The thriller genre

People often ask what is the significance of a film being recognised as belonging to a thriller genre?

There are different significances for different people being recognised as belonging to the thriller genre. There are different sections in the film industry; audiences, institutions, production, distribution and exhibition/exchange. For audiences, they might care that it is a thriller because they might enjoy watching suspenseful films; if so then they will be drawn by the fact that a film belongs to the thriller genre. also if they know that the film is a thriller than it might create anticipation for the film.. because they know what types of conventions to expect. it is important to them because they know that they are going to get thrills out of watching that particular film.

It is a significance to institutions that it is recognised as a thriller because it will help market the film, for example it will help companies create a target audience. due to the fact that they know what type of audiences want to watch the thrillers it will be easier to market. For the production stage it is important to them because they know what conventions are going to make it a good movie according to the genre and and the audience. For example typical conventions of a thriller are dark/underground locations, mirror/bathroom scenes etc. Because there are so many sub-genres within thriller it will be easy for the distribution stage, they will have a wide appeal so therefore it will be easy to market. exhibition/exchange stage will be easy because they will know the basic idea of the film, this means you will know what to expect, but people will still want to watch it for the suspense and excitement.

Sub-genres have different generic codes and conventions. Here is a part of research that i did showing what typical types of characters and settings would be in a political/conspiracy thriller;     


These are the things i came up with that i thought would be in a typical political/conspiracy thriller. I did one for supernatural thriller and crime thriller. The most common character that came to my head when i thought of supernatural thrillers were ghosts and spirits/souls.


The most common characters that came to my head when i think of crime thrillers are a detective and a suspect.