The action film is a film genre that predominantly features chase sequences, fights, shootouts, explosions, and stunt work. The specifics of what constitutes an action film has been in scholarly debate since the 1980s. While some scholars such as David Bordwell suggested they were films that favor spectacle to storytelling, others such as Goeff King stated they allow the scenes of spectacle to be attuned to story telling. Action films are often hybrid with other genres, mixing into various forms ranging to comedies, science fiction films, and horror films.
John Cena performing a stunt in the 2006 American action film The Marine
The popularity of Bruce Lee (pictured) attracted a global audience for kung fu films, however his career was cut short following his untimely death in 1973, which lead to a decline in popularity for the artform.
A film genre is a stylistic or thematic category for motion pictures based on similarities either in the narrative elements, aesthetic approach, or the emotional response to the film.
Western films are those "set in the American West that embod[y] the spirit, the struggle and the demise of the new frontier". Pictured: Clint Eastwood in the Spaghetti Western film A Fistful of Dollars (1964).
War film or anti-war movie: Lewis Milestone's All Quiet on the Western Front, 1930