How would you define the "Epic" film as a genre?

Out of boredom, I'm putting together my own custom genre map. Right now it's in a prototype list form and I'm adding "epic." I've always considered it its own genre, but I was never certain of what subgenre if any. I know for a fact that I don't consider it it's own thing. It could file under adventure or drama as far as I've considered, but before I make my decision I want to hear everyone else's two cents because I love discussing these things and hearing other takes.


What I consider epic films: big budget dramatic films that focus on extended scenes of scenery and very cinematic music.


My favorites:


The LOTR Trilogy
The Lion King
The Original Star Wars Trilogy
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
Solaris (1972)
Ben-Hur
Abel Gance's Napoleon
The Prince of Egypt
The Ten Commandments
Titanic



Other great epics:
Lawrence of Arabia
Princess Mononoke
Apollo 13
Braveheart
Gone with the Wind
2001
Gladiator
War and Peace: Part 1


Maybe's:


Forrest Gump
There Will Be Blood
The Right Stuff

It's too vague and subjective a genre really. How much is a big budget? Don't think Solaris was a big budget film.

Those special effects would've fooled me.

I think I'd agree that budget is not technically a requirement, even though the correlation there is obviously quite high, since generating sufficient stakes and scale cheaply is tough to do.

1972 - 800,000 US dollars, which in todays money is around $5m. Nomadland cost $5m. It also has very cinematic music, extended scenes of scenery and is a drama. But I wouldn't call it an epic.

There are certain films that are clearly epics. Once Upon a Time in America for instance. But there are others that are very subjective. Also why only the original Star Wars trilogy? Surely every star wars movie has the same content?

I didn't really get an epic vibe from Episode I last time I saw it, so I left the other two trilogies out just in case. Besides, I was only really listing the "great" movies.

I was thinking Ben-Hur and The Ten Commandments but you've already included those. How about the Harry Potter movies?

I've only seen the first four. There's some of it but I don't think it was a primary focus for those.

I think "epic" requires both a grand scale and plot to even make it on the list of possible entries.

Marvel universe
LOTR trilogy
Star Wars trilogy (the other ones don't count)
Ten Commandments
Indiana Jones trilogy (that other one doesn't count)


The question is, can we fit something like the man with no name series in there? It hardly has a grand plot, and everything could take place down the street from me, and chances are I could sleep through it. A great series of movies, but just not "epic".

This is not really an established film genre in the way that "the western" is an established genre. It's more of a 2nd order characterization (a modifier of a modifier): An historical epic. A fantasy epic. A sci-fi epic.

It's established enough that there is a Wikipedia entry for it.

Being told that a film is an "epic film," however, does not necessarily tell on what the themes are, the period in which it is set, what to expect in terms of camera style and shot length, etc. Basically, you're being told "this is big." "Look at this big war, look at this big human crisis, look at this big shift in history" (real or imagined).

I suppose one can offer typical (if not necessary) features such as, "big budgets," "big casts," "wide-shots" featuring action, "dramatic music with marked themes" (usually in a major key?), and eye-candy in terms of swarms of humanity massing for some purpose. What we have is a loose set of family resemblances that allow/provoke us to occasionally grab at it.

I can, for example, remember seeing Braveheart when it was released in theaters. When I left the theater with my group, we discussed by it, having been rather struck by it, as well as entertained. The answer I gave was that Hollywood had finally offered up a modern epic film. Is Braveheart an epic film? Does it belong? I don't know. When a run-of-the-mill production can CGI 10,000 screaming NPCs into any given shot, Braveheart seems quaint, perhaps a bit small in comparison. Nevertheless, in the moment that was my explanation for why it was different.

There is a utility in having some words in our vocabulary remain ambiguous. What is, for example, a "thing"? That's hard to say as a "thing" can be damned near anything at all, which is why it is such a convenient word. That's the thing about things.

I would not, therefore, despair at the imprecision and fuzziness of the word "epic." It's a big, free-floating, ephemeral word that occasionally feels just right and which we can use to offer an additional characterization of a film. We should resist the temptation to get Aesthetic Asbergers here and scaffold around the word, interrogate it, and construct some new gated meaning to regulate it's usage. Do not go seeking out after essential features and the fearful symmetries of analytic logic here. Trying to capture what an epic in this way is a bit sending out a SWAT team to catch a butterfly (you'll kill it in the act of capturing it). An epic is more of a "thing" relative to some of our more precise categories. And that's OK.

I think that, like most people have said, the key ingredient is the "large scale". Be it because it covers long periods of time or has a big scope in terms of stakes, geography, or impact of the events depicted.

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I disagree. Epic films have a tendency to play up drama in a more bombastic/tense way, whether for the scenery or through the music. This way is obviously something different from the thriller or horror score (although I guess epic thrillers and horrors could exist but I haven't seen one yet). I mean, on the subject of Star Wars, family and separation are two of the biggest running themes, as well as life and loss.

Would Parasite (2019) be considered epic, or A Fistful of Dollars (1964)/Yojimbo (1961), even though they take place in limited locations in smaller time frames than some obvious epic movies?

Not enough focus on scenery and score. Its first and foremost focus (five times fast) is the characters and their deeds. Yojimbo is more fast-paced (and if I recall, less reliant on music).

Oh okay I thought that with A Fistful of Dollars, the score was pretty much the star of the movie, at least it was with me.

Yojimbo and Fistful felt very different despite being the same movie (and very close in quality).

To me, an epic film is something that's grand. Something where the scope is off the scale, that feels limitless and something where it seems anything could happen. The modern films that fit that description best today are those from Marvel Studios, which are truly limitless in what they hope to achieve.

The LOTR Trilogy
The Lion King
The Original Star Wars Trilogy
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
Solaris (1972)
Ben-Hur - Epic
The Ten Commandments - Epic
Titanic
Lawrence of Arabia - Epic
Princess Mononoke
Apollo 13
Braveheart
Gone with the Wind
2001
Gladiator
Forrest Gump
There Will Be Blood
The Right Stuff

The rest are just 'long ass' movies

For me an epic is a single film an opus is a series. So LOTR is an opus not an epic but Fellowship of the Ring is an epic. You can have an epic that is multi-generational.

Intolerance (1916)

Gone with the Wind (1939)
Giant (1956)

Ben-Hur (1959)
Nicholas and Alexandra (1971)

Braveheart (1995)
Sunshine (1999)

The Patriot (2000)
Kingdom of Heaven (2005)

I notice few people putting there will be blood on the list and that to me doesn't fall under epic category because of its budget.Call me superficial, but for me the main thing that separates an epic from a non-epic is the budget. A movie should first and foremost have a budget of 90 million or more to be considered an epic. Anything below that is never epic. No matter how many location or time spans the movie covers. If it's below that budget range it is not an epic. It's just a mid budget movie.There will be blood is around 40 million and it's no epic.
And then the movie needs scope and scale to back up that budget. It doesn't need to span ages or locations but the look and storytelling of the movie should communicate the scale. In my opinion, here are some epics.

LOTR trilogy
The dark knight trilogy
Titanic
Troy
Wolf of wall street(yup, its epic in the way it tells the story)
Django unchained(contrary to inglourious basterds, which is not an epic)
Lawrence of arabia(grand daddy of all epics)
Godfather 1 and 2(it conveys the scope and scale whereas goodfellas is not)
Inception
Ford V Ferrari(but not once upon a time in hollywood)
Dances with Wolves(2nd most epic movie after lawrence of arabia)