These cinematic "firsts" left their mark on the medium. Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’re counting down our picks for the movies that were at the forefront of a specific genre.
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00:00And now ladies and gentlemen, before I tell you any more,
00:03I'm going to show you the greatest thing your eyes have ever beheld."
00:06Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're counting down our picks for the movies
00:10that were at the forefront of a specific genre.
00:12These films don't necessarily need to be the absolute first of their kind,
00:16but they do need to have been successful or influential enough
00:19to codify the trappings of a particular cinematic style.
00:22People lose teeth talking like that.
00:24You want to hang around, you'll be polite.
00:2610. Groundhog Day – Time Loop Movie
00:31What would you do if you were stuck in one place
00:35and every day was exactly the same and nothing that you did mattered?
00:38If 1993 feels like late in the game for a cinematic genre to be coined,
00:43that's because it is.
00:44That said, Groundhog Day has slowly but surely gained steam with fans over the years.
00:49It's basically thought number one that pops into cinephiles' heads
00:52when they discuss the nature of a time loop movie.
00:54Do you ever have deja vu, Mrs. Lancaster?
00:57I don't think so, but I could check with the kitchen.
00:59Bill Murray's character Phil Connors may be forced to relive February 2nd
01:03over and over again, but later movies such as the Happy Death Day franchise
01:07played around with the time loop formula with uniquely fun results of their own.
01:11Oh, hey, girl.
01:12Silence!
01:209. Shaft – Blaxploitation Cinema
01:23Ready, Shaft?
01:24Bet your loveliest self it is.
01:28And I'm ready, can you dig it?
01:29Melvin Van Peeble's independently produced Sweet Sweetback's badass song
01:33may have been released a few months earlier,
01:35but we'd argue that 1971's Shaft better embodied
01:38the eventual trappings of the Blaxploitation genre.
01:41There's still a lot of grit to be found within this adaptation
01:44of Ernest Heidemann's series of private detective novels,
01:47while star Richard Roundtree wound up becoming an icon of the cinematic day.
01:50I get 50 bucks an hour, plus expenses.
01:56And no questions asked about how I spend it.
01:59Shaft possesses all of the cool soundtrack cuts and fast action beats
02:02that would become part and parcel within Blaxploitation flicks.
02:05However, it also has plenty to say about masculine behavior and black power
02:10during an era when these topics were slowly rising amid the cultural zeitgeist.
02:14That's what I want to know.
02:16About who?
02:16Just what.
02:18Why was my black card to see you so concerned about us minority folks?
02:24Listen, little boy,
02:25in this business there's only one law you gotta follow to keep out of trouble.
02:31Do it first, do it yourself, and keep on doing it.
02:35The early 1930s were chock full of notable character actors and movie stars
02:40who would become synonymous with that era's gangster picture.
02:42Edward G. Robinson and James Cagney would rule the roost
02:46in outings like Little Caesar and The Public Enemy, respectively.
02:50Meanwhile, Paul Muni was a heavyweight player for Warner Brothers back in his day,
02:54and his starring role in 1932's Scarface would help further cement his legend.
02:58There's only one thing that gets orders and gets orders, and this is it.
03:02That's how I got the south side for you,
03:03and that's how I'm gonna get the north side for you.
03:05The film was controversial in its day for a perceived glorification of violence.
03:09This, together with the pre-code violence found within Scarface,
03:12endeared it to generations of movie fans.
03:15To the point where it was remade in 1983
03:18with star Al Pacino and director Brian De Palma.
03:21You wanna play rough?
03:22Okay.
03:24Say hello to my little friend.
03:31This happen all the time in the jungle.
03:32It's survival of the fittest.
03:34The found footage cycle of horror movies
03:36certainly found its greatest prevalence in the aftermath of 1999's The Blair Witch Project.
03:41That said, the popular origins of the cinema verite-styled approach to filmmaking
03:45can be found much earlier than the late 90s.
03:48We're speaking specifically of 1980's Cannibal Holocaust,
03:51one of the most controversial films ever made.
03:56It's unbelievable.
03:57It's horrible.
04:00I can't understand the reason for such cruelty.
04:03Director Ruggiero Deodato and screenwriter Gianfranco Clerici
04:07crafted a film and a film within a film
04:09that wasn't only infamous for its crafted violence,
04:12but also the real-life demise of animals on screen.
04:15Elsewhere, the understated beauty of the film's score
04:18is often at odds with the comparatively visceral set pieces.
04:21Cannibal Holocaust is a film of contradictions,
04:24where art and exploitation crash in the most memorable fashion.
04:29I wonder who the real cannibals are.
04:34What did you say we're supposed to be doing?
04:37Hitchhiking.
04:38Oh.
04:40Well, you've given me a very good example of the hiking.
04:44Where does the hitching come in?
04:46The study of cinema can also double as a study of society itself,
04:50a sociological journey where films such as 1934's It Happened One Night
04:55influence our daily interactions.
04:56That's because this film was a formidable influence
04:59on the screwball romantic comedy genre,
05:02to the point where many of its tropes continue to be parodied today.
05:05Ever seen a movie where a couple erects a partition between their beds
05:08in order to create an illusion of privacy?
05:11This comes from It Happened One Night.
05:13That, I suppose, makes everything quite all right.
05:17For this?
05:18The film also influenced fashion choices of the day,
05:21specifically during a scene where star Clark Gable disrobes
05:24to reveal a lack of undershirt.
05:26All this and more helped make It Happened One Night
05:28strike a serious chord with moviegoers.
05:31It's hiking down the highway of love on a honeymoon.
05:38It's hiking down.
05:41Number 5.
05:42Blade Runner, Cyberpunk
05:43Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it?
05:47There's no denying the influence 1927's Metropolis
05:50had upon the subculture of cyberpunk,
05:52as well as movies like 1982's Blade Runner.
05:55That said, it's probably this latter film from director Ridley Scott
05:59that's largely seen as the embryo from which cyberpunk cinema was born.
06:03I need the old Blade Runner.
06:05I need your magic.
06:06So many conventions of visual tropes of the genre are present here,
06:10from a lived-in sprawling world to the dystopian energy of the action.
06:14Harrison Ford's character Rick Deckert feels like a man,
06:17or is that replicant, out of time.
06:19A hard-boiled badass that's living within a chaotic future.
06:22Anything feels as if it can happen as a result of this chaos,
06:25and it's Blade Runner that lives on in our imaginations rent-free forever.
06:30Memories.
06:32You're talking about memories.
06:34Number 4.
06:35King Kong, Giant Monster Movie
06:37Ladies and gentlemen, look at Kong, the eighth wonder of the world.
06:43It may be true that old King Kong wasn't the first actual monster on screen,
06:47since German expressionist films like Nosferatu,
06:50The Golem and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari had already introduced vampires,
06:54somnambulists and more to the world.
06:56King Kong was something more, however, and something special.
07:00Holy mackerel, what a show!
07:03This film, directed by Marion C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schudsack,
07:06changed the game back in 1933,
07:09particularly due to the groundbreaking special effects work of Willis O'Brien.
07:13The results here are frankly incredible,
07:15going on to influence anyone and everyone who would create a giant monster movie.
07:19The stop motion, matte paintings and rear projection created a world unlike any other,
07:25and gave rise to an entire kaiju industry in its wake.
07:28Why in a few months it'll be up in lights on Broadway.
07:31Kong, the eighth wonder of the world!
07:34Number 3.
07:35Night of the Living Dead, Modern Zombie Movie
07:38They're coming to get you, Barbara.
07:41The atomic age of irradiated beasts essentially received its death knell
07:45once George A. Romero and crew came knocking with 1968's Night of the Living Dead.
07:50This was real horror, with an edge, bite and legitimate stakes.
07:54I got so afraid I ran, I ran, I ran.
08:01The public's idea of a zombie, or ghoul as they're referred to in the film,
08:05also received an upgrade with Night of the Living Dead,
08:07distancing itself from the origins of Haitian voodoo.
08:10Romero's zombie movie also doubled as a siege film,
08:13with marauding hordes of the undead attacking a house where survivors are held up,
08:17fighting for their lives.
08:18Does this plot sound familiar?
08:20That's because Night of the Living Dead basically did everything
08:23before its imitators could do anything.
08:25We may not enjoy living together,
08:29but dying together isn't going to solve anything.
08:32Number 2.
08:32The Maltese Falcon, Film Noir
08:35If you lose a son, it's possible to get another.
08:38There's only one Maltese Falcon.
08:40It's a little difficult to nail down what's the definitive example of film noir,
08:45but 1941's The Maltese Falcon certainly comes close.
08:48It's actually a remake of a pre-code version of author Dashiell Hammett's source novel.
08:53Yet it's the actual implementation of the code
08:55that would go on to influence the noir-ish tropes of The Maltese Falcon.
08:59What do you want me to do, land a stutter?
09:01Down to take you down to the station?
09:02How long they work on you?
09:04This is because film noir had to jump around a lot of code-implemented hoops
09:08concerning the on-screen depictions of sexuality and violence.
09:11So, we got hard-boiled dicks, dastardly dames,
09:14double-crosses, and dirty deeds done in the secrecy of shadow.
09:18The Maltese Falcon also helped popularize the MacGuffin plot device,
09:22since the titular Falcon is only there to get other wheels of the plot rolling.
09:26What is it?
09:32The, uh, stuff that dreams are made of.
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09:52Number 1. Psycho Slasher Flick
09:55We all go a little mad sometimes.
10:00Haven't you?
10:02There were two British films released in 1960
10:05that helped mold what would eventually become the slasher genre.
10:08Michael Powell's Peeping Tom may be less known,
10:10but is almost certainly the more lurid and psychosexual of the two.
10:15Meanwhile, Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho inhabits the more monstrous machinations of the mind
10:20with its tragically tortured antagonist Norman Bates.
10:22You know, I think I must have one of those faces you just can't help believing.
10:28Both films don't possess high body counts,
10:31yet their influence is incalculable against the glut of slasher imitators
10:35that would rise in the wake of 1970s shockers like Black Christmas and Halloween.
10:39Add to all of this the influence of stylish Italian murder mysteries known as Jali,
10:44and you have all of the ingredients for a modern slasher stew.
10:47Can you point to any other film that kickstarted a genre?
10:51Let us know in the comments.
10:52You have offended my family, and you have offended Shaolin Temple.
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