There are a lot of movies out there these days--just look at the schedule for your local movie theater, or take a browse through Netflix, and you'll see it for yourself. However, there are often times when I find myself wishing that film would explore certain genres more than it has been. In a time when the spectacle, special effects-driven, franchise-launching movie dominates the big screen, some classic genres have become all but forgotten. Marvel, DC, and James Bond are all well and good, but there's so much more for the big-budget movie to explore. Below, I’ve put together a list of seven genres I wish would make a comeback on the silver screen--genres that I think could produce great movies, given their potential to have the right mix of drama, entertainment, and meaning woven into them.

7. The Sword and Sandal

When was the last time you saw a really good movie about the Roman Empire, or the Greek heroes? The two names that pop into your head are probably Gladiator and Troy. Gladiator was great; Troy...it was okay (don't even talk to me about 300--just, no). But that's it. We live in a country whose governmental institutions are direct descendants of Rome and Athens. The values of those two cultures shaped all of Western society, and as such had a drastic impact on the world. Surely a movie with hoplites, or the marching legions of Rome, and all the accompanying ideological struggles of the ancient world, could perform well at the box office. I, for one, would surely be entertained.

6. The Medieval Adventure

There are so many great historical characters and settings in the Middle Ages; so many topics to explore that would have relevance today. You could make a movie about the Crusades, comment on the modern wars in the Middle East, and couch it all in the awesomeness of knights. Maybe you think that's already been done with Kingdom of Heaven though--that's fine, that was a pretty decent movie. So instead, maybe we could make a movie about the early battles of the Hundred Years' War and focus on how the common English longbowmen shocked the world by defeating their social betters, the French knights. In a world where some people feel that America is ruled by the 1%, that triumph of the lower classes could make a good point and be well received. Also, longbows. Knights. Rousing speeches. Epic battles. It would be awesome.

5. The Pirate/Swashbuckler

One of my all time favorite movies is Errol Flynn's 1935 movie Captain Blood, about an English doctor-turned slave-turned pirate. It's got it all: persecution, vengeance, romance, heroism--and some epic ship-to-ship battles to boot. Where did pirate movies go? Pirates of the Caribbean was good, but it was more of a fantasy/comedy set on a pirate ship. How much fun could audiences and writers have with pure, unadulterated pirate movies? Audiences could indulge themselves in swashbuckling buccaneering, and writers could explore the realm of pirates, one of the first organizations to feature democracy since Rome fell. If done well, such movies could make a king's ransom too.

4. The Fantasy Epic

Lord of the Rings was awesome, but Return of the King came out in 2003--13(!) years ago. Since then, the fantasy epic has struggled to come out with something comparable in scope, adventure, and thematic awesomeness. Eragon (2006) was a disaster, The Hobbit didn't come near to matching Peter Jackson's original trilogy or the book it was based on, and I don't have much hope for the upcoming Warcraft. It's time that a new fantasy epic finds it's way to the big screen, something resplendent with a quest, an ancient people in need of saving, a magical artifact in need of finding, a dastardly evil in need of destroying, or all of the above. Ideally, this would be an original idea, not based on a book or game. People love to get behind and root for heroes facing insurmountable odds, and it's been too long since we had an everyman up against magical forces they didn't understand.

3. The Space Opera

Reception to Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens varied between "this is amazing--we can forget the prequels ever happened!" and "I wish the force had stayed asleep until it found a new screenwriter." However, one thing that both sides of the debate agreed on was that it hearkened back to the original Star Wars movies--the ones that started the whole space opera craze that continued with Battlestar Galactica, Babylon 5, The Last Starfighter, and many others (people just disagreed as to whether or not that similarity to Episode IV was good). But now, all we've got is Star Trek and Star Wars, both of whose latest entries have been of dubious quality in this author's eyes. It's time that another good space story graced movie theaters, one with a new batch of space ships, a new cadre of aliens, and a new story that we can all get caught up in. Space is infinite, just like the human imagination. Surely the two can come together in some awesome way.

2. The Utopian Dystopia

We've had plenty of dystopic dystopias--places where everything sucks and everyone knows it--as of late: The Hunger Games, The Maze Runner, and the Insurgent series, to name just a few. However, the utopian dystopia, that old sci-fi go to where a beautiful world isn't all that it seems, hasn't really made much of an appearance since movies like I, Robot and Minority Report came out in the mid-2000s. In my mind, we can explore far more about humanity in these perfect world-gone wrong scenarios than we can in full-on dystopias, and it would be nice to see what modern, social media-influenced sensibilities could do with them.

1. The Western

Though it's fallen on hard times of late, the Western is one of the classic movie genres. Two of Hollywood's biggest stars--Clint Eastwood and John Wayne--emerged from it, and some of Hollywood's classic movies are Westerns--Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, to name just two. The Western is an undeniable part of the American character--it shows humanity at its best and at its worst; it shows that everlasting conflict between the need for adventure and the need for settling down. With its violence, desperation, and setting, it's a perfect vehicle for the exploration of the human character and condition. The only two good Westerns of the 21st century that I've seen are 3:10 to Yumaand True Grit, released, respectively, in 2007 and 2010. It's time that American film went back to analyzing that crucial time in American history--a time of racial tension, of social unrest, and miraculous technological progression. Between the chilling majesty of duels at dawn, the analysis of humanity, and the potential commentary on the modern world, Westerns have too much to offer to the modern moviegoer to remain off the big screen. More so than any of these genres, it's time that the Western came back.