Exploitation film subgenres
Exploitation film subgenres are the labels used to file cheap, market-driven cinema: giallo, nunsploitation, the Italian cannibal boom, Ozploitation, blaxploitation and about forty more. This glossary defines 44 of them, with the era and the films that fit each one.
Most of these names were coined by critics and collectors decades after the films appeared, so each entry says who used the term and where it stops applying. Pick a term, then browse its films, or start from the cycle histories, the starter lists or the poster gallery.
Start with a region
Italian cycles
Italy's film industry copied whatever was selling, fast, and gave each copy a name.
- Giallo - Italian murder mysteries where the plot exists to get you from one killing to the next.
- Poliziotteschi - Italian cop films shot during real civil unrest, and furious about all of it.
- Cannibal boom - The Italian jungle cycle. Eight years, a dozen films, and a court case.
- Peplum - Italian muscleman epics. The cycle that built the machine everything else on this site came out of.
- Spaghetti western - Italian westerns shot in Spain. Dirtier, louder, and more cynical than the American kind.
- Eurospy - Continental Bond knockoffs, produced faster than the originals and occasionally more fun.
- Mondo - A mondo film is a shock documentary in the mould of Mondo Cane (1962): customs and deaths from around the world, narrated as fact, much of it staged.
Spanish, German and Euro-gothic
The continental horror and pulp traditions outside Italy, plus the Italian-led nazisploitation cycle.
- Euro-gothic - Continental horror built on atmosphere, crumbling architecture and dream logic rather than plot.
- Fantaterror - The Spanish horror boom, made in the last years of Franco and shot in two versions.
- Krimi - West German Edgar Wallace thrillers. The direct ancestor of the giallo.
- Nunsploitation - Convent films. Anticlerical satire, softcore, and the occasional serious historical drama filed on the same shelf.
- Nazisploitation - A short Italian and Canadian cycle, concentrated in 1975 to 1977, that took the most taboo setting available and sold tickets with it.
Asian cycles
Japan, Hong Kong and their spin-offs.
- Pinky violence - Toei's female delinquent films. Formally beautiful, thematically indefensible, often in the same shot.
- Yakuza - Japanese gangster films, from chivalrous ritual to Fukasaku tearing the whole idea down.
- Chanbara - Japanese sword cinema. Everything the kung fu tag isn't, and often bloodier.
- Martial arts - Shaw Brothers, Golden Harvest, and the grindhouse circuit that dubbed all of it badly.
- Bruceploitation - Bruce Lee died. The industry hired men named Bruce Li and kept going.
- Kaiju & tokusatsu - Japanese monster and effects cinema. Suits, miniatures, and a postwar wound underneath.
American and Anglophone
From roadshow pictures to drive-in staples and the UK video panic.
- Classical exploitation - Roadshow pictures sold as education and shown as filth. This is where the word comes from.
- Blaxploitation - Black-led American genre films, 1971 to 1976. A real industry moment, shut down as soon as something bigger came along.
- Roughie - Mid-60s American sexploitation that stopped being fun on purpose.
- Hicksploitation - Moonshine, backroads, and city people who took a wrong turn. The American South as a horror setting.
- Biker - AIP's outlaw cycle. Started with a news story, ended when the counterculture stopped selling.
- Carsploitation - Real cars, real speed, real crashes, no computers.
- Juvenile delinquent - 1950s teen panic on screen. The biker film's parents, and the drive-in's first target audience.
- Ozploitation - Australia's genre boom, funded by a tax loophole and staffed by stunt drivers with no fear of injury.
- Video nasty - Not a genre. A British legal label for 72 films, now used as an exploitation marketing term.
All 44 terms
- Classical exploitation1919–1959 · 10 films
- Roadshow pictures sold as education and shown as filth. This is where the word comes from.
- Full definition →Browse the films →
- Peplum1958–1965 · 7 films
- Italian muscleman epics. The cycle that built the machine everything else on this site came out of.
- Full definition →Browse the films →
- Giallo1963–1982 · 38 films
- Italian murder mysteries where the plot exists to get you from one killing to the next.
- Full definition →Browse the films →
- Krimi1959–1972 · 9 films
- West German Edgar Wallace thrillers. The direct ancestor of the giallo.
- Full definition →Browse the films →
- Euro-gothic1957–1979 · 46 films
- Continental horror built on atmosphere, crumbling architecture and dream logic rather than plot.
- Full definition →Browse the films →
- Fantaterror1968–1976 · 11 films
- The Spanish horror boom, made in the last years of Franco and shot in two versions.
- Full definition →Browse the films →
- Poliziotteschi1971–1980 · 16 films
- Italian cop films shot during real civil unrest, and furious about all of it.
- Full definition →Browse the films →
- Cannibal boom1972–1985 · 12 films
- The Italian jungle cycle. Eight years, a dozen films, and a court case.
- Full definition →Browse the films →
- Nunsploitation1969–1985 · 9 films
- Convent films. Anticlerical satire, softcore, and the occasional serious historical drama filed on the same shelf.
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- Ozploitation1971–1988 · 18 films
- Australia's genre boom, funded by a tax loophole and staffed by stunt drivers with no fear of injury.
- Full definition →Browse the films →
- Video nasty1980–1985 · 26 films
- Not a genre. A British legal label for 72 films, now used as an exploitation marketing term.
- Full definition →Browse the films →
- Roughie1963–1970 · 11 films
- Mid-60s American sexploitation that stopped being fun on purpose.
- Full definition →Browse the films →
- Sexploitation1968–1984 · 12 films
- The European softcore boom. Where the roughie went continental and made a fortune.
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- Blaxploitation1971–1976 · 29 films
- Black-led American genre films, 1971 to 1976. A real industry moment, shut down as soon as something bigger came along.
- Full definition →Browse the films →
- Pinky violence1969–1979 · 12 films
- Toei's female delinquent films. Formally beautiful, thematically indefensible, often in the same shot.
- Full definition →Browse the films →
- Eurospy1964–1969 · 4 films
- Continental Bond knockoffs, produced faster than the originals and occasionally more fun.
- Full definition →Browse the films →
- Women in prison1971–1986 · 19 films
- The most rigid formula in exploitation cinema, and the most durable.
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- Mondo1962–1985 · 5 films
- A mondo film is a shock documentary in the mould of Mondo Cane (1962): customs and deaths from around the world, narrated as fact, much of it staged.
- Full definition →Browse the films →
- Zombie1932–1988 · 27 films
- From Haitian folklore to Romero to the Italian cycle that ate the video shelves.
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- Spaghetti western1964–1978 · 24 films
- Italian westerns shot in Spain. Dirtier, louder, and more cynical than the American kind.
- Full definition →Browse the films →
- Martial arts1966–1985 · 27 films
- Shaw Brothers, Golden Harvest, and the grindhouse circuit that dubbed all of it badly.
- Full definition →Browse the films →
- Chanbara1962–1980 · 9 films
- Japanese sword cinema. Everything the kung fu tag isn't, and often bloodier.
- Full definition →Browse the films →
- Splatter1963–1990 · 45 films
- Gore as the entire attraction, invented by a man who mostly made nudie films.
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- Post-nuke1982–1990 · 9 films
- Italian producers watched Mad Max 2 and made forty of them in five years.
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- Slasher1974–1989 · 28 films
- The giallo, relocated to America and put to work on a holiday calendar.
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- Bruceploitation1973–1981 · 2 films
- Bruce Lee died. The industry hired men named Bruce Li and kept going.
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- Vigilante1971–1985 · 19 films
- The city has failed, the courts have failed, and an ordinary man buys a gun.
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- Body horror1975–1992 · 15 films
- The flesh betrays itself. Mostly early Cronenberg, and mostly disgusting on purpose.
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- Occult & satanic panic1968–1990 · 31 films
- Devil worship, possession, and a decade of audiences half believing it.
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- Folk horror1968–1978 · 7 films
- Rural isolation, older beliefs, and a stranger who does not understand the local calendar.
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- Natural horror1963–1988 · 12 films
- Animals attack. An entire industry spent a decade rearranging one Spielberg film.
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- Luchador1958–1982 · 5 films
- Mexican wrestling films. A masked hero fights vampires, then wrestles, then fights the vampires again.
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- Yakuza1963–1980 · 7 films
- Japanese gangster films, from chivalrous ritual to Fukasaku tearing the whole idea down.
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- Sword & sorcery1982–1988 · 9 films
- Conan made money, so Italy and Argentina made forty barbarian films in six years.
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- Juvenile delinquent1953–1967 · 4 films
- 1950s teen panic on screen. The biker film's parents, and the drive-in's first target audience.
- Full definition →Browse the films →
- Biker1966–1972 · 10 films
- AIP's outlaw cycle. Started with a news story, ended when the counterculture stopped selling.
- Full definition →Browse the films →
- Acid & psychedelic1967–1980 · 6 films
- The counterculture as both subject and threat. Drug panic, head films, and one very strange western.
- Full definition →Browse the films →
- Kaiju & tokusatsu1954–1980 · 11 films
- Japanese monster and effects cinema. Suits, miniatures, and a postwar wound underneath.
- Full definition →Browse the films →
- Turkish remakesploitation1970–1984 · 5 films
- Yeşilçam at full tilt: unlicensed remakes and homegrown pulp, on ten-day shoots using somebody else's soundtrack.
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- Carsploitation1971–1981 · 13 films
- Real cars, real speed, real crashes, no computers.
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- Rape-revenge1972–1984 · 6 films
- An assault, then a reckoning. One of the most argued-about structures in film criticism.
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- Hicksploitation1972–1983 · 10 films
- Moonshine, backroads, and city people who took a wrong turn. The American South as a horror setting.
- Full definition →Browse the films →
- Nazisploitation1974–1979 · 6 films
- A short Italian and Canadian cycle, concentrated in 1975 to 1977, that took the most taboo setting available and sold tickets with it.
- Full definition →Browse the films →
- Transgressive & midnight1970–1990 · 37 films
- Films made to offend, that found their audience at midnight. Waters, Jodorowsky, Lynch.
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