Hollywood cycles

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In the classic era of the cinema of the United States (1930 – 1945) genres matured. A "cycle" occurs when a large amount of films consisting of specific features are produced in a certain period of time, and following the success of films with similar topics.{{Citation |last=Bothmann |first=Nils |title=Genre Theory |date=2018 |work=Action, Detection and Shane Black |pages=11–54 |url=http://link.springer.com/10.1007/978-3-658-24078-3_2 |access-date=2025-04-04 |place=Wiesbaden |publisher=Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden |language=en |doi=10.1007/978-3-658-24078-3_2 |isbn=978-3-658-24077-6}} While most would recognize many of the genres as Westerns, gangsters, musicals, etc., often the cycles were significantly more specific. A cycle is different from a genre or a subgenre, because a cycle focuses on a timeframe, the other two can be used at different times. Hollywood studios created my cycles to attract viewers in the 20th century, and succeed at the box office.{{Cite journal |last=Bodroghkozy |first=Aniko |date=2002 |title=Reel Revolutionaries: An Examination of Hollywood's Cycle of 1960s Youth Rebellion Films |url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/1225698 |journal=Cinema Journal |volume=41 |issue=3 |pages=38–58 |issn=0009-7101}} Major Hollywood studios have made profits from film cycles because viewers are interest on films with the same theme or topic.{{Citation |last=Loock |first=Kathleen |title=Chapter 16. Retro-Remaking: The 1980s Film Cycle in Contemporary Hollywood Cinema |date=2016-12-31 |work=Cycles, Sequels, Spin-offs, Remakes, and Reboots |pages=277–298 |editor-last=Klein |editor-first=Amanda Ann |url=https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.7560/309001-017/html |access-date=2025-04-04 |publisher=University of Texas Press |doi=10.7560/309001-017 |isbn=978-1-4773-0818-9 |editor2-last=Palmer |editor2-first=R. Barton}}

In the 1960s, successful examples of Hollywood cycles include cycles of youth revolution films, protest films, campus revolt films and youth rebellion films. However, in the 1980s, some films commercially failed, including Conan the Barbarian, The Thing and Footloose, because they did not meet the expectations.

Instead of "romantic comedy", a cycle might be described as the "Boy-meets-girl-boy-loses-girl-boy-gets-girl" cycle.