Magical Girl*: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Runner Up: Joan of Arcadia, Wonderfalls, Dead Like Me
*“Magical Girl” is a recognized subgenre of Manga and Anime describing stuff like Sailor Moon and InuYasha. I’m misappropriating it here to describe a genre I’ve observed in American television where a young woman has a supernatural experience, and either faces supernatural threats that are allegorical/metaphorical for problems of adolescence/young adulthood, or else uses her experiences to lend clarity to her mundane problems. I suppose the literary antecedents are The Wizard of Oz, Alice in Wonderland, and Peter Pan.
Big Budget War Movie: “Tora, Tora, Tora”
Kung Fu Movie: “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”
John Wayne Movie: “Rio Bravo”
Blaxploitation Movie: “Foxy Brown”
Caper Movie: “The Sting”
Baseball Movie: “Bull Durham”
plus another vote for “Das Boot” for submarine movie.
Best show about a prison break: Prison Break
Screwball detective: Monk
Caper: Raising Arizona
Pretentious French: Last Tango in Paris
College satire: Animal House
High school satire: Heathers
Tim Burton, a genre unto himself: Ed Wood
Naked Englishwoman: Kate Winslet, Titanic
Superhero:** Spider-Man**
Detective (any): The Rockford Files
Prison break: Le Trou (French, 1960)
Horror Movie in Space: Alien
War Movie in Space: Aliens
Fractured Fairy Tale: The Princess Bride