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About Thriller Movies

Thriller movies are films that primarily use action and suspense to engage the audience. Thrillers emphasize nervous tension and anxiety. Thriller films are distinct from horror movies, which emphasize fear, or action movies, which emphasize exhilaration. The motive force of a thriller can range from small-scale fraud to international conspiracy, but topics such as disasters (the disaster movie) or defeating criminals (police or crime films) are typically the preserve of other genres. Alfred Hitchcock is considered by many to be the master of the thriller genre. His ability to create "nail-biting" scenarios is studied in many film schools around the world. North by Northwest is a prime example. It builds tension with a minimum of pugilistic action, relying instead on mystery and suspense. One of the reasons Hitchcock may have been so effective at this genre was his tendency to put "the common man" in the position of what would be the protagonist in an action film. Script writer Robert Mckee noted that Thrillers are essentially about the battle of justice vs. injustice. He also noted that another defining characteristic is that there is often a price to be paid at the conclusion of the story. Within the thriller movie genre exists many sub-genres: These can be defined by their point of view. A film about solving a crime may be detective movie. A film about perpetuating the crime is sometimes called caper. Although film noir is considered a genre in itself, these movies are frequently also thrillers. Thriller movies can also be about a psychologist (psychodrama) or prosecuting the law (court-room drama). Each possible protagonist in such a drama can have both major and minor character roles and an opposite character. - The preceding paragraph was derived from a full article available from Wikipedia and its use is governed by the GNU Free Documentation License 1.2.