Previous research shows that what genre of film a person favours is a good indication to what their favourite films will be. There are genres that are considers to be more 'women's films' and there are genres that are to be considered as 'men's films'. Films such as Rom-coms are usually told from the woman's point of view and therefore the target audience can relate to the protagonist more so. 'Men's films' tend to focus more on action and competition and less on romance. These expectation are consistent with Social Identity Theory which identifies people to seek out particular messages which support which support their social identity. So if a member of the target audience has gone through a similar experience or wants a similar experience to happen, they will actively seek out these films or relate to them more easily.
The Fischoff study indicated that the most popular film genres were Drama, Comedy, Action, Action-Adventure, Romance and the combined category of Science Fiction/Fantasy. This study was taken back in 1994 and during that time Science Fiction and Fantasy films couldn't really compete due to the lack of special effects that could tell the story well. If you look on the list of highest grossing films however, the top 3 contain 2 Fantasy genre films. These two films where made in the last 5 years, and the further you go down the list the more Fantasy, Action and Sci-Fi films you get, all made in recent years. So although this theory by Fischer can still apply to the majority of the population, the most popular genres are starting to change as new technology comes into practice within films.
Fischer's study does still apply a little to age and gender. It is still true that younger men tend to watch films that are in the genres of Action-Adventure, Drama and Horror which is stereotypical for this gender. Women however did mention a number of Action-Adventure, Science Fiction and Drama films in their top list of 25, which may be considered either within the male domain of genre preference or simply as films which star men or art shot from the male point of view. Clearly women are less restrictive in their gender cross-over behaviour than are men whose preferences ten to be male gender exclusive.
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