In the classic era of Hollywood cinema

Film

A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...

(1930 – 1945) "cycles" or genres matured. They were called cycles, which was a short term for stories that were similar. While we would recognize many of the genres as Westerns

Western (genre)

The Western is a genre of various visual arts, such as film, television, radio, literature, painting and others. Westerns are devoted to telling stories set primarily in the latter half of the 19th century in the American Old West, hence the name. Some Westerns are set as early as the Battle of...

, gangsters, musicals

Musical film

The musical film is a film genre in which songs sung by the characters are interwoven into the narrative, sometimes accompanied by dancing. The songs usually advance the plot or develop the film's characters, though in some cases they serve merely as breaks in the storyline, often as elaborate...

, etc., often the cycles were significantly more specific. Instead of "romantic comedy" it might be "Boy-meets-girl-boy-loses-girl-boy-gets-girl" cycle.

See also

• Film theory
  Film theory
  Film theory is an academic discipline that aims to explore the essence of the cinema and provides conceptual frameworks for understanding film's relationship to reality, the other arts, individual viewers, and society at large...
  
  
• Film genre
• Formula fiction
  Formula fiction
  In popular culture, formula fiction is literature in which the storylines and plots have been reused to the extent that the narratives are predictable. It is similar to genre fiction, which identifies a number of specific settings that are frequently reused...
  
  In literary works, generic storylines are referred to as formula fiction.