'Campy' describes a style that delights in theatricality, exaggeration, and bad taste, often celebrating an aesthetic of 'so bad it's good' with a knowing wink.
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Genre & Style Terms Starting With C
The genre & style terms that begin with C, in alphabetical order.
1–32 of 32 entries
Definitions of Genre & Style Terms Starting With C
Open any entry for the full definition, where the term comes from and the films that show it best.
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A caper film is a subgenre of crime film, and a lighter cousin of the heist film, that treats a robbery with a comedic, quirky, or lighthearted tone.
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A capsule wardrobe is a minimalist collection of essential, high-quality, and interchangeable clothing items, designed to maximize outfits with a minimal number of pieces.
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A catchphrase is a signature phrase associated with a character or film.
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A children's film is a movie genre specifically created and marketed for a young audience, typically those under the age of 12.
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Chillhop is a microgenre that blends elements of chill-out music, hip-hop, and jazz, closely related to the lo-fi hip-hop phenomenon.
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Cinécriture is a term coined by French director Agnès Varda to describe the comprehensive and authorial process of filmmaking, where all elements are part of a unified act of writing.
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Cinéma du look was a French film movement of the 1980s that favored spectacular visual style and spectacle over narrative or political substance.
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Cinema Novo was a radical Brazilian film movement of the 1960s defined by its political fervor and its famous motto: an idea in the head and a camera in the hand.
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The Cinema of Attractions is a theory that early films (pre-1907) were less about storytelling and more about presenting a series of visual spectacles.
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A documentary style aiming to capture truth through unobtrusive observation.
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CinemaScope is a widescreen film format introduced in the 1950s that uses anamorphic lenses to capture and project ultra‑wide images.
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Cinepoetry is a style of filmmaking that prioritizes poetic expression, using rhythm, metaphor, and symbolism over traditional narrative structure.
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While not a formal movement, 'Cinetismo Mexicano' describes a current within Mexican experimental cinema focused on kinetic energy, abstraction, and the formal properties of the moving image.
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Classical Hollywood cinema is the term for the narrative and visual style of filmmaking that became dominant in the American studio system from roughly 1917 to 1960.
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Climate fiction, or "cli-fi," is a genre of film that deals with the impacts of climate change and global warming.
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A clip show is an episode composed mainly of excerpts from previous installments.
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A tightly framed subject magnifies emotion, detail, and viewer intimacy.
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Motion pictures produced using color-sensitive film stock or digital processes to capture a full spectrum of hues.
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A comedy film is a broad genre of film whose primary goal is to elicit laughter and amusement from the audience through humor.
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A comedy roast is a performance or event where an individual is honored by being subjected to a series of insulting yet humorous jokes from their peers.
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A comedy-drama is a film genre that deliberately blends comedic and dramatic elements, using humor to explore serious subject matter.
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A coming-of-age film is a genre that focuses on a protagonist's transition from youth to adulthood, exploring their psychological and moral growth.
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Lavish wardrobe and period sets foreground social rituals, romance, and class tension.
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A courtroom comedy is a film subgenre that uses the formal, high-stakes setting of a legal trial as a backdrop for humorous situations and characters.
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A cover song is a new performance or recording of a previously released song by an artist other than the original composer or performer.
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A genre showcasing monsters or animals as central antagonists, emphasizing horror and spectacle.
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A crime thriller merges suspenseful pacing with criminal narratives to explore illicit worlds.
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Interweaving actions in separate locations builds suspense, contrast, or thematic resonance.
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A brief cut into a portion of the action to emphasize a character’s gesture or an object’s movement.
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An insert to related action or object interrupts the main shot to provide context or pacing relief.
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1960s surge of inventive, satirical films blending realism and absurdism under a state studio system.
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