Melodrama (film genre)

In film studies and criticism, melodrama may variously refer to a genre, mode, style or sensibility characterized by its emphasis on intense and exaggerated emotions and heightened dramatic situations. There is no fixed definition of the term and it may be used to refer to a wide and diverse range of films of other genres including romantic dramas, historical dramas, psychological thrillers or crime thrillers, among others. Although it has been present in cinema since its inception, melodrama was not recognized as a distinct film genre until the 1970s and 1980s when critics and scholars identified its formal and thematic characteristics.

Unlike industry-defined genres, such as Westerns, melodrama was defined retrospectively, much like film noir. Its recognition as a genre stemmed from a critical reevaluation of Douglas Sirk's films (considered the greatest exponent of melodrama), particularly his 1950s works alongside those of Vincente Minnelli, which shaped the idea of the Hollywood "family melodrama". This genre centers on middle-class family conflicts, often generational, within contexts of social mobility and emotional trauma. The "family melodrama" category, originally centered on 1950s Hollywood, evolved to be regarded as the definitive form of melodrama, from which a basic model for understanding the genre as a whole emerged.

Melodrama has since been a key focus for discussions on gender, sexuality, and cultural reinterpretation. While traditionally associated with female audiences (with some scholars equating it with the category of "woman's films"), melodramas have garnered particular interest among gay men, largely due to their unintended camp elements. Camp, a subversive aesthetic that revels in exaggeration and artifice, had already drawn gay audiences to Sirk's films as works of camp before their academic rediscovery in the 1970s. Much of what has come to be called "gay cinema" shows a great affinity with the expressive modes of melodrama, and several of its main exponents have acknowledged its influence, such as John Waters, Pedro Almodóvar, Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Todd Haynes.