Top 5 favorite film genres?

Hell, I don't know.

1. Post-apocalyptic -- Well, maybe not film genres, as movies rarely make compelling post-apoc. They all wind up using the same "everybody is evil and can't be trusted" cliche (also zombies). But done right, there's nothing better. The key thing is that post-apoc is very consistent thematically: all stories in this genre are about loss. People are searching for something that they once had and can no longer find. Whatever it is that made them feel "normal," be it a dog (The Rover), a child (The Last of Us), parents and family (Zombieland), a job (the now-defunct webcomic Derelict), or whatever else, they have lost their safety net and now feel like they're drowning in a mad world.

I've always been drawn to these stories for that reason: tales of feeling ill-at-ease with any damn person you meet is something I strongly identify with. Many of my favorite films feel like post-apoc without having the trappings: Tyrannosaur with its outsiders struggling for hope, Rosetta with her compulsive need to be employed, Wendy and Lucy with its tale of a woman who has slipped through the cracks of family and society, needing that last safety net of her beloved dog to even feel human anymore. These stories, whether they technically feature the fall of civilization or not, exist in the same emotional space.

1a. Distant Apocalypse -- A subgenre I also enjoy. By taking the same idea and moving it to the children who have always lived in a "ruined" world, it takes the focus away from "losing what made us feel human" to "finding what makes us feel human." Link in The Wind Waker doesn't see the desolation and loss of Hyrule, he sees the beauty of his world of islands and sailing (god, I loved the sailing in that game) and whatever loss may be a part of the ruins around him means nothing. Civilizations fall and rise, people live or die, but what matters to Link is today, and there's a beauty to that. Ganon is trapped in his past by his own thoughts, but Link has only a future.

2. Gentle drama -- By this, I mean stories that aren't about big happenings or killings or adulteries, but the rhythms of normal life. Films that are about kindness and gentleness, like Babette's Feast or Our Little Sister or I Wish or Only Yesterday or My Neighbor Totoro or My Neighbors the Yamadas or Kedi or Kiki's Delivery Service or Once or Paterson or Whisper of the Heart or An Autumn Afternoon or... sorry, I got carried away.

3. Black comedy -- Watching the final segment of Wild Tales will always make me laugh. Or The Trouble with Harry ("He's asleep. He's in a deep sleep. A deep, wonderful sleep."). Or Fargo.

4. Suspense/Mystery/Horror -- As far as I'm concerned, they're the same thing: there's a suspense to not knowing what will happen, and there's the mystery. And not knowing fill-in-the-blank is the key to great horror: there's something that we don't or can't know and the knowledge that we can't grasp what is happening is terrifying.

5. Screwball comedy -- Arsenic and Old Lace, What's Up Doc, The Court Jester. Why did this brand of comedy die out for tacky action comedies? Such a shame. *Grumble*Old Man*Grumble*