The 20 greatest movies that mashup multiple genres

Funny, profound, whimsical, silly, poetic, childish, expansive, intimate--Amarcord is arguably my favorite genre mashup. Telling the story of director Federico Fellini's childhood, we are transported to an Italy that only he could create. Packed with quirky characters, funny interludes, colorful dream sequences, and real-life events that happened to Fellini, Amarcord is a genre mashup that might stand above the rest.

The most classic example of genre mashups is rom-coms, which is why we've included this rom-com about a quirky girl who's devoted her life to helping others. As sweet as candy with an edge of despair, she's one of the most memorable gals in cinema and we desperately want her to find true love. Funny, sad, romantic and most importantly, optimistic, Amelie is a movie that blends genres magnificently.

Science fiction and noir don't seem like they would blend. One movie genre is about space and the other is about alcoholic detectives who track down other alcoholics, but Ridley Scott pulls it off. Somehow, the film excels at being a seedy mystery and a dense science fiction that transports you to a futuristic realm of robot criminals, the two genres washing into each other as effortlessly as tears in the rain. 

There's nothing funny about the zombie apocalypse...or is there? In Shaun of the Dead, the main characters are so aloof that they might as well be zombies themselves. As a pale schlub wanders to the grocery store having just woken up, he doesn't realize the zombie apocalypse unfolding around him. 

Where do we even begin with Star Wars? A space opera, a science fiction action flick, a comedy with lightsaber fights, a movie with robots and aliens and Chewbacca that throws in some Freud as well, Star Wars contains a galaxy of genres in a galaxy far, far away.

Notting Hill is one of the greatest examples of the rom-com mashup. When a movie star meets an everyday guy at a bookstore, the two characters fall in love in moments of tender yet hilarious comedy. Even the readers of Horse and Hound can find themselves rooting for Grant's underdog in Notting Hill.

Move over, Tom Cruise--Jackie Chan has got some crazy stunts in Police Story. Along with Cruise and Buster Keaton, Chan is the ultimate do-your-own-stunts movie star. In this action-comedy, the stunts include driving through an entire town while buildings explode around him, hanging from a moving bus by an umbrella, and jumping from a four-story building while villains fire machine guns. Police Story is an adrenaline-fueled comedy--the stunts are so insane they become comedic.

This movie hasn't gotten cancelled yet? Seven Psychopaths is such a great film--or perhaps, not a well-known enough film--to survive the countless racial and anti-woke jokes, but that's probably because the movie is so dang entertaining. When a screenwriter starts a story on psychopaths, the plot of his story bleeds into his real life, and the bombastic deaths and hilarious jokes explode off-screen. 

It's the same director as Seven Psychopaths, just a more elegiac tone--somewhere between comedy, drama, crime films, and self-referential melancholy is In Bruges, a movie about hitmen stuck in Bruges waiting for their next target. The film manages to balance gallows humor with gallows horror, as well as real emotion amidst emotionless kills.

Every genre, everywhere, all at once is the concept of this movie. When a daughter rebels against her strict mother in multiple universes (The Matrix meets The Parent Trap) the universe cracks open and all the parallel universes bleed into each other. Somehow blending comedy, action, kung-fu and drama, Everything Everywhere All at Once delivers a genre mashup unlike any other. 

A science-fiction rom-com about a man who gets brain surgery to permanently forget his ex, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is a crazy mix of genres. Heightened by great performances and eloquent direction, the movie is a rom-com you can never forget.

There are few directors who can meld fantasy and reality as seamlessly as Hayao Miyazaki, and none who can do so better in the realm of animation. In the greatest animated movie ever made, two siblings deal with their mother's cancer diagnosis by escaping to a fantastical realm of puffy creatures, giant cat buses, and mythical forests with their Neighbor Totoro. It's because of Miyazaki's creative mind that My Neighbor Totoro remains magical amidst the emotional.

There are plenty of rom-coms out there, but far fewer rom-dramas. Throw in some war movie tropes, noir elements, and comedic interludes, as well as some of the most quotable lines and memorable performances on screen, and you have one of the most influential films of the 1940s. Here's to looking at Casablanca again. 

I have never taken acid and entered a spooky house in the middle of nowhere, but I suppose the experience is probably similar to House. One of the craziest, most bonkers movies ever made, House sees a group of girls enter a house in the middle of the countryside where people turn into bananas, heads float around like piñatas, waiting to be smashed into pieces with a bat, and the walls drip with fountains of blood. House is a horrific movie that opens the door to a realm of comedy unlike any other.

Ryan Gosling has mastered the sexy, dumb blonde yet mysteriously clever routine and The Fall Guy is one of his best movies. Like Barbie, Gosling's straight up hilarious as an aloof sexy idiot whose heart is in the right place. As a stuntman, his character gets caught up in an undercover scheme tied to the cartel that has to do with his crush's new movie, which is just the beginning of The Fall Guy. It's hilarious, heartwarming, action-packed, romantic, meta, ridiculous, epic, and deceptively smart; it's The Fall Guy.

It's a movie, disguised as a movie, playing another movie--it's Tropic Thunder and it's hilarious. A satire on war movies that's actually a great war movie, Tropic Thunder sees a bunch of movie stars enter a jungle and accidentally enter an actual war. 

La Piscine is one of those movies that seems to shift genres halfway through. What was a luxurious vacation on the French Riviera with the sexiest actor ever, Alain Delon, becomes a thriller when the tides turn toward horror. No matter what happens in La Piscine, it remains one of the coolest movies ever made.

The Tuscan light shines bright in this optimistic rom-com set in Italy, but there's still darkness here. In Under the Tuscan Sun, the search for the right person isn't always easy, but the brightness and comedy shine through. 

An adorable movie with one of the greatest child performances ever (shoutout Lindsay Lohan), The Parent Trap is a rom-com that blends its elements whimsically. When twin sisters swap their lives without telling their parents, it makes for some of the most fun moments in all of cinema.

Is there a greater fantasy movie out there? Inconceivable! The Princess Bride is a wonderful mix of fantasy, action, humor, and true love that remains gorgeous as well.