48 Hour Film Project

‘Life is like a box of…’ Genres! At the Kickoff event, each team receives two genres in a random drawing. Whether it is “Comedy or Horror” or “Musical or Mystery”, each team must ensure that their film fits into one of the genres–or a combination of both.

Sci Fi Genres

Apocalyptic / Post-Apocalyptic

Set during or after a global disaster — survivors navigate a collapsed world.

The Day After Tomorrow
Children of Men
Mad max: Fury Road

Artificial Intelligence

Stories about sentient machines or computer systems — exploring autonomy, ethics, or malfunction.

Blade Runner
The Matrix
HER

Cyber Punk

Film in a dystopian futuristic setting that tends to focus on a "combination of lowlife and high tech".

Ready Player One
Totall Recall
Robocop

Hopepunk

A sub genre of speculative fiction where characters fight for a better future through radical kindness, collaboration, and optimism, even when facing bleak circumstances.

Parallel Universe/Alternative reality

A hypothetical or fictional self-contained separate reality coexisting with one's own.

Deja Vu
Doctor Strange: Multiverse of Madness
Source Code

Space Opera

Big, dramatic adventures across galaxies — featuring epic battles, alien cultures, and bold heroes.

Horror Genres

Found Footage

In which all or a substantial part of the work is presented as if it were discovered film or video recordings. The events on screen are typically seen through the camera of one or more of the characters involved, often accompanied by their real-time, off-camera commentary.

Gore / Slasher / Splatter

Horror Spoof / Parody

A parody on the horror genre.

Scary Movie
What we do in the Shadows
Shaun of the Dead

Possessed Person / Thing

A human, object, or animal is taken over by a malevolent force or entity.

Psychological Horror

Centers on the mind — fear, paranoia, hallucinations, or mental breakdowns.

Midsommar
Silence of the Lambs
The Shining

Supernatural Horror

A horror film centered on the supernatural such as ghosts, spirits, the paranormal, demons, etc.

Fantasy Genres

Afterlife Fantasy

Concerns the use of the afterlife as the main setting within which its characters, who may be famous pre-existing historical or fictional figures, act and interact.

Beetlejuice
Field of Dreams
The Sixth Sense

Dark Fantasy

It often combines fantasy with elements of horror or has a gloomy dark tone or a sense of horror and dread.

Edward Scissorhands
Sleepy Hollow
Pan’s Labyrinth

Fables

Using personified animals and the supernatural, fables impart moral lessons, like the stories in Aesop’s Fables and Arabian Nights.

Beauty and the Beast
The Brothers Grimm
Red Riding Hood

High Fantasy

Feature a more richly developed fantasy world, and may also be more character-oriented or thematically complex.

Lord of the Rings
Dragonheart
The Chronicles of Narnia

Modern Fantasy

Magical elements woven into a contemporary world.

Sword and Sorcery

Tend to be more plot-driven than high fantasy and focus heavily on action sequences, often pitting a physically powerful but unsophisticated warrior against an evil wizard or other supernaturally endowed enemy.

Willow
Labyrinth
The Dark Crystal

Cult Genres

Camp

A film with a kitschy style, and sensibility that regards something as appealing because of its bad taste and ironic value.

The Bird Cage
Rocky Horror Picture Show
Showgirls

Cult Musical

A film where the story is told in song.

Cry-Baby
Pink Floyd: The Wall
Labyrinth

Midnight Movie

A film with a dark atmosphere, sometimes bizarre subjects and a non-mainstream edge.

Eraserhead
Donnie Darko
Rocky Horror Picture Show

Nostalgia

A film with a strong nod to a certain time period or feeling.

Back to the Future
The Big Lebowski
Streets of Fire

So Bad, it’s Good

These films include financially fruitless and critically scorned films that have become inadvertent comedies to film buffs.

Manos: Hands Of Fate
Birdemic
The Room

Zombie Film

A films that centers around zombies.

Night of the Living Dead
Resident Evil
World War Z

Genre Drawing