Starting off at number 5, The Heist Movie.
While there definitely is a considerable gap between this subgenre and the rest on this list, Heist Movies are almost always a really fun time with well crafted premises and witty characters.
I believe the name is pretty self-explanatory, but a heist movie is a film centered around a person or a group of people concocting and executing a plan to steal an item or a large amount of cash from a secured building. Usually under stealth.
With one exception, this subgenre is the hardest to classify movies into. For instance, to qualify as a heist movie for me, the people performing the heist have to be shown to the viewer as protagonists. Otherwise it's just a movie about people stopping a heist. So Die Hard movies don't count for this subgenre. (Although huge shout out to Simon Gruber, one of the best parts of Die Hard With A Vengeance who had a genuinely elite plan to steal money from heavily secured banks and was definitely a much bigger criminal mastermind than his brother). Despite being hard to distinguish, Heist Movies have given us some true classics that I'm sure you'll recognize if you're a movie fan. (Which you must be if you're reading these articles). The Ocean's series, Fast Five, Baby Driver, and The Usual Suspects are just some of the beloved movies you can find when googling for a heist movie. I enjoy Heist movie for their great writing, comedic timing, and usually well crafted plot structures. But in the end the Subgenres above this one are just too strong for this one to find an edge.
The number 4 spot goes to the one that gave me this idea in the first place. Space Operas are some of the greatest visual achievements in cinema.
For those of you that haven't heard of this term before, a Space Opera is a movie that take place for a large portion of the runtime in space, and generally adopts a melodramatic tone. Space Operas have produced some truly sensational films, the first ones that come to mind are First Man, Interstellar, and of course 2001: A Space Odyssey. Space Operas are some of the most beautiful looking films I've ever seen. They truly can be a changing experience when you watch the best ones. However, like most subgenres on my list, It's a limited field in how different you can make them. It's usually just some person floating through space or another retelling of Apollo 11. And while you'll soon see that the subgenres in my top 3 can be really repetitive, but as a whole they all produce better movies on average and that's what got them the edge.
Starting off the podium, Mafia Dramas take number 3.
I mean, you had to know this was going to make the list. Mafia Dramas have given us some of the greatest films cinema has graced us with. Mafia Dramas are movies centered around an organized crime syndicate, and the violent acts that they commit. I'm sure you can already think of many amazing movies from this subgenre, but some of the greatest Mafia Dramas I can think of are The Godfather trilogy, Goodfellas, The Departed, Scarface, and The Irishman. These are some of the greatest movies of all time! Every second of these movies are so beautifully crafted in every aspect. From the plots, to the acting, to the writing, to the casting, it's a 10 out of 10 in every form. To be honest, this is probably the objectively best subgenre in film, but I just love these top two so much I couldn't bring myself to rank this above them. But I have also always been fascinated by the concept of organized crime (except the murder part, I'd like to add), and Mafia Dramas are just so thrilling and riveting.
I've been struggling to finalize my opinion between the top two for days now, and have made barely any progress in it, but screw it, War Dramas are my number two.
While Mafia Dramas contain some of the more generally agreed on greatest movies of all time, War Dramas contain some of my picks for the greatest.
Modern War Dramas are some of the most riveting, captivating, haunting, and beautiful experiences I've had in years of moviegoing. One War Drama has single handedly changed my views on Cinema and art itself. (I know that sounds a bit pretentious, but it is not an exaggeration, I'm not going to spoil the name of the movie because I plan to make a huge ranking of my favourite films of all time later on). I would classify War Dramas as drama films that deal with war on the battlefield or the toll war takes on the people left behind. Some of my favourite War Dramas are legitimately my favourite movies of all time! Schindlers List, Life Is Beautiful, Saving Private Ryan, Hacksaw Ridge, Each of these movies are an achievement in cinema and they're only a percentage of the beauty and masterwork that is the War Drama subgenre.
Number one was such a tough decision. Between this and the War Drama, I spent so long trying to choose which was better. And I'm still not 100% sure. And while the movies that come from the War Drama are some of the greatest I've ever watched, I'm just a sucker for courtroom dramas.
I'm struggling to describe what it is that draws me to these particular films, but I believe it to be the elegance, and the way the lawyers break the organizational conformity that everyone must follow. Watching a lawyer become truly passionate about the case he's presenting is so beautiful. And don't even get me started on the scenes where they lose it and the judge yells at them to calm down, but they just keep getting more and more intense. Oh my god those are the best. I'm not even going to tell you what a courtroom drama is, you're reading this. You love movies just like me. You already know.
I plan after this to make a more courtroom drama based article that dives deeper into what I like about specific movies under this subgenre. So I'm not going to talk much more here. But I will say that courtroom dramas are the most riveting films I've ever watched and it truly is my pick for the greatest subgenre in film.
Thank you for Reading the article. Follow James_Ferris on LetterBoxd to see my thoughts on even more movies.
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