A social problem film is a narrative film that integrates a larger social conflict into the individual conflict between its characters. Like many film genres, the exact definition is often in the eye of the beholder, but Hollywood did produce and market a number of topical films in the 1930s and by the 1940s, the term "social problem" or "message" film was conventional in its usage among the film industry and the public.

Progressive Era

Historian Kay Sloan has shown how various reformist groups made social problem shorts and features during the silent era. Generally, these dealt with prohibition

Prohibition

Prohibition of alcohol, often referred to simply as prohibition, is the practice of prohibiting the manufacture, transportation, import, export, sale, and consumption of alcohol and alcoholic beverages. The term can also apply to the periods in the histories of the countries during which the...

, labor relations and concerns over "white slavery." As a genre, however, these Progressive statements did not touch off a long-lasting concern in the film industry, which was solidifying behind standardized product, oligopoly and the star system.

The 1930s

Warner Brothers under Darryl F. Zanuck

Darryl F. Zanuck

Darryl Francis Zanuck was an American producer, writer, actor, director and studio executive who played a major part in the Hollywood studio system as one of its longest survivors...

 started making topical films "ripped from the headlines." These "headliners" generally were cheaply made, gritty in their realist aesthetic, and foregrounded a working class milieu and New Deal political sympathies. Mervyn LeRoy

Mervyn LeRoy

Mervyn LeRoy was an American film director, producer and sometime actor.-Early life:Born to Jewish parents in San Francisco, California, his family was financially ruined by the 1906 earthquake...

's I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang

I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang

I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang is a Pre-Code crime/drama film starring Paul Muni as a wrongfully convicted convict on a chain gang who escapes to Chicago. The film was written by Howard J. Green and Brown Holmes from Robert Elliott Burns's autobiography, I Am a Fugitive from a Georgia Chain...

was the most notable of the genre, and its success led Warner Brothers and other studios to copy the formula.

Meanwhile, at Columbia Pictures

Columbia Pictures

Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production and distribution company. Columbia Pictures now forms part of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate Sony. It is one of the leading film companies...

, Frank Capra

Frank Capra

Frank Russell Capra was a Sicilian-born American film director. He emigrated to the U.S. when he was six, and eventually became a creative force behind major award-winning films during the 1930s and 1940s...

 made his reputation (among the industry and filmgoing public alike; a rarity in those days) by developing his signature blend of social problem film and screwball comedy

Screwball comedy film

The screwball comedy is a principally American genre of comedy film that became popular during the Great Depression, originating in the early 1930s and thriving until the early 1940s. It is characterized by fast-paced repartee, farcical situations, escapist themes, and plot lines involving...

. Working with writer Robert Riskin

Robert Riskin

Robert Riskin was an American screenwriter and playwright, best known for his collaborations with director-producer Frank Capra.-Career:...

, he would develop, repeat and refine this blend in films like Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, Meet John Doe, and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.

The 1940s

The postwar social problem films marked a noticeable shift away from economic problems to ones of social and psychological adjustment. William Wyler

William Wyler

William Wyler was a leading American motion picture director, producer, and screenwriter.Notable works included Ben-Hur , The Best Years of Our Lives , and Mrs. Miniver , all of which won Wyler Academy Awards for Best Director, and also won Best Picture...

's Best Years of Our Lives chronicled three returning veterans adjusting to civilian life. Billy Wilder

Billy Wilder

Billy Wilder was an Austro-Hungarian born American filmmaker, screenwriter, producer, artist, and journalist, whose career spanned more than 50 years and 60 films. He is regarded as one of the most brilliant and versatile filmmakers of Hollywood's golden age...

's Lost Weekend was about alcoholism, inaugurating a cycle of films dealing with drug and alcohol abuse. Films like Gentleman's Agreement, Pinky and Home of the Brave tackled anti-Semitism and racism.

The 1950s and 1960s

McCarthyism

McCarthyism

McCarthyism is the practice of making accusations of disloyalty, subversion, or treason without proper regard for evidence. The term has its origins in the period in the United States known as the Second Red Scare, lasting roughly from the late 1940s to the late 1950s and characterized by...

, in the form of the House Un-American Activities Committee

House Un-American Activities Committee

The House Committee on Un-American Activities or House Un-American Activities Committee was an investigative committee of the United States House of Representatives. In 1969, the House changed the committee's name to "House Committee on Internal Security"...

, dampened some of Hollywood's enthusiasm for left-leaning critiques of American society, but the genre continued nonetheless over the next two decades. Robert Wise

Robert Wise

Robert Earl Wise was an American sound effects editor, film editor, film producer and director...

's 1951 science fiction film The Day the Earth Stood Still

The Day the Earth Stood Still

The Day the Earth Stood Still is a 1951 American science fiction film directed by Robert Wise and written by Edmund H. North based on the short story "Farewell to the Master" by Harry Bates. The film stars Michael Rennie, Patricia Neal, Sam Jaffe, and Hugh Marlowe...

urged international cooperation in matters of violence and world security in an environment of Cold War mistrust and nuclear paranoia: the "message" is literally delivered to the Earth by a civilized extraterrestrial. Stanley Kramer

Stanley Kramer

Stanley Earl Kramer was an American film director and producer. Kramer was responsible for some of Hollywood's most famous "message" movies...

's exposés of racism — The Defiant Ones, Pressure Point and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? — became synonymous with the genre. Also, "juvenile delinquency films" combined the censorious tone of social problem films with exploitation film

Exploitation film

Exploitation film is a type of film that is promoted by "exploiting" often lurid subject matter. The term "exploitation" is common in film marketing, used for all types of films to mean promotion or advertising. These films then need something to exploit, such as a big star, special effects, sex,...

 and melodrama

Melodrama

The term melodrama refers to a dramatic work that exaggerates plot and characters in order to appeal to the emotions. It may also refer to the genre which includes such works, or to language, behavior, or events which resemble them...

.