Like most writers I'm always reading and looking for new scripts to read.
So what scripts have you read that you've really enjoyed?
Here's a couple I've enjoyed:
Hard Times (1975) - I like the short, clear, and direct style. Very punchy, excellent word economy.
The Naked Gun 2 1/2 - Besides being a comedy classic it was very interesting to see how the Rube-Goldberg chains of comedic events were actually written. I actually did an excel analysis of joke type (physical/wordplay) and got about a 4 joke per page average.
The whole first season of Tom Baker as Dr. Who - I won't say they're the best overall writing but the task of taking a well loved character and transitioning it into a completely different well loved character is an interesting study. The character development through well written dialogue and affectations was a good look at the process of getting a new character over quickly.
So what scripts have you enjoyed? Why did you like them?
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Hell or High Water.
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Bubbles
Blonde Ambition
First Ascent
Frat Boy Genius
Fictional biopic specs written by Nobodies and somehow they got read by everyone in the Business of making movies. They all got paid by corporations.
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Justin, I liked reading the "Blonde Ambition" script because of its dialog...and I'm partial to the "American Graffiti" screenplay (yeah, I'm showing my age!) due to its action descriptions.
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Would love to read that Hard Times script! Real throwback!
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Inception! The Dark Knight. Bridesmaids. Please tell me where you found naked gun! (if it's free) :) Blacklist tv series pilot. Extant tv series pilot. Lost tv series pitch. Alias series pilot. I'm always curious when writers include specific songs in their script or not.
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Noel Thompson I found the Naked Gun 2 1/2 at script slug https://www.scriptslug.com/script/the-naked-gun-2-1-2-the-smell-of-fear-... I was looking forever for the original but couldn't get ahold of it.
Hi Ross Munro Bullet Proof Screenwriting did an interview with Walter Hill and are hosting a bunch of his scripts, enjoy! https://bulletproofscreenwriting.tv/walter-hill-screenplays-download/
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Aray Brown dont know if it is better than the movie. But Gilroy is a minor deity in my eyes.
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Interview with the Vampire
Hanna
Pulp Fiction
The Matrix
Analyze This
The Bourne Identity
Aray Brown I really liked that movie, thanks for the recommendation!
Rutger Oosterhoff The fast paced action scene writing in Bourne Identity is stupendous!
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I'm kinda fond of reading & rewriting my own.
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I like reading scripts that I know were changed when they became the finished project or reading earlier versions of scripts. It's curious to see what they thought didn't work or what would work better. There's a couple of versions of Blade Runner for instance. Tarantino joked that he pretty much writes a novel then whittles down.
JC Young That's a great process! You can see what gets cut, like in The Idiocracy script their was this whole ridiculous part where they go to a "museum of farts", for obvious reasons it did not make the cut.