Conventions of a Thriller

Thrillers contain many different essences that show the audience they are about to watch a thriller:

Political Thrillers:
these often portray the idea that the protagonist is set to save the day and keep the government ,which employs him,in a stable condition. these can sometimes be based on real life events and sometimes have hints of a conspiracy thriller in them. 'The Hunt For Red October' is an example of a political thriller.

   

 

Spy Thrillers:

The hero is generally employed by the government to be their agent and is violent to either protect or get what the government wants. These can often have elements of both political thrillers and conspiracy thrillers.

 

 

Military Thrillers:

The protagonist is typically in a uniform and works against the enemy whether alone or in a team and ends up succeeding against all the odds. A good example of this 'Saving Private Ryan'.

 



 

 

Conspiracy Thrillers:

A conspiracy thriller usually follows the plot of the hero confronting the empire which only they know is evil and shows the battle between the two ultimately showing the hero to succeed. Conspiracy thrillers often sub-feature in types of other thrillers so it shows that it is a interesting topic for a film and also it is popular. A good example of this is 'Enemy of the State'.

 

 

Medical Thrillers:

In which the hero is generally a principled physician who must fight/corrupt a drug companies to engage in unethical experiments. An example of this would be 'Coma'.

 

 

Forensic Thrillers:

A Forensic Thriller often goes along the lines of the hero being involved in a unsolved crime or act of deviance which ultimately could put there life at risk. An example of this would be 'The Bone Collector'.

 

 

Psychological Thriller:

A psychological thriller can be one of the most popular types. This is often when the protagonist is having a emotional and psychological battle at the same time, normally these often end in a violent resolution. It is rare that the battle Is physical. An example of Psychological thriller would be shutter Island staring Leonardo Dicaprio.

 

 

The idea of having many different sub-genres of thrillers is good because then it allows different people to relate to the type they want and they don't just have to stick to one type. This is probably why the genre of 'Thrillers' is so popular and is one of the best known Genres around today.