Adventures are one of the oldest of the genres. The adventure novel itself is also one of the earliest genres of novels. Adventure stories feature relatively flat characters who undergo risk and danger.
The most common format will have the hero meet a girl (or a boy, in more modern incarnations) after enduring several trials, be torn apart, and then reunited after more adventures. Morality is often very black and white, plots very linear. The heroes are generally not formally involved in law enforcement but often find themselves battling evil and/or criminals while Walking the Earth. Vigilantes are common.
Frequently overlaps with other genres such as the Picaresque Novel, Historical Fiction, Speculative Fiction, Sea Stories and The Western.
In visual media, it is similar to the Action Series but with less emphasis on violence, fighting and car chases and more on exotic locations, exploration and puzzle solving. See also Adventure Game. Often overlaps with just about every single other genre out there.
Subgenres:
- Adventure Literature
- High Fantasy
- Jungle Opera
- Planetary Romance
- Robinsonade
- Space Opera
- Swashbuckler
- Sword and Sorcery
- Two-Fisted Tales
Alternatively, you might be looking for the Atari 2600 game or the tabletop RPG.
Examples
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Anime & Manga
Comic Books
Fan Works
- Double the Trouble
- Hearts of Ice (overlapping with Fantasy)
- Hellsister Trilogy (overlapping with Space Opera)
- Kara of Rokyn
- Point Me at the Skyrim
- Tokimeki PokéLive! and TwinBee Only in the Side Story arcs and crossover arcs. (Overlapping with Urban Fantasy, Science Fantasy, Fighting Series and Action)
Film
- Adventure in Sahara
- Aquaman
- Avatar
- The Bandit of Sherwood Forest
- Blonde Savage
- Clash of the Titans (1981)
- Clash of the Titans (2010)
- "Crocodile" Dundee
- The Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course
- Cutthroat Island
- Dave Made a Maze
- Deep Gold
- Diamonds on Wheels
- The Goonies
- Green Mansions
- Indiana Jones
- The Island at the Top of the World
- Jason and the Argonauts
- Jungle
- Jungle Cruise
- King Kong (1933)
- King Kong (1976)
- King Kong (2005)
- Kong: Skull Island
- Long John Silver
- Lara Croft: Tomb Raider
- The Lord of the Rings, overlapping with High Fantasy.
- The Lost City
- The Lost World
- The Man from Kangaroo
- The Mighty Peking Man - the Hong Kong knockoff of the King Kong movies.
- Miss Fisher and the Crypt of Tears
- Mistress of the Apes
- Mortal Engines
- The Mummy Trilogy
- National Treasure
- One Million Years B.C.
- The Princess Bride
- Pirates of the Caribbean
- Princess of Thieves
- Rogues of Sherwood Forest
- Romancing the Stone
- Rope Of Sand
- ''Run for the Sun'
- Sands of the Kalahari
- Sinbad
- Sky Bandits
- Star Wars, overlapping with Space Opera.
- The Terror of the Tongs
- That Man from Rio
- Tiger Fangs
- Tomb Raider (2018)
- Uncharted (2022)
- The Woman Hunt
- Yamashita: The Tiger's Treasure
- Yellow Hair and the Fortress of Gold, overlapping with The Western.
Literature
- Across a Jade Sea
- The Adventures of Strong Vanya
- The Black Arrow
- Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian stories, which like Tolkien also overlaps with fantasy, though his brand of fantasy is more Heroic Low Fantasy, or sword and sorcery.
- Most of James Fenimore Cooper's novels qualify. Many of them also belong to Historical Fiction and belong to one of two genres he pioneered, the Frontier Novel (proto-Western) and the Sea Novel. The Pathfinder manages to be all three in one.
- The Creatures of Supernatural
- Doc Savage was a series of books published during the pulp era, featuring a Science Hero (and Genius Bruiser) who traveled the world with his friends, seeking adventure and righting wrongs. He also carried a commission from the NYPD enabling him to act with official police authority.
- The Farthest-Away Mountain by Lynne Reid Banks, a fairy tale-style adventure.
- The Great Zoo of China
- The Headless Horseman by Thomas Mayne Reid, overlapping with Horror.
- Ivanhoe
- King Solomon's Mines and sequels by H. Rider Haggard.
- Lagadin's Legacy by Jonathan Anthony and Samuel Inglis, is kind of a unique case, as it uses many Adventure tropes, but also includes elements of thriller and satire.
- Old Mortality
- The Princess Bride
- Rob Roy
- The Sea Hawk
- Simplicissimus, which is in fact the oldest adventure novel in the German language
- The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas.
- Tolkien's Legendarium:
- The Hobbit
- The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien, overlapping with Fantasy.
- Treasure Island and Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson.
- 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Journey to the Center of the Earth and Around the World in Eighty Days by the aforementioned Jules Verne, overlapping with Speculative Fiction.
- Waverley
- The Wonderful Wizard of Oz; Dorothy meets not one, but three grown men who become her sidekicks while going through a myriad of adventures in order to get what they want most in their lives.
Live-Action TV
- The Adventures of Sinbad
- The Astronauts (2020)
- Bring 'Em Back Alive
- Crossbow
- Hercules: The Legendary Journeys
- The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power
- MacGyver
- National Treasure: Edge of History
- Powerhouse
- Sea Hunt
- SeaQuest DSV
- Sliders
- Stargate-verse
- Star Trek
- Unnatural History
- The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles
- The Witcher
Video Games
- The Elder Scrolls
- The Legend of Zelda
- Mass Effect — overlapping with both the Space Opera and Military Science Fiction Genres
- Rayman
- Shadow Guardian — a painfully blatant Uncharted clone
- Sonic the Hedgehog
- Super Mario Bros.
- Tomb Raider
- Uncharted
Webcomics
- Black Smith
- The 18th-century parts of The Dreamer.
- Modern Day Treasure Seekers
- Tower of God
Western Animation
- Adventure Time
- The Adventures of Tintin (1991)
- The Adventures of Tintin (2011)
- Amphibia
- Billy Dilley's Super Duper Subterranean Summer
- Blake and Mortimer
- Courage the Cowardly Dog
- Craig of the Creek
- Delilah & Julius
- Digman!
- DuckTales (1987)
- Gravity Falls
- Hilda
- The Hollow
- Infinity Train
- Jonny Quest
- Jumanji
- The Last Kids on Earth
- The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack
- Rick and Morty
- Ripley's Believe It or Not!
- Steven Universe
- Thundarr the Barbarian
- Valley of the Dinosaurs
- Valt the Wonder Deer
