214-495: The surprised hit Dr. No (1962), which led to increasingly expensive and lucrative sequels as well as spearheading a 1960s spy craze in cinema and mass media. Dr. No was conceived as a series of action set pieces (called "bumps" by the series co-producer Albert R. Broccoli ) which mixed the film's action and violence with generous doses of humor and Bond's post-bloodshed quips and sexual banter. The Bond films generally distanced themselves with apolitical villains, that toned down
16348-485: The tensions of the 1930s and the outbreak of World War II . The genre grew into popularity in Great Britain in the mid-1930s with the output of the countries leading filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock . Between 1934 and 1938, Hitchcock directed five spy thrillers: The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934), The 39 Steps (1935), Secret Agent (1936), Sabotage (1936), and The Lady Vanishes (1938). Along with Lang's output of
16482-407: The three parties to a crime: criminal, victims, and avengers and explores what one party's relation to the other two. This allows the crime film to encompass films as wide as Wall Street (1987); caper films like The Asphalt Jungle (1950); and prison films ranging from Brute Force (1947) to The Shawshank Redemption (1994). Crime films are not definable by their mise-en-scene such as
16616-691: The thriller's technique of accelerated motion. Chase films were limited in scope, but their emphasis on the chase sequence would extend well into the future in films such as On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969), Vanishing Point (1971), and Speed (1994). The period between 1907 and 1913 solidified the film industry's increasing mastery of narrative filmmaking, predominantly with D.W. Griffith 's films, which Rubin described as "enhancing suspense, psychological depth, and spatial orientation." Griffith applied new techniques such as cross-cutting to build suspense in films such as The Girl and Her Trust (1912), which also supplied psychological context for
16750-576: The tradition of being considered "modern". The second literary form that predated thrillers was the Victorian sensation novel , starting with Wilkie Collins ' The Woman in White (1859–1860) which stripped the gothic genre of its mysticism and brought to a contemporary time closer to everyday life. These sensation novels often were published in serialized form, sometimes concluding their installments with cliffhangers called "climax and curtain". The third of
16884-450: The war in narratives, with exceptions of film like The Green Berets (1968). The crime film Bonnie and Clyde (1967) revived the gangster film genre and captured the antiestablishment tone and set new standards for onscreen violence in film with its themes of demonizing American institution to attack the moral injustice of draft. This increase of violence was reflected in other crime films such as Point Blank (1967). Leitch found
17018-408: The world of the thriller is in an urban world, opposed to bygone eras of knights, pirates and cowboys which assists with the concept that "one normally does not think of Westerns as thrillers, even though they often contain a great deal of action, adventures chases and suspense." Similarly, the adventure film is predominantly set in an environment that is already exotic and primitive, and removed form
17152-583: Was a grand success and resulted in the newspaper developing the even more successful The Million Dollar Mystery . Serials often ended with cliffhangers, an element that led to the tendency in thrillers to break up the story into a series of self-enclosed set pieces. Film serials were later produced in Europe, with French directors such as Louis Feuillade who went from making chase films to making serials based on novels about master criminals, such as Fantômas (1913) and Les Vampires (1915). Outside of France,
17286-424: Was active from 1905 onward. These films featured distorted sets and stylized gestures which had an influence on filmmaking all over the world, including the United States. The expressionist cinematic style was particularly relevant to the thriller, combining psychology and spectacle. The early 1930s saw the rise of two film genre movements: the gothic styled horror film and the gangster film . Universal Pictures
17420-518: Was delayed for over a year as its director Howard Hughes talked with the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America 's Production Code Office over the films violence and overtones of incest. A new wave of crime films that began in 1934 were made that had law enforcers as glamourous and as charismatic as the criminals. J. Edgar Hoover , director the Bureau of Investigation (renamed
17554-505: Was later input into a framework known as the "chase film" which came into prominence in 1903. The chase films were often produced in Britain and France and employed minimal narrative for an extended chase scene. This genre led to one of the most commercially celebrated American films of the period, The Great Train Robbery (1903). It contained elements of the heist film with its depictions of ingeniously planned robberies, as well as relying on
17688-455: Was on "the structure of the trap", Hitchcock's was on the "mental state of the entrapped." The first major American spy thriller of the World War II era was Confessions of a Nazi Spy (1939). After relocating to the United States, Hitchcock continued his attachment to spy films with films like Foreign Correspondent (1940) and Saboteur (1942). Despite having these films exist beyond
17822-543: Was the leader of the horror genre in the early 1930s with its expressionist-derived atmosphere that started with two big hits film: Dracula (1931) and Frankenstein (1931). Rubin noted that both films lacked the thriller's fundamental tension between the familiar and exotic or adventurous. Also in the early 1930s, the gangster film arrived with early major films including Mervyn LeRoy 's Little Caesar (1930), William A. Wellman 's The Public Enemy (1932) and Howard Hawks Scarface (1932). These films centered on
17956-400: Was under intense social reform with cities rapidly expanding and leading to social unrest and street crime rising and some people forming criminal gangs. In this early silent film period, criminals were more prominent on film screens than enforcers of the law. Among these early films from the period is D.W. Griffith 's The Musketeers of Pig Alley (1912) involving a young woman hounded by
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