The history of the action genre and how it has changed over ime

1. AS Media Research
Genre Research: Action

2. Early Action films
It is widely thought that The Great Train Robbery(1903) was the first action film.
Even though it was a silent and short movie, it captivated audiences and sky
rocketed its popularity.

3. 1920s and 1930s
During the 1920s and 30s the action films were more adventurous and fantasy
based. For example “swashbuckling” films starred actors like Douglas Fairbanks.
Westerns became popular too in these years.

4. 1940s and 1950s
Action evolved properly in this decade and was revolutionised by the addition of
the war genre and cowboy genre. Alfred Hitchcock was able to introduce the spy-
adventure genre into the film industry which later inspired the works of Albert R.
Broccoli and Harry Saltzman on their own spy adventure series.

5. 1960s - James Bond era
Based on Ian Fleming’s novels, the successful James Bond series dominated the
action scene during the 1960’s and are still huge and largely anticipated films to
this day. This was accomplished by having car chases, fast paced fights and
technology to enhance sequences. This would remain as a common factor to this
day.

6. 1970s
Gritty crime dramas started to gain popularity and began to merge with the action
genre which lead to a long chain of maverick police films. Meanwhile in Asia, the
Hong Kong martial arts scene bloomed and became popular among Western
culture. This inspired big budget action films like Enter the Dragon.
On top of that the Japanese film industry put out martial arts films as well as
samurai films.

7. 1980s and 1990s
During the 80s was a huge boom in Hollywood action films. These were huge
budget films with incredible special effects for the time. This was the era for actors
such as Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis.

8. 2000s
The 2000s marked a change from high budget to medium budget summer
blockbusters. These films soon changed to have the film revolve around the
action scenes and the increasing growth of CGI allowed new scenes to be created
that couldn’t have been imagined before. This was also the time big budget
superhero movies started moving into the mainstream.
However, not all of them were successful. Daredevil for example.

9. 2010s to Present day
Not much changed from the previous decade except more genres started to become more tied in with the
action genre. For example sci-fi was crossed with the action genre in films such as Star Trek but most
noticeably, the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Although since Marvel films have been so successful, their
budgets have been increased to a far higher amount than other films.