Five once-mighty movie genres that vanished overnight
A movie can live and die by its genre.
The way a film presents itself is key to establishing an audience. If a specific type of film is in style, it will likely draw a big crowd. If it’s not, then you can kiss any chance of profit goodbye. These days, the types of films that make the most money are science fiction, children’s animation, and blockbuster superhero adventures. That hasn’t always been the case, though.
Over the years, many genres have experienced the highs and lows when it comes to Hollywood success. In a world as fickle as show business, popularity comes and goes like the wind, and sometimes, things that were once insanely popular are dropped by the wayside.
All of these genres still exist today in one form or another. It’s just that their best days are way, way behind them.
Five once-mighty movie genres that disappeared overnight
Creature features
Despite its rampant cultural impact and ability to generate huge profit at the box office, horror is still viewed as something of a fringe genre. This label is even more confusing when you consider that, without scary movies, Hollywood as we know it might not have existed. In the 1920s and 1930s, when cinema was still in its relative infancy, horrors were all the rage. The ones that have really stood the test of time were those based on what we would now call ‘classic’ movie monsters. Frankenstein’s monster, the Wolfman, Dracula, and the Mummy, these fan-favourite fiends made stars out of the likes of Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi, and turned studios like Universal and Hammer into household names.
Alas, the good times weren’t to last. As cinema evolved and audiences demanded more from their horrors, the simplistic nature of ‘creature features’ came to lose its appeal. People wanted films about demented serial killers or unstoppable, knife-wielding maniacs, humans behind the mask, à la Scooby Doo. Now, a bloke in a cheap rubber suit wasn’t so scary. Although there have been many attempts to reboot some of these iconic villains, none have come remotely close to capturing the appeal of their glory days. Perhaps Guillermo del Toro’s take on Frankenstein will be the spark that reignites the genre.
Parodies
Why invent an entirely new genre when you can just make fun of one that already exists? That’s the idea behind the humble parody movie: to send up an existing genre or franchise in a way that hopefully won’t make anyone involved in the original want to sue you. There have been two major golden periods for this subsection of comedy. The first came in the 1980s, when Airplane! and The Naked Gun satirised ultra-serious disaster and police movies. Then, there were the noughties. The decade’s laissez-faire approach to culture opened the door for the Austin Powers and Scary Movie series to get big laughs by poking fun at pre-existing stereotypes.
There are many theories as to why this genre died out. Some believe it’s because big movies don’t take themselves seriously enough to be parodied, while others put it down to a more serious outlook on life in general. It still limps on in some forms, though. Weird: The Al Yankovic Story was a great send-up of the conventional music biopic, and The Naked Gun even made a comeback with Liam Neeson at the helm. Maybe there’s life in this old dog yet, but for now, it remains merely a fond memory.
3D
If you were born in the 1990s or early 2000s, you’d be forgiven for thinking that the 3D movie craze was an entirely 21st-century creation. You’d be dead wrong, though, for as long as there have been motion pictures, there have been people wanting to make them ‘more realistic’. The earliest attempts to branch out into the third dimension come from the early 20th century, when filmmakers experimented with projecting images onto 3D sets for a more immersive feel. William Friese-Greene, bankrupt ideas man, was an early pioneer of colour film who patented a 3D filming technique in the late 1890s. It’s an obsession that has plagued cinema from the very beginning, and there’ll always be somebody who thinks they can be the one to finally make it happen.
It’s arguable that the noughties 3D boom was the format’s most successful. This was thanks in large part to one man and his big blue friends. James Cameron’s Avatar, still the highest-grossing movie of all time, was lauded as the biggest breakthrough in the technology’s history, proving also to be its peak. Avatar thoroughly burst the 3D bubble. It still hangs around today, but it has posed a serious threat over many years. Rest assured, it will come back. It always comes back…
Musicals
When somebody had the bright idea to put sound in movies, the floodgates opened. Now, people could not only talk on the big screen, but they could sing too. Thus, the movie musical was born. Beginning in the 1920s, the genre quickly took over. From the mesmerising dance routines of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers to the angelic voice of Doris Day to the comedic approach of Bob Hope, musicals were all the rage. Then, suddenly, they weren’t.
In the 1960s and 1970s, films became grittier with the New Hollywood movement bringing real stories about real issues, throwing shade on light-hearted, escapist musicals. Take the 1968 film Star!, for example. Leading lady Julie Andrews blames its harsh treatment on the popularity of films like Easy Rider, which came out a year later. Stage musicals are still incredibly popular, so there will always be attempts to capture that magic. There were two musicals nominated for ‘Best Picture’ at the 2025 Oscars, although one of them was Emilia Pérez, so don’t get too excited. It should be noted that this only applies to Western movies, as the musical is still alive and well in Bollywood.
Westerns
Speaking of westerns, big hats, grizzled gunslingers, endless cattle trails, gunfights with rustlers, and ‘Indians’ are tropes baked into Hollywood’s very soul. It’s important to remember that, when cinema was just starting, Wild West shows were still very popular. Enterprising producers simply transplanted them from stage to screen, and people couldn’t get enough. The genre’s dominance lasted for decades. It survived the arrival of talkies, transitioned seamlessly from black-and-white to colour, and even absorbed other genres into its midst.
Strangely, it was television that slayed this mighty beast, with decade-long runs of shows like Bonanza, Rawhide, and Gunsmoke, siphoning popularity away from their bigger, more expensive counterparts. As was the case with musicals, more ‘serious’ audiences decided they didn’t want simplistic stories of good guys in white and bad guys in black anymore. Revisionist westerns by the likes of Sergio Leone kept the genre going for a few years, but the time had come for the old hero to take its final ride. You still get the odd western threatening to bring the genre back, but unless society goes through some pretty big changes, its days in the sun are all but over, partner.
