Best Screenplays to Read

While we spoke about reading some truly great books in order to learn the formal rules of screenwriting, one of the best ways to learn screenwriting is to read great screenplays. Here, we review the best screenplays aspiring screenwriters should read in order to learn how to write a great screenplay. If you’re more interested in writing teleplays, check out our article on Best TV Screenplays

The Collected Works of Paddy Chayefsky: The Screenplays Vol. 1 & 2 —

Paddy Chayefsky may be the most prestigious writer to ever grace the screen (both small and large) with words, and these two collections of his work in film are absolutely stunning examples of screenwriting at its most literary, entertaining, and exhilarating.

A legend in the business, and obvious inspiration to later masters of dialogue like Sorkin (see below) and Mamet, Chayefsky was one of the first writers to prove that the medium of film could stand up as a substantial art form against the more respected playwriting. Any student of screenwriting simply must read these scripts, to learn valuable lessons not only about crackling dialogue, but also proper pacing and how to efficiently convey thematic content and needed exposition in the same moment. Chayefsky’s characterization is fully developed from Marty on, with the ability to move characters through a story like they are real, three-dimensional human beings, while at the same time pushing them through extraordinary changes and character arcs with the subtlest guiding hand. Included in the first volume: Marty, The Goddess, The Americanization of Emily; in the second volume: The Hospital, Network, Altered States.

Out of all of these screenplays, Marty, The Hospital, and especially Network cannot be missed – both in script form and the final produced film. Read, examine, and truly digest these books for about forty dollars, and save a couple hundred grand on writing courses.







William Goldman: Four Screenplays with Essays –

William Goldman is the original superstar screenwriter, a progenitor for later prodigies such as Shane Black and Quentin Tarantino, someone who’s creativity flows through each and every word of their screenplays, expressing story, personality, humor, and true vision at every turn.

As essential as his autobiographical writings and musings on the industry, Goldman’s four best original screenplays, collected in a single book here alongside essays and examinations by the man himself, is a necessary purchase. Not only do these four scripts (Marathon Man, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Princess Bride, and Misery) jump across genres, from thriller to buddy-adventure to comic fantasy-romance to horror-literary adaptation, each and every one is a perfection of the form. Goldman somehow makes the somewhat impersonal nature of the screenplay his own, inserting his own personality and voice, without disrupting the script’s purpose: as a blueprint for visualization. Without using flowery language, Goldman crafts images before your eyes, while at the same time juggling and maneuvering words into their funniest and most effective combinations. His characters sing, as beautifully realized archetypes, humanized.

In many ways, the present state of screenwriting owes just about everything to this one writer who took a populist approach, and combined it with intellectual verve. Not style over substance, or substance drowned in heavy prose, but style and substance working together in perfect union.







Ethan Coen & Joel Cohen: Collected Screenplays 1 —

The Coen brothers are the most idiosyncratic and versatile screenwriters of the last three decades. Never ones to be pigeonholed, every script they write traverses and blends genre lines, and whether it’s an original script or adaptation, their vision and unique style bleeds through the pages.

If you can get your hands on all of these Collected Screenplays of theirs, do so, but if you can only find one, make it this first collection. In its pages are four of their earlier works: Blood Simple, Raising Arizona, Miller’s Crossing, and Barton Fink. Like Goldman before them, they don’t settle and somehow are able to write compelling, darkly hilarious, and moving stories across all genre lines, and their first four features prove it in spades. Blood Simple, produced and shot on money raised by going door-to-door in their hometown, provides an excellent example of how to write a low-budget screenplay without comprising imagination or ambition. Raising Arizona may in fact be a perfect screwball comedy and a perfect story about marriage and family. Miller’s Crossing is a riff on Dashiell Hammet’s Red Harvest, yet somehow manages to transcend the gangster genre from which it sprung forth. And it all culminates in Barton Fink, the ultimate horror movie about writers, writing, and Hollywood.

The best lesson from reading these screenplays is not how to imitate – it’s impossible – but to see how malleable the screenplay form is to personality and creative vision. It’s truly an unrestrictive medium, despite all the rules taught by many other books. If you’ve book an idea, any idea, no matter how crazy, and can find a kernel of a story within it, you can write that screenplay. Ethan and Joel Coen have done it many times.







Four Films of Woody Allen –

The magic of Woody Allen’s screenplays is how he transfers mundane characters and everyday worlds into places of true tragedy and comedy – a lot of the time, simultaneously.

In the screenplays included here – for Annie Hall, Interiors, Manhattan, and Stardust Memories – Allen runs the spectrum of hilarity and neurotic solemnity, all the while circling the same themes. Perhaps that is the greatest lesson one can take from Woody Allen – we all have themes we are obsessed with, particularly writers. Allen is able to explore very similar thoughts and feelings, as if through a prism, coming in, deconstructing, reflecting, and refracting off every angle, each time shedding new light. Learn from the way his characters talk, to both others and themselves, to see how personal and confessional screenwriting can be. Witness how Allen finds, explores, and expresses many facets of his own personality in all of his characters, beyond his famed Jewish neurotic archetype. Most importantly, see how a screenplay can contain all of these things, and prove all of these things, before a single millimeter of celluloid is exposed.

Woody Allen’s screenplays aren’t just blueprints – they are works of literature in and of themselves, waiting to be captured and brought to life. See how your own screenwriting can do the same.







Charlie Kaufman screenplays: Being John Malkovich, Adaptation: The Shooting Script, & Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind: The Shooting Script –

A frequent complaint about the art of screenwriting is how constrained a form it can be, with the popular conception that everything is ruled by some sacred Hollywood formula (an idea influenced by the success and influence of Syd Field’s methods). However, anger at such constraints is often used by less experienced writers as an excuse for sloppy structure or haphazard character work. For those looking to see how to break the formula, without losing the power of story, turn to your new hero: Kaufman.

Charlie Kaufman’s scripts are unlike any others ever written, in that they not only break the rules, but also transcend them. Some might label them as “meta,” yet they seem to rise above such descriptors, not showing off creativity and verve for its own sake, but always for the sake of the story being told. Kaufman operates on another level, and his scripts are inspiring pieces of work. The man himself would probably tell you not to dissect them, or find some tricks or tips within their pages, but it is advisable to experience these works so you can see how one of the working masters right now is defying all the established rules, while also creating stories that function and fire on every single cylinder.

Being John Malkovich is one-of-a-kind, Adaptation is simply required reading for screenwriters, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is the most sophisticated, personal, and true film romance…of all time? Whatever these are, they are certainly perfect examples of screenplays as an art form.







A Few Good Men, by Aaron Sorkin –

No one working in film today (or maybe, ever) has the power of momentum down like Aaron Sorkin. If allowed to go out of control, unrestrained ego incarnate, it can sink the work (cough, Newsroom). But even when watching Sorkin parodies, like on Inside Amy Schumer, there is something breathlessly exciting about this guy’s style.

Not surprisingly, Sorkin started as a playwright and this is the small, two-act play that later turned into the huge, Oscar-winning film starring some of the biggest names in Hollywood history. Read this to see how, purely through spoken words, Sorkin was able to visually capture the minds of all who read it. While reading this script, you yourself will want to go back in time just to give this guy an eight-picture movie deal. It is that exciting, moving, and thrilling – the perfect guide for pacing for any screenwriter. Unlike some of his later works, leaden with self-importance, young Sorkin is concise and biting. And in this case, reading the source-material of the play may be even more useful than reading the final shooting script – the magic of Sorkin is in the spoken word and its movement from character to character.

Also, there’s no better guide to writing something that you can put on with a few actors in a single room that will also translate just as well to a major Hollywood production. In A Few Good Men, Sorkin wrote the most efficient and effective proof-of-Oscar-bait-concept of all time. And that’s worth both celebrating and studying.







Quentin Tarantino screenplays: Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, & Inglourious Basterds —

Tarantino is the rock star of the screenwriting world; a guru of young filmmakers across the globe; a persona as obsessed with Hollywood as the rest of the industry combined. He is the perfect distillation of the post-modern screenwriter, wearing his influences on his sleeve, and writing his pastiche on the page.

All of his screenplays should be bought and read, if only because they are so enjoyable they fly off the page. In fact, some of his scripts are arguably better conceived than the final product. However, these are the three scripts to his most successful and impressive films, and also comprise a working history of the writer through his work. Reservoir Dogs, like the example made above of Blood Simple by the Coens, is a pure adrenaline shot to the heart for young filmmakers starting out on the job. Pulp Fiction is a master’s course in both screenplay structure and mixed genre chemistry. Inglourious Basterds is, without a doubt, the peak work of Tarantino that takes his obsession with language and film to their highest operating levels, and rewrites history along the way.

When watching the films, its easy enough to say that Tarantino is a dialogue master – however, these must be read by screenwriters to see how charismatic and masterful Tarantino works his exposition and scene description. While he has inspired many copycats, a true student of screenwriting looks at this work for inspiration, not imitation (much like Tarantino himself took from the best before him). QT’s screenplays are case studies of screenwriting in the (post)modern age.







Juno: The Shooting Script, by Diablo Cody ­–



The first screenplay by Diablo Cody sometimes seems destined to be forgotten by recent history, or buried away as nothing more than a hipster/fad script, with try-hard dialogue.

However, take a closer look, and see how the heart beats in this screenplay, and how much it stands the test of time. It may involve characters too smart for their own age, but it’s also a tender love story, in all directions – between two kids, between a father and daughter, between a mother and her child-to-be. Buried beneath the ‘quirk’ is a screenplay that deserves all the accolades it received, and led to the creation of an equally inspired film. And to aspiring screenwriters, read the initial words, from an untested voice, that led to a career as a sought-after screenwriter – and a famed female one, at that, which is still a pathetically neglected field in the industry.

Ignore protests of ‘hipsterism,’ whatever that means, and study what makes this film emotional effective and appealing to bigger name filmmakers and stars who may, one day, want to come live in your own words. Perhaps that’s the biggest lesson to take away from Cody’s work – if you build it (it being emotionally destructive and exciting characters, and worlds full of color and life), they will come (they being acclaimed directors, actors, producers, and sure, Oscars).









