IMSDB – Internet Movie Screenplay Database. IMDB has proven a valuable resource for researching. Like last year, scripts had to receive at least two mentions to be included on the roster. Remember, The Black List emphasizes that it’s not a “best of” list but, at best, a “most liked.
I've got all 70 of the BlackList scripts and have begun reading them. There is lots of good stuff here.The number one script 'The Imitation Game,' is great. It has already been optioned for Leonardo DiCaprio and slated for 2014.
If you can get your hands on these, I highly recommend reading them, as it gives great insight into the current writing trends.
You can see what agents consider the BEST. You can also gauge different agents tastes and possibly pitch those agents your similar project.
The most fascinating thing is how many screenwriting rules are broken. Writers are including emotions, camera angles and specific music in the scripts, which has long been a NO, No.
Film executive Franklin Leonard has been compiling The Black List since 2005. He started it out of desperation. Then a development executive at Appian Way, Leonard had been drowning in a sea of bad screenplays. He turned to his counterparts in the industry for a life preserver, and his simple e-mail to 75 Hollywood execs asking for good script suggestions resulted in an avalanche of replies.
He compiled those answers into a dossier he dubbed the Black List — part self-referential title (Leonard is African American) and part ironic nod to the 1940s and '50s Hollywood blacklist of suspected communists and communist sympathizers that on occasion derailed careers. A phenomenon was born.
Today, over 300 people participate in compiling the list; those invited to participate contribute an unranked list of up to 10 of their favorite scripts of the year. While the number of participants has ballooned, Leonard says the purpose of the list remains the same: to recognize solid screenplays.
In the past, the list has been responsible for bringing Oscar-winning films such as Juno, Slumdog Millionaire and The King's Speech to the attention of studios.
The 2011 list consists of 74 screenplays that film executives have voted their favorite scripts yet to make it into production.
This year, scripts had to receive at least six mentions to be included on The Black List.
The Black List is not a 'best of' list. It is, at best, a 'most liked' list.
Enjoy.
#1. 133 Votes
THE IMITATION GAME
by Graham Moore
The story of British WWII cryptographer Alan Turing, who cracked the German Enigma code and later poisoned himself after being criminally prosecuted for being a homosexual.
AGENCY: CAA
AGENT: JP Evans, Jacqueline Sacerio
MANAGEMENT: The Safran Company
MANAGER: Tom Drumm
FINANCIER: Warner Brothers
PRODUCER: Ido Ostrowsky, Nora Grossman
#2. 84 Votes
WHEN THE STREET LIGHTS GO ON
by Chris Hutton, Eddie O’Keefe
In the early 1980s, a town suffers through the aftermath of a brutal murder of a high school girl and a teacher.
AGENCY: WME
AGENT: Simon Faber, Sarah Self
MANAGEMENT: Tariq Merhab Management
MANAGER: Tariq Merhab
PRODUCER: Imagine Entertainment
#3. 59 Votes
CHEWIE
by Evan Susser, Van Robichaux
A satirical behind the scenes look at the making of Star Wars through the eyes of Peter Mayhew who played Chewbacca.
AGENCY: WMEAGENT: Mike Esola
MANAGEMENT: Industry Entertainment
MANAGER: Jess Rosenthal
#4. 53 Votes
THE OUTSIDER
by Andrew Baldwin
In post World War II Japan, an American former prisoner-of-war rises in the yakuza.
AGENCY: CAA
AGENT: Jay Baker, John Garvey
MANAGEMENT: Anonymous Content
MANAGER: Bard Dorros, David Kanter
FINANCIER: Warner Brothers
PRODUCER: Linson Entertainment
#5. 43 Votes
FATHER DAUGHTER TIME: A TALE OF ARMED ROBBERY AND ESKIMO KISSES
by Matthew Aldrich
A man goes on a three state crime spree with an accomplice, his eleven year old daughter.
AGENCY: CAA
AGENT: John Garvey, Stuart Manashil
MANAGEMENT: Silent R Management
MANAGER: Jewerl Ross
FINANCIER: Warner Brothers
PRODUCER: Pearl Street Productions
#6. 33 Votes
IN THE EVENT OF A MOON DISASTER
by Mike Jones
An alternate telling of the historic APOLLO 11 mission to land on the moon that examines what might have happened if the astronauts had crash landed there.
AGENCY: CAA
AGENT: David Kopple, JP Evans, Matt Rosen
MANAGEMENT: The Gotham Group
MANAGER: Lindsay Williams
PRODUCER: FilmNation
#7. 30 Votes
MAGGIE
by John Scott 3
As a “walking dead” virus spreads across the country, a farm family helps their eldest daughter come to terms with her infection as she slowly becomes a flesh-eating zombie.
AGENCY: CAA
AGENT: Billy Hawkins, Dan RabinowMANAGEMENT: Sly Predator
MANAGER: Trevor Kaufman
FINANCIER: Pierre-Ange Le Pogam
PRODUCER: Pierre-Ange Le Pogam, Trevor Kaufman, Matthew Baer
#8. 30 Votes
THE CURRENT WAR
by Michael Mitnick
Based on the true story of the race between Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse to develop a practical system of electricity and sell their respective inventions to the country and the world.
AGENCY: WME
AGENT: Simon Faber
MANAGEMENT: Fourth Floor Productions
MANAGER: Jeff Silver
#9. 29 Votes
GALSPANIC
by Paul Roc
A shy flat chested girl must compete in the BIG breasted world of Wet T-Shirt contests in order to save her grandmothers bar from a religious nut.
AGENCY: WME
AGENT: Robert Newman
MANAGEMENT: PW Media Group
MANAGER: Michael Hutchinson
#10. 28 Votes
THE END
by Aron Eli Coleite
Four people - a veteran broadcaster in London, a sixteen year old girl and her boyfriend in Ann Arbor, and a devoted family man in Shanghai - each try to make peace with their lives before an interstellar event ends the world in six hours.
AGENCY: CAA
AGENT: Matt Rosen, Martin Spencer
FINANCIER: Warner Brothers
#11. 27 Votes
BEYOND THE PALE
by Chad Feehan
Teenage siblings suspect they’ve been ripped off by the town undertaker, but what they discover is much more sinister than either imagined.
AGENCY: CAA
AGENT: Matt Rosen, Jacqueline Sacerio
MANAGEMENT: Management 360
MANAGER: Guymon Casady, Mary Lee
FINANCIER: Vendome Pictures
PRODUCER: The Fort
#12. 27 Votes
EZEKIEL MOSS
by Keith Bunin
A mysterious stranger who possibly has the power to channel the souls of the dead changes the lives of everyone in a small Nebraska town, especially a young widow and her 11-year-old son.
AGENCY: CAA
AGENT: Rowena Arguelles
MANAGEMENT: Kaplan/Perrone
MANAGER: Alex Lerner, Sean Perrone
PRODUCER: A Likely Story, Mandalay Pictures
#13. 24 Votes
GRACE OF MONACO
by Arash Amel
Grace Kelly, age 33 and having given up her acting career to focus on being a full time princess, uses her political maneuvering behind the scenes to save Monaco while French Leader Charles de Gaulle and Monaco’s Prince Rainier III are at odds over the princi¬pality’s standing as a tax haven.
AGENCY: CAA
AGENT: Rich Green, Matt Rosen
FINANCIER: Pierre-Ange Le Pogam
PRODUCER: Pierre-Ange Le Pogam
#14. 24 Votes
HE’S FUCKIN’ PERFECT
by Lauryn Kahn
A social media savvy girl who is pessimistic about love finds the perfect guy and decides to use her internet research skills to turn herself into his perfect match.
AGENCY: WME
AGENT: Cliff Roberts
FINANCIER: Fox 2000
PRODUCER: Gary Sanchez
#15. 23 Votes
BETHLEHEM
by Larry Brenner
A group of people struggling to survive a zombie apocalypse make an alliance with a vampire, trading themselves as food in exchange for protection since zombies don’t eat vampire.
AGENCY: CAA
AGENT: Martin Spencer, Jacqueline Sacerio
MANAGEMENT: Magnet Management
MANAGER: Mitch Solomon
PRODUCER: Roth Films
#16. 20 Votes
THE THREE MISFORTUNES OF GEPPETTO:
by Michael Vukadinovich
A prequel to the story of Pinocchio in which Geppetto endures a life of misfortune, war, and ad¬venture, all to be with Julia Moon, his true love.
AGENCY: ICM
AGENT: Ava Jamshidi
FINANCIER: Fox
PRODUCER: 21 Laps Entertainment
#17. 20 Votes
POWELL
by Ed Whitworth
Based on the true story of Colin Powell questioning the Bush administration leading up to his United Nations presentation where he made the case for going to war with Iraq.
AGENCY: WME
AGENT: David Karp, Cliff Roberts, Dan Cohan
MANAGEMENT: Circle of Confusion
MANAGER: Ashley Berns
PRODUCER: Spirit Dance Entertainment
#18. 19 Votes
THE KNOLL:
by Christopher Cantwell, Christopher Rogers
A rookie cop and his potential flame witness JFK gunned down from the grassy knoll on November 22, 1963. Within hours, they’re on the run from the murderers who desperately need them silenced.
AGENCY: ICM
AGENT: Aaron Hart
MANAGEMENT: Management 360
MANAGER: Jennifer Graham, Chris Huvane
PRODUCER: Management 360
#19. 17 Votes
HOW TO DISAPPEAR COMPLETELY:
by Ed Solomon
A child prodigy tries to take control of his life away from his demanding parents.
AGENCY: CAA
AGENT: Jay Baker, Todd Feldman, David O’Connor
FINANCIER: Sony
PRODUCER: Escape Artists
#20. 17 Votes
DESPERATE HOURS
by E Nicholas Mariani
A small town crippled by WWI and the Spanish flu finds itself facing major moral questions and a brutal invading force when a young girl shows up on a rancher’s doorstep covered in blood.
AGENCY: UTA
AGENT: Charles Ferraro, Jenny Maryasis
MANAGEMENT: Circle of Confusion
MANAGER: Britton Rizzio
FINANCIER: GK Films
PRODUCER: Infinitum Nihil
#21. 17 Votes
A MANY SPLINTERED THING
by Chris Shafer, Paul Vicknair
When a charming heartbreaker finally meets a girl he can’t have, he discovers the true meaning of love by living out other people’s love stories and writing his own.
AGENCY: UTA
AGENT: Jon Huddle, Jason Burns, Max Michael
MANAGEMENT: Brillstein Entertainment Partners
MANAGER: Missy Malkin
PRODUCER: Wonderland Sound and Vision
#22. 17 Votes
FLARSKY
by Daniel Sterling
A political journalist courts his old babysitter, who is now the United States secretary of state.
AGENCY: UTA
AGENT: Julien Thuan
PRODUCER: Point Grey Pictures
#23. 17 Votes
BLOOD MOUNTAIN
by Jonathan Stokes
After his team is ambushed and killed in Pakistan, a young army ranger must escort the world’s most wanted terrorist over dangerous terrain in order to bring him to justice. While being hunted by both of their enemies, they must find a way to work together in order to survive.
AGENCY: UTA
AGENT: Ramses Ishak, Michael Sheresky, Geoff Morley
MANAGEMENT: Energy Entertainment
MANAGER: Brooklyn Weaver
#24. 17 Votes
BASTARDS
by Justin Malen
Two brothers, raised to believe their biological father died, find out their mother slept with many powerful and famous men in the 1970s, and the siblings hit the road to find their real father.
AGENCY: Verve
AGENT: Bill Weinstein, Rob Herting
MANAGEMENT: H2F
MANAGER: Chris Fenton
FINANCIER: Paramount
PRODUCER: The Montecito Picture Company
#25. 17 Votes
CRAZY FOR THE STORM
by Will Fetters
The true story of Norman Ollestad’s relationship with his father, who thrust the boy into the world of extreme surfing and competitive downhill skiing at the age of three. But it was that experience that allowed an 11-year old Norman to survive a plane crash amidst a blizzard in the San Gabriel mountains.
AGENCY: WME
AGENT: Elia Infascelli-Smith
MANAGEMENT: 3 Arts Entertainment
MANAGER: Oliver Obst
FINANCIER: Warner Brothers
PRODUCER: Billy Gerber
#26. 16 Votes
THE SLACKFI PROJECT
by Howard Overman
A hapless and broken hearted barista is visited by two bad-ass soldiers from the future who tell him mankind is doomed, and he alone can save them.
AGENCY: UTA
AGENT: Julien Thuan
FINANCIER: Sony
PRODUCER: Matt Tolmach Productions
#27. 14 Votes
THE MUSEUM OF BROKEN RELATIONSHIPS
by Natalie Krinsky
Lucy, a twenty-eight year old junior curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC, is sleeping with her boss. When he dumps her she begins a collection of “break up items” and starts a blog which goes viral.
AGENCY: CAA
AGENT: Jessica Matthews
MANAGEMENT: The Gotham Group
MANAGER: Jim Garavente, Jeremy Bell
#28. 14 Votes
ST VINCENT DE VAN NUYS
by Ted Melfi
When a twelve year old boy in need of a babysitter moves in next door to a misanthropic aging retiree whose life mainly consists of gambling, hookers, and drinking, the elder becomes an unlikely mentor to the boy.
AGENCY: UTA
AGENT: Ramses Ishak, Michael Sheresky
MANAGEMENT: Infinity Management International
MANAGER: Jon Karas
FINANCIER: Fox
PRODUCER: Chernin Entertainment, Crescendo Productions
#29. 14 Votes
DJANGO UNCHAINED
by Quentin Tarantino
A freed slave named Django is trained as a bounty hunter by a German dentist named Schultz, and the two men set out to find Django’s enslaved wife.
AGENCY: WME
AGENT: Mike Simpson
FINANCIER: The Weinstein Company, Sony
PRODUCER: Double Feature Films, The Weinstein Company
#30. 13 Votes
THE ACCOUNTANT
by Bill Dubuque
The Treasury Department pursues a brilliant, autistic accountant who doubles as an assassin and “problem-solves” with precision in more ways than one.
AGENCY: Paradigm
AGENT: Trevor Astbury
MANAGEMENT: Zero Gravity Management
MANAGER: Eric Williams
PRODUCER: Silverwood Films
#31. 13 Votes
SAVING MR. BANKS
by Kelly Marcel
The story of how Walt Disney got the rights for Mary Poppins.
AGENCY: WME
AGENT: Phil Raskind, David Karp
PRODUCER: Ruby Films
#32. 12 Votes
BRIDGES ON THE FORT POINT CHANNEL
by Chuck Maclean
An Irish family in the 1970s, dealing with the loss of their father and the busing of black kids into white neighbor-hoods, decides to blow up all the bridges in Boston.
AGENCY: CAA
AGENT: Billy Hawkins
MANAGEMENT: Oasis Media Group
MANAGER: Allison Doyle, Ben Rowe
#33. 12 Votes
THE BIG STONE GRID
by Craig Zahler
A cop is pulled into an underworld organization that brutally murders people to extort money out of others.
AGENCY: UTA
AGENT: Julien Thuan, Emerson Davis
MANAGEMENT: Caliber Media
MANAGER: Dallas Sonnier
FINANCIER: Sony
PRODUCER: Michael De Luca Productions
#34. 12 Votes
CITIES OF REFUGE
by Brandon Willer
A former FBI psychologist is called in to investigate when a young girl goes missing after the apparent murder of her father and brother by two strangers in a small Oklahoma town.
AGENCY: WME
AGENT: Phil D’amecourt, Jeff Gorin
MANAGEMENT: Benderspink
MANAGER: Jake Weiner
PRODUCER: Tower Hill, Benderspink, Charlize Theron
#35. 12 Votes
GOOD KIDS
by Chris McCoy
Four overachieving high school students in Cape Cod reinvent themselves during the summer after graduation.
AGENCY: WME
AGENT: Simon Faber, Jeff Gorin, Sharon Jackson
MANAGEMENT: The Gotham Group
MANAGER: Shawn Simon
PRODUCER: Depth of Field
#36. 11 Votes
LEAVING PETE
by Ali Waller, Morgan Murphy
A recently divorced author is stunned when his ex writes a popular book about their breakup, and he has to keep that fact secret from his new girlfriend, who works for the book’s publisher.
AGENCY: CAA
AGENT: Bill Zotti, Andy Elkin
#37. 11 Votes
HIDDEN
by Matt Duffer, Ross Duffer
An elevated horror-thriller about a family hiding in a bomb shelter after escaping a mysterious outbreak.
AGENCY: Paradigm
AGENT: Chris Smith
MANAGEMENT: MXN
MANAGER: Mason Novick
FINANCIER: Warner Brothers
PRODUCER: Mason Novick, Roy Lee, Lawrence Grey
#38. 11 Votes
DIRTY GRANDPA
by John Phillips
A young groom engaged to a demanding woman is forced to spend the week before his wedding with his half-blind, half-crazy, and wholly horny grandfather. Through this wild journey, his grandfather shows him how to take life by the balls and lead with his heart.
AGENCY: UTA
AGENT: Jon Huddle, Steven Fisher
FINANCIER: Universal
PRODUCER: Josephson Entertainment
#39. 11 Votes
GRIM NIGHT
by Allen Bey, Brandon Bestenheider
A family has to defend themselves from the Grims, strange creatures who attack Earth and kill thousands one night every year.
AGENCY: Verve
AGENT: Bryan Besser
FINANCIER: Universal
PRODUCER: Marc Platt Productions, Unbroken Pictures
#40. 10 Votes
WATCH ROGER DO HIS THING
by Michael Starrbury
A retired hitman gets roped back into his old trade in order to save his friend’s life and quickly finds himself caught in a struggle trying to finish the job, and get his family out of Chicago alive at the same time.
AGENCY: CAA
AGENT: Bill Zotti, Dan Rabinow
MANAGEMENT: Caliber Media
MANAGER: Dallas Sonnier, Julian Rosenberg
PRODUCER: Tripp Vinson, One Race Films
#41. 10 Votes
THE FLAMINGO THIEF
by Mike Lesieur
Grief stricken over his wife leaving him, a man finds solace in an odd activity… swiping figurines of flamingos.
AGENCY: CAA
AGENT: Rich Green, Adam Kanter
MANAGEMENT: Kaplan/Perrone
MANAGER: Sean Perrone
PRODUCER: Kaplan/Perrone, Red Hour
#42. 10 Votes
TWO NIGHT STAND
by Mark Hammer
After an extremely regrettable one night stand, two strangers wake up to find themselves snowed in after sleeping through a blizzard that put all of Manhattan on ice. They’re now trapped together in a tiny apartment, forced to get to know each other way more than any one night stand should.
AGENCY: UTA
AGENT: Carolyn Sivitz
MANAGEMENT: The Safran Company
MANAGER: Tom Drumm
#43. 10 VotesSEX TAPE
by Kate Angelo
When a married couple make a sex tape to spice up their relationship, it disappears, and they are frantic to get it back.
AGENCY: UTA
AGENT: Jason Burns
FINANCIER: Sony
PRODUCER: Escape Artists
#44. 10 Votes
THE GUN EATERS
by Alex Paraskevas, Jordan Goldberg
Four hardened New York detectives race to apprehend a relentless spree-killer who’s executing victims from Queens to Southampton in the span of a single day.
AGENCY: UTA
AGENT: Rebecca Ewing, Keya Khayatian
MANAGEMENT: Oasis Media Group
MANAGER: Ben Rowe
PRODUCER: Oasis Media Group
#45. 10 Votes
LITTLE WHITE CORVETTE
by Michael Diliberti
A down and out brother and sister go to Miami to sell a duffel bag of cocaine that they found in the trunk of a corvette left them by their dead father.
AGENCY: WME
AGENT: Phil Raskind, Simon Faber
MANAGEMENT: New School Media
MANAGER: Brian Levy
PRODUCER: Scott Aversano Productions
#46. 9 Votes
JANE GOT A GUN
by Brian Duffield
After her outlaw husband returns home shot with eight bullets and barely alive, Jane reluctantly reaches out to an ex-lover who she hasn’t seen in over ten years to help her defend her farm when the time comes that her husband’s gang eventually tracks him down to finish the job.
AGENCY: Gersh
AGENT: Devra Lieb, Bob Hohman, Bayard Maybank
MANAGEMENT: Circle of Confusion
MANAGER: Zach Cox, Noah Rosen
#47. 9 Votes
THE LAST WITNESS
by Stefan Jaworski
An FBI Agent interrogates an amnesiac, sole survivor of a Boston bombing in order to prevent future terrorist attacks.
AGENCY: Paradigm
AGENT: Trevor Astbury, Valarie Phillips, Ida Ziniti
FINANCIER: Fox
PRODUCER: Davis Entertainment
#48. 9 Votes
MURDERS AND ACQUISITIONS
by Jonathan Stokes
The world of high-stakes finance collides with that of high-priced hitmen when an ousted CEO decides to hire an assassin to kill the corporate raider who stole his company.
AGENCY: UTA
AGENT: Ramses Ishak, Michael Sheresky, Geoff Morley
MANAGEMENT: Energy Entertainment
MANAGER: Brooklyn Weaver
FINANCIER: Warner Brothers
PRODUCER: KatzSmith Productions
#49. 9 Votes
FLASHBACK
by Will Honley
A former NASA pilot with amnesia — also the first person to travel the speed of light — realizes he has the ability to travel back in time and along the way rediscovers his love for his wife.
AGENCY: Verve
AGENT: Adam Levine
MANAGEMENT: Nuclear Entertainment
MANAGER: Nick Fariabi, Jesse Silver
#50. 9 Votes
THE LAST DROP
by Brandon Murphy, Phil Murphy
A fully functioning alcoholic meets the girl of his dreams and soon discovers that there’s a lot more at stake than love if he doesn’t clean up his act.
AGENCY: WME
AGENT: Rich Cook
MANAGEMENT: Mosaic
MANAGER: Langley Perer
FINANCIER: Mandate Pictures
PRODUCER: Greg Shapiro
#51. 9 Votes
FRIEND OF BILL
by Harper Dill
After a humiliating episode in New York, a young woman returns to her hometown to try to deal with her alcoholism.
AGENCY: WME
AGENT: Sarah Self, Jeff Gorin, Sharon Jackson
MANAGER: Mike Dill
PRODUCER: Marc Platt Productions, Neda Armian
#52. 8 Votes
DEAD OF WINTER
by Sarah Conradt
A teenage girl heads to a remote cabin in the moun- tains with her father and new stepmother - an expe- rience the father hopes will bond the two ladies. But when a mysterious wounded Park Ranger shows up, family bonding will be the least of their concerns.
AGENCY: CAA
AGENT: Jacqueline Sacerio
MANAGEMENT: Hopscotch Pictures
MANAGER: Sukee Chew
FINANCIER: Lionsgate (distrib), Wind Dancer (financing)
PRODUCER: Sherryl Clark, Hopscotch Pictures
#53. 8 Votes
ON A CLEAR DAY
by Ryan Engle
When a powerful and mysterious force invades an American city, a young father must traverse the battle-torn city in an effort to save his wounded wife and rescue their stranded children. In the process, our hero becomes the target of an enemy who will stop at nothing to kill him.
AGENCY: Original Artists
AGENT: Chris Sablan, Matt Leipzig
MANAGEMENT: Mosaic
MANAGER: Michael Lasker, Langley Perer
PRODUCER: Ombra Films
#54. 8 Votes
HOME BY CHRISTMAS - BOB HOPE IN KOREA
by Ben Schwartz
Young Larry Gelbart goes on tour with his idol Bob Hope in the middle of the Korean War and learns the true price of patriotism.
AGENCY: The Nethercott Agency
AGENT: Gayla Nethercott
PRODUCER: Jon Shestack Productions, Pink Slip Productions
#55. 8 Votes
THE PRETTY ONE
by Jenee LaMarque
When a woman’s identical “prettier” twin sister dies, the woman assumes her sister’s identity, moving into her apartment and the big city.
AGENCY: UTA
AGENT: Carolyn Sivitz
MANAGEMENT: Management 360
MANAGER: Mary Lee, Daniel Rappaport
PRODUCER: RCR Pictures, Steven J Berger
#56. 8 Votes
BAD WORDS
by Andrew Dodge
The bastard child of the organizer of the national spelling bee gets his revenge by finding a loophole and attempting to win the bee as an adult, only to find friendship in a young Indian contestant.
AGENCY: UTA
AGENT: Carolyn Sivitz
MANAGEMENT: Fourth Floor Productions
MANAGER: Jeff Silver
FINANCIER: Darko
PRODUCER: MXN
#57. 8 Votes
JURASSIC PARK
by Imran Zaidi
A high school couple and two of their friends ditch school to catch a special preview screening of JURASSIC PARK.
AGENCY: UTA
AGENT: Jason Burns, Jenny Maryasis
MANAGEMENT: Management 360
MANAGER: Darin Friedman
#58. 8 Votes
GASLIGHT
by Ian Fried
Secretly imprisoned in a London insane asylum, the infamous Jack the Ripper helps Scotland Yard investigators solve a series of grisly murders whose victims all share one thing in common: dual puncture wounds to the neck.
AGENCY: WME
AGENT: Dan Cohan, Mike Esola
MANAGEMENT: Prolific
MANAGER: Will Rowbotham
#59. 7 Votes
SUBJECT ZERO
by Dave Cohen
A Frankenstein-like tale of a scientist who develops a powerful new drug that brings his son back to life after he dies in a terrible car accident. Unfortunately, the desperate experiment of a loving father leads to the creation of a flesh-eating zombie epidemic with horrific consequences.
AGENCY: ICM
AGENT: Kathleen Remington, Emile Gladstone
MANAGEMENT: Generate
MANAGER: Jeremy Platt
#60. 7 Votes
THE HITMAN’S BODYGUARD
by Tom O’Connor
The world’s best bodyguard must protect his arch nemesis, the world’s top assassin…so he can testify against a brutal dictator and save his wife.
AGENCY: UTA
AGENT: Charles Ferraro, Barbara Dreyfus, Emerson Davis
MANAGEMENT: Industry Entertainment
MANAGER: Andrew Deane, Jess Rosenthal
PRODUCER: Skydance Productions
#61. 7 Votes
CRISTO
by Ian Shorr
A man is unlawfully sentenced to an infamous prison and escapes, then transforms himself into the mysterious Cristo and systematically destroys the men who manipulated and enslaved him.
AGENCY: UTA
AGENT: Charles Ferraro, Jason Burns
MANAGEMENT: Mosaic
MANAGER: Langley Perer
FINANCIER: Warner Brothers
PRODUCER: Bellevue Productions, Langley Park Pictures
#62. 7 Votes
UNTITLED HLAVIN HEIST
by John Hlavin
An American thief living in Paris is coerced into pulling off a complex heist in order to save his kidnapped wife.
AGENCY: UTA
AGENT: Jason Burns
FINANCIER: DreamWorks
PRODUCER: Film Rites
#63. 7 Votes
LINE OF SIGHT
by F Scott Frazier
After a military coup takes out the executive branch of government, the country’s survival depends on a Navy Seal sniper extraction team getting the Speaker of the House from Washington DC to New York.
AGENCY: WME
AGENT: Dan Cohan, Mike Esola
MANAGEMENT: H2F
MANAGER: Chris Fenton, Chris Cowles
FINANCIER: Warner Brothers
PRODUCER: Silver Pictures
#64. 7 Votes
PINOCCHIO
by Bryan Fuller
A wooden puppet, Pinocchio, dreams of becoming a real boy.
AGENCY: WME
AGENT: Phil D’amecourt
FINANCIER: Warner Brothers
PRODUCER: Dan Jinks Company
#65. 7 Votes
THE WEDDING
by Andrew Goldberg
A group of couples deal with their respective issues as they attend a wedding.
AGENCY: WME
AGENT: Rich Cook
MANAGEMENT: Underground Films and Management
MANAGER: Josh Turner Maguire
FINANCIER: CBS Films
#66. 7 Votes
77
by David Matthews
Two stories from 1974 are linked together - the unsolved murder of an LAPD officer and the nationally televised shootout in South Central Los Angeles between the Symbionese Liberation Army and the LAPD where 50,000 rounds of gunfire was exchanged. The events will be seen through the eyes of a pair of police partners, one black and one white.
AGENCY: WME
AGENT: Roger Green, Elia Infascelli-Smith
MANAGEMENT: The Schiff Company
MANAGER: Nicole Romano
PRODUCER: Wolf Films
#67. 6 Votes
GUYS NIGHT
by Christopher Baldi
Sick of brunches, bosses, and light beer, four co-workers set out on the mother of all guys nights in an attempt to rediscover their manhood.
AGENCY: CAA
AGENT: Bill Zotti
MANAGEMENT: New Wave
MANAGER: Mike Goldberg, Josh Adler
FINANCIER: Millenium Films
PRODUCER: Jim Valdez, Matt Bass
#68. 6 Votes
SELF/LESS
by Alex Pastor, David Pastor
An extremely wealthy elderly man dying from cancer undergoes a radical medical procedure that transfers his consciousness to the body of a healthy young man but everything may not be as good as it seems when he starts to uncover the mystery of the body’s origins and the secret organization that will kill to keep its secrets.
AGENCY: CAA
AGENT: Stuart Manashil, John Garvey
MANAGEMENT: Kaplan/Perrone
MANAGER: Alex Lerner
FINANCIER: FilmDistrict (distrib), Endgame Entertainment (financing)
PRODUCER: Ram Bergman
#69. 6 Votes
HYPERDRIVE
by Alex Ankeles, Morgan Jurgenson
When a tough cop recruits a geeky sci-fi author to help him track down a mysterious murder witness, they find themselves in the middle of a space opera playing out here on Earth.
AGENCY: CAA/APA
AGENT: Bill Zotti (Ankeles), Ryan Saul (Jurgenson)
MANAGEMENT: Kaplan/Perrone (Ankeles)
MANAGER: Aaron Kaplan (Ankeles), Jonathan Hung (Jurgenson)
FINANCIER: Paramount
PRODUCER: Disruption Entertainment
#70. 6 Votes
BEFORE I FALL
by Maria Maggenti
When a popular teen girl is killed in a car crash, she relives the critical day seven times and makes changes in an attempt to affect the outcome; in the process, she herself changes as she tries to make up for previous heartless, self-absorbed behavior and gains a better understanding of herself and others. As she evolves and makes the connections necessary to save a bullied, depressed girl’s life, she comes to accept her own fate.
AGENCY: Paradigm
AGENT: David Boxerbaum
MANAGEMENT: Madhouse Entertainment
MANAGER: Robyn Meisinger
FINANCIER: Fox 2000
PRODUCER: Jon Shestack Productions
#71. 6 Votes
BREYTON AVE
by J Daniel Shaffer
A group of teens living without adults and under their own social order in a small fenced-in neighborhood are forced to face what they fear is the inevitable physical danger beyond the fence.
AGENCY: Verve
AGENT: Bryan Besser, Rob Herting
MANAGEMENT: Management 360
MANAGER: Mary Lee, Jill McElroy
Blacklist Script Evaluation
PRODUCER: Unbroken Films
#72. 6 Votes
EL FUEGO CALIENTE
by Ben Schwartz
A remake of SOAPDISH, a desperate telenovela star dreaming of Hollywood stardom has her life implode, making her real life crazier than the insane show she made famous.
AGENCY: WME
AGENT: Rich Cook
MANAGEMENT: Tom Sawyer Entertainment
MANAGER: Jesse Hara, Rachel Miller
FINANCIER: Paramount
PRODUCER: Reiner-Greisman
#73. 6 Votes
THE DUFF
by Josh Cagan
Adapted from Kody Keplinger’s novel THE DUFF, the travails of a seventeen year old girl who believes she is the “designated ugly studly friend.”
AGENCY: WME
AGENT: Rich Cook
MANAGEMENT: H2F
MANAGER: Chris Fenton
PRODUCER: Wonderland Sound and Vision
#74. 6 Votes
UNTITLED ARIZONA PROJECT
by Luke Del Tredici
A satirically dark comedy about a homicidal foreclosure victim kidnapping a real estate agent and planning to kill her in the housing development where she finagled money from customers like him.
AGENCY: WME
AGENT: Roger Green
MANAGEMENT: Mosaic
MANAGER: Christie Smith
PRODUCER: Rough House Pictures
If you want to write movie screenplays, you need to read movie screenplays – it’s just as essential as batting practice for professional baseball players. Reading in general is important, whether it’s novels, comics, or the backs of cereal boxes—even if you’re not paying attention, your brain is remembering hundreds if not thousands of subtle connections between language and storytelling.
Reading screenplays provides an added benefit—allowing you and your brain to see proper formatting in action. It’s also vital for aspiring screenwriters to see the difference between how scenes play out on the page and how they play out on the screen. Finally, while proper screenwriting adheres to a very rigid format, it’s extremely useful to see how various writers work within those rules and even use them to their advantage. Even if you know exactly what you’re seeing, your brain is actively learning and your subconscious is absorbing more and stronger information with every script you read.
By reading screenplay after screenplay, you will get a sense of how you can write your own.
Here, then, are ten websites that allow you to download professional movie scripts. Start clicking and start reading today—if not for your own sake, at least do it for your brain’s.
1. IMSDB – Internet Movie Screenplay Database
IMDB has proven a valuable resource for researching movie crews, casts, and trivia. IMSDB is just as useful for those looking for screenplays of all kinds and genres.
2. Go Into the Story
Go Into the Story is the official blog for The Blacklist, the screenwriting community famous for its annual top ten list of unproduced scripts. One useful feature of Go Into the Story is its bank of downloadable movie scripts.
3. Drew’s Script-o-Rama
The titular Drew has been sharing scripts with curious readers and writers for almost two decades now, and has a vast library from which to choose from. A great benefit of Script-O-Rama is that it holds several drafts of certain movies, an invaluable resource for those who want to see how a Hollywood film evolves in the writing process.
4. Simply Scripts
Simply Scripts has a wide, diverse library that also includes plays and non-English screenplays. It’s also constantly updated, providing scripts to current movies such as Interstellar and Foxcatcher.
5. AwesomeFilm
AwesomeFilm is another resource with dozens of scripts you can download with a single click, alphabetized for easy searching. If you’re looking for a screenplay to read, this site is, well, awesome.
6. Screenplays For You
Screenplays For You is a clean, smooth website with hundreds of scripts. You’re more than likely to find something from the genre you need—its library boasts everything from low-key award-winning dramas like Sideways to action blockbusters like Avatar.
7. The Daily Script
The Daily Script offers a ton of screenplays in a very simple, easy-to-navigate layout. It keeps things homey for the typical screenwriter, even using Courier New as its primary font.
Read Blacklist Scripts
8. The Screenplay Database
The Screenplay Database is another useful resource with a large choice of scripts to choose from. If you’re interested in a certain type of film, the website also allows you to search its library by genre, to better allow you to window shop and find something you didn’t even know you were looking for.
9. The Script Lab
The Script Lab comes in handy if you’re looking for more recent screenplays. Its front page divides its library into the three most recent years of releases, so if there’s something from 2014 you’d like, for instance Birdman or Boyhood, this is the website for you.
10. Movie Scripts and Screenplays
You’ve got to love the straightforward title. Movie Scripts and Screenplays gives you exactly what it says, with a long list of manuscripts that you can also directly find with its search function.
2011 Black List Scripts Pdf
All writers know that reading great material is an essential part of honing and building your craft. But if you’re ready to take the next step in developing your skills as a screenwriter with the most hands-on, intensive training in the world, check out NYFA’s screenwriting programs. Looking for a long-distance way to take your writing to the next level? Check out NYFA’s online screenwriting program options.