Every so often, a movie comes around that defines — or redefines — a genre. It might not be the first film of its kind, but it sets the standard for all subsequent movies in that genre. It becomes the blueprint for an entirely new kind of storytelling that reverberates throughout film history.
The titles on this list range from the 1940s to the 2020s. Each one does something original in such a phenomenal way that it inspired more filmmakers to replicate that model throughout the decades. These movies take tropes that could have been a passing fad and turn them into something legendary.
Here are 10 movies that are so good they created the blueprint for a whole genre.
10
‘The Maltese Falcon’ (1941)
Genre: Film Noir
Sam Spade is a private detective in San Francisco on the hunt for a priceless statue, all while facing off against criminals and a femme fatale. The Maltese Falcon was written and directed by John Huston (The Misfits), based on the 1930 Dashiell Hammett detective novel of the same name. It stars Humphrey Bogart (Casablanca), Mary Astor (Meet Me in St. Louis), Gladys George (The Roaring Twenties), and Peter Lorre (M).
With The Maltese Falcon, film noir really took off. The movie gives audiences a serious detective with gravitas and a beautiful femme fatale who can’t be trusted. “[The Maltese Falcon] deserves much credit for sending the genre steadfastly out into the night…” Phil Hoad wrote for The Guardian in 2016. “It was the first mainstream hit to bring noir’s active ingredients together.”
9
‘The Good, the Bad and the Ugly’ (1966)
Genre: Spaghetti Western
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is a classic western directed by Sergio Leone with a screenplay by Agenore Incrocci (The Organizer), Furio Scarpelli (The Family), and Luciano Vincenzoni (Seduced and Abandoned). The movie revolves around three men trying to locate treasure buried in the desert. Clint Eastwood stars as a nameless bounty hunter opposite Eli Wallach (The Magnificent Seven) as the bandit Tuco and Lee Van Cleef (Escape from New York) as a ruthless mercenary known as Angel Eyes.
While The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is technically the final film in the Dollars Trilogy, it is the most popular of the three and solidified conventions of the spaghetti western that are still recognized today. It features dramatic music, lots of close-ups, and plenty of deep red blood. The movie was set in the United States but filmed in Spain with an Italian production crew on a much smaller budget than Hollywood movies were afforded. The standoff in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly remains iconic to this day.
8
‘Night of the Living Dead’ (1968)
Genre: Zombie Movie (and Indie Horror)
George A. Romero made his feature film debut directing and editing Night of the Living Dead. He also wrote the screenplay with John Russo (The Majorettes). The film centers on a group of survivors who converge at a farmhouse after flesh-eating ghouls rise from their graves and wreak havoc across America. The cast features Duane Jones (Vampires), Judith O’Dea (Vampire Zombies… from Space!), Marilyn Eastman (Santa Claws), Karl Hardman (Santa Claws), Kyra Schon (The Greenman), Judith Ridley (The Affair), and Russell Streiner (The Majorettes).
The movie proved to be a “game changer” for the zombie genre. “[Romero makes] the zombies into flesh-eating beings, creating an allegory of a society devouring itself from within,” noted the British Film Institute. “This would become the central metaphor underlying much modern apocalyptic horror, including classics like the original The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Romero’s own zombie sequel, Dawn of the Dead.” Night of the Living Dead didn’t just launch zombie movies as we know them today. It also jump-started the indie horror boom that would continue through the 1970s into the 1990s and early 2000s.
7
‘Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope’ (1977)
Genre: Space Western
Contrary to the title, Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope is the first movie in the original Star Wars trilogy written and directed by George Lucas. The movie launched one of the most lucrative franchises in existence and catapulted Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, and Carrie Fisher into the spotlight as Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, and Princess Leia.
Star Wars is far from the first space western, but it did set the standard for what space westerns look like today. It’s a fast-paced ride brimming with outlaws, a landscape that almost serves as a character all its own. There is, of course, a touch of humor and a swashbuckling quality you can still find in contemporary space westerns like Serenity and Guardians of the Galaxy.
6
‘Superman’ (1978)
Genre: Comic Book Movie
Christopher Reeves became a household name starring as Clark Kent (aka Superman) in the Richard Donner film adaptation of Superman. The movie boasts an impressive cast of established and emerging stars, including Gene Hackman, Ned Beatty (Network), Jackie Cooper (The People’s Choice), Glenn Ford (The Big Heat), Trevor Howard (The Third Man), Margot Kidder, Valerie Perrine (Lenny), Maria Schell (The Last Bridge), Terence Stamp, Phyllis Thaxter (Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo), Susannah York (They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?), and Marlon Brando as Superman’s Krypton father, Jor-El. The movie was nominated for three Academy Awards and won a Special Achievement Award for visual effects.
Superman wasn’t the first adaptation of the DC comic — Adventures of Superman was a TV show starring George Reeves that ran from 1952 to 1958. The 1978 Superman did, however, mark the dawn of the superhero spectacle. It was a grand epic for all ages, not just children, and used special effects to enhance a large-scale story. “Today, the sustained influence of Superman: The Movie is plain to see in the heart of Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man,” noted the San Francisco Chronicle, “in the grounded gravitas of Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy and in the MCU’s meticulous origin-building and mythmaking…[James Gunn’s Superman] stands on the shoulders of Donner’s 1978 classic.”
5
‘Halloween’ (1978)
Genre: Slasher
Halloween is a low-budget horror classic directed by John Carpenter, who also scored the movie and wrote the screenplay with producer Debra Hill (The Fisher King). By spray-painting a Captain Kirk mask white and putting it on a big man in coveralls, Carpenter created one of the most iconic and profitable slashers of all time. Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) became the standard for the final girl. Together, Michael Myers and Laurie Strode changed horror forever.
Halloween wasn’t the first slasher, but it did map out the classic slasher formula audiences know today. The “rules” to surviving a horror movie in the 1996 hit Scream are based on Halloween and the slashers that came after it. This is the movie that popularized the slasher and revitalized the horror genre as it moved into the 1980s with movies like Friday the 13th, Prom Night, and A Nightmare on Elm Street.
4
‘This is Spinal Tap’ (1984)
Genre: Mockumentary
This is Spinal Tap is a mockumentary comedy about a touring English rock band called Spinal Tap. Rob Reiner made his feature film debut directing the movie with a screenplay Reiner wrote with stars Christopher Guest (Best in Show), Michael McKean (Better Call Saul), and Harry Shearer (The Simpsons). There was also a lot of improvisation on set.
This is Spinal Tap is the first mockumentary to get a lot of attention and stand the test of time, with fans continuing to quote the movie. “Spinal Tap laid the definitive blueprint for the mockumentary genre,” wrote for Far Out Magazine. The TV series The Office and the movie Borat were born from the way This is Spinal Tap was made.
3
‘Groundhog Day’ (1993)
Genre: Time-Loop
Groundhog Day is a delightful romantic comedy directed by Harold Ramis (Analyze This) with a screenplay Ramis wrote with Danny Rubin (Hear No Evil). The premise is simple. Bill Murray (Ghostbusters) plays Phil Connors, a TV weatherman who finds himself reliving the same day (which happens to be Groundhog Day) over and over. The cast features Andie MacDowell (Four Weddings and a Funeral), Chris Elliott (Get a Life), Stephen Tobolowsky (Memento), and Brian Doyle-Murray (Caddyshack).
Though not the first of its kind, Groundhog Day popularized the time-loop movie. In fact, TVTropes.org refers to this format as the “Groundhog Day Loop.” The time-loop genre isn’t strictly for romantic comedies either, though there are often some comedic elements in time-loop films. Horror movies like Happy Death Day and science fiction movies like Omni Loop pair well with the format, too.
2
‘Shaun of the Dead’ (2004)
Genre: Zom-Com
Shaun of the Dead is the first film in the Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy from director Edgar Wright and actor Simon Pegg. Pegg and Nick Frost star as Shaun and Ed, two best friends trying to survive the zombie apocalypse. The cast also includes Kate Ashfield (Born to Kill), Lucy Davis (The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina), Dylan Moran (Black Books), Jessica Stevenson (The Royle Family), Peter Serafinowicz (Guardians of the Galaxy), Rafe Spall (The Ritual), and Martin Freeman (The World’s End) with Penelope Wilton (Ever Decreasing Circles) and Bill Nighy (Living).
While plenty of zombie movies were made before Shaun of the Dead, this is the movie that flipped the genre to make a genuinely funny and popular comedy. Entertainment Weekly called it Edgar Wright’s “bloodstained love letter to the undead genre” and that’s exactly what it is. It’s a film that knows and respects the zombie genre well enough to pave the way for shows and movies like Dead Set and Warm Bodies.
1
‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’ (2022)
Genre: Multiverse Movie
Swiss Army Man‘s Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert broke all the rules writing and directing this sweeping comedic epic. Everything Everywhere All at Once stars Michelle Yeoh as Evelyn Quan Wang, the overworked owner of a laundry mat whose life is turned upside-down when she learns that there is a multiverse populated with different versions of herself. Evelyn must channel these versions of herself in order to save her family and the multiverse. The cast features Ke Huy Quan, Stephanie Hsu, and Jamie Lee Curtis.
As the most recent movie on this list, Everything Everywhere All at Once is still continuing to set the standard. While sci-fi and superhero stories have been playing with the multiverse for years, Everything Everywhere All at Once brought the multiverse to the Oscars. The movie earned 11 Academy Award nominations, winning seven of them. It was one of the most celebrated movies of 2022. “[Kwan and Scheinert] finally got multiverse storytelling right,” explained ScreenCraft. “They looked at the infinite, incredibly personal chaos the multiverse presents when added to any story and actually followed that thread to an emotional conclusion.”