I once heard that all movie plots fall into just two categories: a boy (or girl) leaves home and a stranger comes to town. Someone else said that every movie story is about the search for authenticity. In my book, I list thirteen plots, from the classic antagonists/strangers on a journey (“Wizard of Oz,” “Midnight Run,” “It Happened One Night,” “Toy Story”) to the ups and downs and sometimes ups again of romance (“An Affair to Remember,””Annie Hall,” “Bringing Up Baby”), to what Alfred Hitchcock called the macguffin search for anything from the lost treasure to the secret formula (“Raiders of the Lost Ark,” the James Bond and Jason Bourne movies), to rise-and-fall (and sometimes rise) biopics (“Ray,” “Dreamgirls,” “All the King’s Men,” “Race”).

New York Magazine has the most detailed and entertaining list of every possible plot in fiction, whether novels or movies. The examples include a wide range of classics to read or re-read.