The Maltese Falcon has one plot—find the dang Falcon. That doesn't mean it's a simple one, though. With characters double-crossing and backstabbing one another (if you double-cross and backstab, does that mean you're stabbing the person in the front?), the plot twists and turns all over the place but still has only one goal—to find the dang Falcon.

We also follow Spade the entire time, making him our POV character. He helps summarize the plot at times, although most of the time he plays his cards close to the vest, making him a not-very-helpful narrator. Also, Spade is sometimes the last to know the plot being carried out by Gutman, so many scenes rely on Gutman explaining the plot of the movie to Spade in great detail.

Perhaps because the Falcon itself isn't mentioned in the movie until almost a third of the way into it, the movie contains an odd bit of exposition at the beginning, in the form of text explaining the Falcon's origins…in case you didn't read the title of the movie you just started watching. This serves as a bit of misdirection, because the Falcon isn't all that important—it's the obsession surrounding the Falcon that's riveting.