A cultural movement is a change in the way a number of different disciplines approach their work. This embodies all art forms, the sciences, and philosophies. Historically, different nations or regions of the world have gone through their own independent sequence of movements in culture, but as world communications have accelerated this geographical distinction has become less distinct. When cultural movements go through revolutions from one to the next, genres tend to get attacked and mixed up, and often new genres are generated and old ones fade. These changes are often reactions against the prior cultural form, which typically has grown stale and repetitive. An obsession emerges among the mainstream with the new movement, and the old one falls into neglect - sometimes it dies out entirely, but often it chugs along favored in a few disciplines and occasionally making reappearances (sometimes prefixed with "neo-").

Um movimento cultural é uma mudança no modo como diferentes disciplinas (artísticas, científicas, filosóficas, etc.) encaram o seu trabalho. É, em grande medida, uma distinção artificial, uma vez que raramente existe uma quebra radical, deliberada e consciente, antes as mudanças se processam lentamente e quase de forma inconsciente.