Reading Time: 12 minutesOverview Genre theory is a way of analyzing film that treats genre as a working system, not a label placed on a finished movie. The approach asks how a film uses genre conventions to guide the spectator’s expectations scene by scene, then uses those expectations to create suspense, comedy, emotion, or surprise (Neale 2000; Altman… Continue reading Genre Theory in Film: How Genres Organize Expectation and Meaning