Genre difference, repetition and similarity.

Unlike genres such as western or sci-fi, the thriller genre is very diverse, of course certain conventions follow through most thrillers. We primarily associate tension and suspense with the thriller genre, we are kept on the edges of our seats throughout thrillers, that's what makes them exciting to watch and different from other genres of film.

Here are two films that fall into the thriller genre:



Although these films are in the same genre, they are extremely different from one another. The first major difference between the two is that one was set in the real world and was based on actual events. Lone Survivor is a military film heavily orientated around confrontation and the physical and mental struggle the soldiers went through, there is endless shots of death and heavy blood. The story follows a very linear narrative following a group of soldiers fighting until death to leave a lone survivor who is rescued by the u.s army. The film starts with a flash forward of  This is a totally different plot and narrative to Inception where all the action is placed inside dreams, tension is created through the characters and what they get up to in the plot rather than creating tension through realistic events such as the Taliban coming breathtakingly close to the hiding spot of the protagonist






 Being a military film, the characters tended to be in either military uniform or rags and turbans this contrasts the costume used in inception which typically consisted of suits as shown in the poster. However although these films have a large amount of differences, they share the same fundamentals. As a thriller they both create a great deal of tension, there are many occasions in the film where we are left with our hearts pounding. For example when we don't know whether Cobb will spend his eternity in "Limbo" or if he will return to the real world in inception, or when the four soldiers throw themselves of a 40ft cliff to save themselves from the advancing Taliban forces.