Film presented in a series of episodes over several months.
The serials, usually adventure melodramas, probably developed from the adventure stories published in monthly installments in magazines. The first internationally popular serial, The Perils of Pauline (1914), starring Pearl White, was followed by other serials such as The Hazards of Helen , which ran for 119 episodes (1914–17). Serials focused on action sequences, with cliff-hanging endings for each episode. They remained popular with movie audiences, especially children, into the 1940s.