The great thing about a Scriptshadow Best Movies of the Year list is that you’re not getting any b.s. All these other list-makers are giving you their cinephile-signaling choices, the movies they think they’re supposed to tell the world they like. Not Scriptshadow!
Every single pick here is, genuinely, one of my favorite movies of the year. That means you’re going to see some movies you’re not used to seeing in a Top 10. There will be complaints. There will be defiant comments written, comments that sound something like this: “That movie was garbage. It was boring and I hated the characters and you could see the twist coming from a mile away.”
Those comments? Those comments are wrong.
Every single pick on the Scriptshadow Best Movies list is, objectively, one of the best movies of the year according to moi.
Before we get to those picks, I want to comment on some movies that didn’t make the list, in case you were wondering where they were.
I haven’t seen Wicked because I assumed I wouldn’t like it. But several friends who aren’t Wickeders, or whatever you call them, saw the movie and enjoyed it so there’s an off-chance that if I saw the movie, it would make my Top 10. I finally saw A Quiet Place: Day One and it was better than I thought it would be but too flawed to make the list.
Longlegs was too “indie” for my taste. The movie felt like it needed another 20 million in budget to make the most of its potential. Smile 2 was a nice surprise. Great directing. But I definitely wouldn’t call it one of the best movies of the year.
Blink Twice was better than I thought it would be so if you haven’t seen it, check it out. Just not “best of” worthy. I absolutely positively HATE The Substance. It has permanently put me off body horror. Late Night with the Devil was probably the best surprise I had all year. Very fun movie. Nearly made my Top 10.
The Last Stop at Yuma County would’ve made the list if it extended to Top 15. A tense little thriller with great directing and good use of payoffs. As would Love Lies Bleeding, another directing tour de force. A very spooky film that makes you feel off-center from the very first scene. Oh, and Magpie! Magpie’s concept comes from Daisy Ridley. A fun little slow-burn thriller about a family that’s falling apart with a unique plotline that involves a married couple’s child landing a role in a big local movie.
Never saw Here. Never saw Monkey Man. Never saw Heretic. Of those three, Heretic is the only one that legitimately had a shot at making my Top 10.
All right, now that you know all that, time to get to the Top 10 movies of the year!
NUMBER 10 – CIVIL WAR
I watched this movie at just the right time. If I would’ve watched it when it came out, I think the hype would’ve led to disappointment. But I went in long after the movie hit streaming and therefore my expectations were low. The movie is not perfect. And, if I’m being honest, it’s slow, especially early on. But it grows on you. You start to care about the characters. And when you hit one of the best scenes of the year – Jesse Plemons killing anybody he sees fit – you’re all in. The movie then has a big finale that climaxes in the ultimate character arc. If you’re looking for a good adult movie, this is the second best option of the year. I’ll get to the first soon enough.
NUMBER 9 – KINGDOM OF THE PLANET OF THE APES
There may not have been a studio movie this year I was more convinced I would dislike than Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes. 20th Century Fox has had issues with this franchise from the start. Every single one of the movies looks the same. Every single one of these movies has a title that sounds the same. I had no interest in seeing this. But the director does an incredible job mining an emotional story from the ape characters. I was shocked at how intensely I was drawn in. It’s one of the few examples of a studio putting character over spectacle. Definitely worth your time.
NUMBER 8 – DEADPOOL AND WOLVERINE
Deadpool and Wolverine had a lot to live up to. If it would have toppled, it would’ve taken all of the 2024 box office with it. So give it to Ryan Reynolds for knowing exactly what the audience wanted and giving it to them. The thing I was most impressed by with this movie was how the character of Deadpool was in this sunny crazy kooky movie while the character of Wolverine was in this dark dusty devastating movie. And yet, somehow, they still played off each other perfectly. You know a movie is working when you don’t even care about the parts that aren’t working. For example, I have no idea what was going on with the villain in this film or what she wanted. Didn’t matter. We got Deadpool and Wolverine fighting 300 Alternate Universe Deadpools and that’s all we needed. That and Madonna.
NUMBER 7 – CONCLAVE
Conclave is a masterclass in plotting. A big part of plotting is pacing – understanding when to introduce new plot developments into the story and how frequently. Most writers wait too long to introduce the next big plot point and, as a result, their stories stall. You don’t get that with Conclave. Conclave keeps hitting you with new plot points every 10 pages. And each of those revelations either make the story more interesting, add higher stakes to the proceedings, or both. It’s a great example of how you can build an exciting plot into “small” situations. You don’t need to have Tom Cruise trying to save the world. You can build compelling plot points out of many different situations, especially high-stakes situations like needing to anoint the next pope.
NUMBER 6 – KINDS OF KINDNESS
Contrary to popular belief, I need my “weird” in my movie-watching. I don’t always want it. But I eventually crave it because I need something to balance out all the logical storytelling that dictates my taste. Kinds of Kindness gave me all of that and more. What surprised me most about the movie is that, even though it’s a compilation of 3 short stories, each of those stories is really good. Normally when writers do this, there’s always a weak story. But not here. Each one is weird in its own wonderful way. The storytelling Yorgos Lanthimos uses is one where he plops you into a story that you don’t quite understand yet and you need to keep watching to figure it out. I noticed that that device was very effective here as I always wanted to know more. I kind of wish Yorgos would’ve figured out how to make this one big movie because, that way, more people would’ve seen it. But even in its current state, it’s a gem that people will stumble upon and enjoy for years.
NUMBER 5 – THE WILD ROBOT
The second I saw this trailer, I knew it was going to be great. The contrast of this mechanical being placed in the midst of such unforgiving nature was a pot just dying to boil up plenty of drama. I was telling a writer how clever the writing was in that it could’ve been really sappy with just the robot and the little bird. But the writer, Chris Sanders, added this conniving fox to the mix and that created the perfect balance to the proceedings. The movie has these great sequences that are both cinematic and emotional. When Roz teaches Brightbill to fly, it’s total movie magic. Sanders also took a big risk by embracing maturity instead of catering to a more youthful approach. He could’ve easily pandered to children here and the film probably would’ve done a lot better at the box office. Instead, he kept it mature and, as a result, it’s going to win the animation Oscar and go down as a classic.
NUMBER 4 – STRANGE DARLING
It’s hard to talk about this movie without spoiling it. So, if you haven’t seen it yet, move on to the next movie on the list. Okay, spoiling commencing. Strange Darling shows that you can make a small cheap movie hit hard. One of the best ways to do this is to tap into a belief that the general audience has been conditioned to believe and then slam into them with the opposite. The last four years have been movies telling us: Men toxic, women perfect. Director JT Mollner uses that belief against you. When our evil looking dude is hunting our helpless heroine, we’re rooting hard for her to get away. That is until we find out that the heroine is the villain and the man is the hero. It’s a great midpoint twist that turns the movie into a whirlwind of emotions and momentum. Biggest surprise of the year. Didn’t see it coming.
NUMBER 3 – SPEAK NO EVIL
A few of you are probably surprised to see this movie ranked so high. So let me explain why. Speak No Evil is, in my opinion, the type of screenplay you can get the most bang for your buck out of. Because all you’re doing is putting characters in a situation. There are no monsters here. There are no shootouts. There are no car chases. It’s just a group of people, in this case a family, placed in a dangerous situation that they probably won’t escape. I love scripts like this. I love scripts that reveal things before our heroes know. Cause now you’re strictly using dramaturgy (in this case, dramatic irony) to keep the reader invested. It’s pure writing, these stories. So to see one done so well? I’m always going to celebrate when that happens. And even if you throw all the complex screenwriting terms to the side, it’s just a fun thriller. It’s tense. It’s suspenseful. It’s got a couple of great reveals. It’s got a great villain. For pure entertainment, you can’t beat Speak No Evil.
NUMBER 2 – FURIOSA
Years down the line, random people are going to stumble across this movie on streaming and wonder where it came from and how they’ve never heard of it before. It is a riveting movie. It’s also an epic story. This isn’t Mad Max. It isn’t Fury Road. It takes place over years and years. We see characters grow and mature and move their way up the ladder. We see these incredible action sequences. The best car chases you’ll see in any movie this decade. I remember watching this film and, at first, feeling that it was too clunky. But it was only because I didn’t understand how big the scope was. Every time I look back at this film, I grow more and more fond of it. It achieves that rare feat of feeling big (incredible set pieces) and small (intimate moments) at the same time. I have no idea why this movie didn’t do better. Maybe it’s because nothing in this universe could’ve looked better than that Fury Road trailer. So it was always doomed. But this movie was freaking awesome.
NUMBER 1 – ANORA
When I think of Anora, I think of one word: Energy. Every single frame of this movie is packed with energy. You don’t see that anymore. We used to get it in movies like Trainspotting and Fight Club and Amos Perros and Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. We don’t see it much anymore, though. Sean Baker is one of the few filmmakers who’s able to infuse that same level of energy into every moment of his movie. Anora is a long film but it never plays like it. The entire second act is a chase where we’re always one step behind. The screenplay preys on your expectations at every single juncture. You always think you know what’s coming. You don’t. Even when we get to the ending, a time when we’re usually able to put all the pieces together, we STILL don’t know where it’s going. And it’s an amazing experience because of it. The acting is incredible. The casting is incredible. The directing is superb. Scott says this movie won’t win the Oscar because Neon doesn’t have the cash to bankroll an Oscar campaign. But I think this movie is so good that it will overcome that. Expect Anora to pick up a golden statute this March.
For a franchise that was DOA when its first trailer arrived, it’s amazing that Sonic has become such a dominant franchise that it’s now beating Hollywood juggernaut, Disney, at the box office. And not just beating it. Destroying it. Sonic 3 took in 62 million dollars this weekend whereas The Liong King prequel, Mufasa, took in a measly 35 million dollars.
It’s not just a boon for Paramount’s video game star turned movie star, it’s a likely goodbye wave to Disney’s “live-action” adaptations. Between the underperforming Little Mermaid, the failure of Mufasa, and the impending failure of Snow White, which is rumored to have cost 300 million dollars to fix all its various issues, the unexpected cash cow that is live-action adaptations is now kaput.
It’s a footnote, albeit a big one, since Disney’s Marvel franchise is no longer a guaranteed money-maker. They needed this other pipeline of profit to ward off all these new Marvel bombs that were imploding. But now that the curiosity factor is dead, the live-action adaptations have to stand on their own. And it doesn’t look like they’re able to.
Luckily, Disney still has the best catalog of films in the business and, therefore, they can churn out animated sequels that always do well. Disney *does* have two of the top five movies of the year with Inside Out 2 and Moana 2. They also have Deadpool and Wolverine, although that one comes with context since it’s not a Disney-generated movie.
Speaking of superhero films, there is no studio more dependent on the success of a superhero movie than Warner Brothers is with James Gunn’s Superman. The trailer for the new film (and the rebooted DC franchise) just came out last week and, I have to say, it is amazing.
James Gunn knows that there has to be a balance in order for emotion to connect. Because if it’s all emotion all the time, then there’s nothing to contrast that emotion with. It’s like a roller coaster that only goes down. Technically, that should be fun but the whole reason that the “down” works is because the roller coaster ever-so-slowly brings you UP beforehand. You must feel that slow suspense of the “up” in order to truly enjoy the “down.”
You also have to take risks in today’s movie marketplace to stand out. This has always been the case. But in 2024, it’s even more so, since movies aren’t just competing with other movies. They’re competing with 300 million dollar TV shows. They’re competing with the internet. They’re competing with Twitch and video games and New Jersey drones and Mr. Beast.
If you give out the same ole same ole in 2024, you’re just not going to get people talking. So for James Gunn to include a SUPER DOG in his Superman movie is insane when you think about it in a vacuum. They didn’t even try that in the original Superman movies, which came out during the height of 80s cheese. We live in a way more cynical world where the inclusion of a dog with a cape in a superhero movie could lead to a laughingstock meme that dominates the internet for the next 20 years.
And yet the “Superdog saves Superman” moment in the new Superman trailer is the most talked about thing of the Christmas season. Everyone is in love with Krypto. Including me!
The Superman trailer was good enough that I now think it could be the biggest movie of 2025. Yes, it needs to beat Avatar to do so. But it’s got a chance.
Speaking of emotion, I finally saw The Wild Robot and thought it was tremendous. One of the reasons this movie works so well is that it leans into this concept of contrast. A robot does not fit into nature. They are two opposite things. That’s what makes their combination so intriguing. Therefore, before a single plot beat has occurred, we’re already intrigued.
And the writer, Chris Sanders, leans into this idea when creating Roz’s (the robot’s) flaw. Roz is only able to think in terms of her programming. The movie is about her learning to think with her heart.
Writers get lost in this concept of character arcs. They make them more complicated than they need to be when, often, the simplistic ones are the ones that work. Character thinks logically. Character learns to think emotionally.
It really is an excellent movie and worth checking out.
But if The Wild Robot feels too juvenile for you, you’ll want to check out the most un-juvenile movie of the year, Conclave. It’s free if you have Peacock. Conclave is the best-plotted movie I’ve seen in 2024.
If you haven’t seen it, it follows the aftermath of the pope dying. A new pope for the Catholic Church must be chosen quickly, which means that all of the cardinals must hunker down and vote. If the vote isn’t supported by two-thirds of the cardinals, they have to go back to square one and try again.
The story follows Cardinal Lawrence, who’s one of the few cardinals who has no aspirations of becoming pope. He’s more of a “fixer” within the church. He’s the guy who talks to everybody and tries to get them on the same page.
So what does “best-plotted” mean seeing as ‘plotting’ is a vague term?
What it means is that the plot keeps advancing at a good pace and in interesting ways. You can write a script where the plot barely advances at all. You run into this with slow-burn thrillers, for example (think 2017’s “It Comes At Night”). You can write a script where the plot *does* advance but does so in uninteresting ways. For example, I can reveal that my female lead character is pregnant, which is advancing the plot, but does that pregnancy make the movie better? If not, it’s not good plotting.
Good plotting is when you keep advancing the plot – usually every 10-12 pages – in ways that add context and excitement to the story that wasn’t present before the plot beat arrived.
For example, one of the plot beats we learn about 25 pages into the screenplay is that Lawrence is losing his faith. He’s questioning his belief in God. Then, about 15 pages later, when the first votes come in, we learn that Lawrence is one of the favorites to become pope.
Do you see how the first plot beat, which was interesting in and of itself, works in tandem with the second plot beat? A cardinal who’s losing his faith is problematic. But a cardinal who’s losing his faith and is at risk of becoming the biggest religious figure in the world? That’s catastrophic. Which is what makes the plotting-combo so good.
Conclave does a great job of these plot advancements coming from the internal (the characters) as well as the external (the outside world). This is a late-movie spoiler so look away if you plan on seeing the film, but a later plot beat has a terrorist bombing outside the Sistine Chapel. It’s one more obstacle the Cardinals have to deal with.
The movie also does a good job employing today’s screenwriting theme, which is CONTRAST. The Catholic Church props up morality and peace and kindness. Yet the politicking that comes with voting in a a new pope is built on backstabbing and ambition and greed.
Both Conclave and The Wild Robot will end up on my Top Ten of the Year list, which I’ll publish tomorrow. I have one last movie I want to see before making the list. That would be The Brutalist, which looks like it’s going to be Anora’s main competition for a Best Movie Oscar. It’s 3 hours long, though. I’m hoping that won’t deter me when I wake up tomorrow. :)
I like the Black List. It’s one of the best ways for writers to get recognition for writing a good feature script.
But the Black List has been led astray in recent years. It used to be purely about finding the best scripts in town. Now, there are two major factors impeding that mission.
The first is an emphasis on socio-political variables that have nothing to do with script quality. The second is educated reps who know how to game the system to get their clients lots of votes.
These actions have compromised the list.
Which is why I do this at the end of every year. I’ve read most of the Black List scripts, therefore I know which ones are actually good and which ones aren’t. I re-rank the list so that you, as well as the industry, knows which scripts and which writers are deserving.
Is there subjectivity to my rankings? Only with biopics (cause I don’t like them) and comedy (since comedy is so subjective). But everything else I’m almost always right about. The large majority of people who read these scripts will agree with me.
Before I start the rankings, here are the scripts that I didn’t read due to my having no interest in the subject matter.
Patsy – about Patsy Kline
Forbidden Fruits – weird sounding script where everyone is named after a fruit
Carousel – I actually want to read this but don’t have it.
Hot Mess – tabloid gossip story
We Got Next – WNBA script
The Profit – real life story about dude losing billions in one day
Dickens vs. Andersen – another writer showdown script
Our House – about an insurrection
Our Man in Miami – sports agent Fidel Castro thing
What’s My Age Again – true story about a young governor
Beyond the Grave – illegal immigrant script
Immune – Vaccines
Kazan – biopic writer script
Ferocious – A shark script I still want to read
The Stratford wife – Shakespeare thing
Displacement – Comedy on a geriatric cruise
If you only care about the scripts I deem worthy of your attention, I have listed a LINE OF DEMARCATION in the post. Everything below that line is a script worth checking out. By the way, almost all of these scripts can be found on this site. Are we ready? We’re going to start with the worst and work our way up to the best. Here we go!
58 – American Dreams
7 votes
Tricia Lee & Corey Brown
Genre: Sci-Fi
Logline: In the not-so-distant future, an Asian-American woman works at a company where you can hire people to write your dreams. When one of her clients mysteriously dies, she realizes that those who have the power to write your dreams, also have the power to write your nightmares.
From Review: I mean, a good 30 pages of this script were dedicated to cutting to the good guys in a room saying, ‘We have to take down the meanie bad guys,’ then cutting to the bad guys in their room saying, ‘We have to take down those goodie good guys!’ It was like being transported back to 1984 watching an episode of The Smurfs.
57 – Return To Sender
20 votes
Genre: Thriller
Logline: A woman who’s moved into a new home and is buying a lot of things from a giant delivery company learns that she is being used for a new delivery scam.
From Review: There may be something to the idea of random stuff being delivered to you. Each item is increasingly weirder. You don’t know how they connect but there’s clearly some message to them. That could be a movie. But the script I just read doesn’t have that clarity of purpose. It’s murky. It stumbles. It has moments but those moments are followed by large chunks of pages that put you to sleep.
56 – Polo (newsletter review)
17 votes
Genre: Drama
Nika Burnett
Logline: When a young woman returns home from the Navy, she joins a local water polo team and finds herself fighting a new battle.
From Review: I’m not going to lie, I’m frustrated. I’m frustrated because I had high hopes for this script. But I’m also frustrated because this isn’t a script worthy of being celebrated. It shouldn’t be on any list. It’s not good. And when you celebrate scripts that aren’t good by putting them on the Black List, it confuses aspiring screenwriters.
55 – Down Came The Rain
9 votes
Katie Found
Genre: Horror
Logline: When a woman gives birth to a spider, she begins to question her unraveling reality and the psychological and arachnid horrors of postpartum motherhood.
From Review: There’s simply not enough happening here where we’re going to give you the luxury of writing an entire uninterrupted page of description.
54 – Woodwork
8 votes
Abiel Bruhn
Genre: Serial Killer
Logline: While settling his mother’s estate, awkward loner James reunites with his long-lost brother Rob who oozes wealth, charm, and confidence–but the chance encounter leads to a twisted game of wits and violence.
From Review: There are hints of a good movie in here. The brother angle. Does Rob really exist? The striking imagery of the wooden mask. Rob’s view on existence. But there’s too much noise and not enough melody when it’s all said and done.
53 – Propel (Newsletter review)
7 votes
Jeremy Marwick
Genre: Thriller
Logline: A commercial diver fights to survive after a boating accident leaves her for dead underwater.
From Review: I remember this being very average.
52 – The Nest
17 votes
Aaron Benjamin
Genre: Thriller
Logline: Confined to “the nest,” a Secret Service Sniper gets a strange call on the radio from a deranged mastermind who’s holding his family hostage in a box suite during America’s biggest game– The Super Bowl.
From Review: The moment I committed to the story – cause I was on the fence for a while – was when Webb told Jackson that Jackson would be killing people today. I’m a sucker for when good people are forced to do bad things. I just think it gets to the heart of compelling character conflict.
51 – Hit Me, Baby
17 votes
Kurt McLeod
Genre: Action
Logline: After Liv, a world-class hitwoman, breaks up with her boyfriend, Martin, he puts out a massive contract on his own life to get her attention. What Martin doesn’t realize is that it’s an open contract with a 48-hour expiration, so now every assassin in the western hemisphere is coming after him. Liv makes a deal to keep him safe until the contract expires, if he pays her out the full bounty. With the clock ticking, the two must elude some of the world’s most prolific killers.
From Review: Ever since pure rom-coms became excommunicato, these “rom-coms with an edge” took their place. So I wouldn’t be surprised if this became a movie. It would make for a fun trailer. But the script wasn’t for me. Does this mean love loses?
50 – First You Hear Them
19 votes
Sean Harrigan
Genre: Horror
Logline: A group of friends find their lives disrupted after experimenting with a new drug that first makes them hear something, then see something, then become hunted by something.
From Review: It goes back to the dialogue. If your characters would’ve had more interesting conversations and weren’t muttering perfunctory things to get through the scenes, I would’ve been more entertained in the meantime.
49 – Unnie
7 votes
Lynn Yu
Genre: Slasher
Logline: In the cutthroat world of K-POP, a group’s debut is threatened when someone begins to violently attack its members.
From Review: I *do* think this script is marketable. But it doesn’t do anything that gets you excited. It plays out like you think it will.
48 – The Getaway
14 votes
Mario Kyprianou & Becky Leigh
Genre: Romantic Comedy/sci-fi
Logline: A couple on the brink of divorce sets off on a romantic getaway to save their marriage, but when they find that they have inexplicably traveled back in time, they decide to team up to stop their younger selves from ever getting married.
From Review: This script started out strong. These writers have comedic chops. But they focused too much on plotting and, in the process, lost too many opportunities to be funny. I do like that the writers are using the story to try and say something about the choices we make in life and how they can lead us down completely different paths. But that should not have been the priority. The priority should’ve been the comedy.
47 – Foragers
19 votes
Top 10
Genre: Thriller
Logline: When the illegitimate daughter of a Portland billionaire goes missing, her loved ones turn to Juno and Andi, local homesteaders and members of The Foragers–a grassroots network of experts dedicated to finding the lost and bringing them home.
From Review: “Despite this, the script was just a little too weird for me. I’m not sure I ever totally believed in this bizarre network of people-finders. Their too-cool-for-school personas never matched up with their odd way of life.”
46 – Last Resort
11 votes
Larua Stoltz
Genre: Drama/Comedy
Logline: A grieving woman goes to an Icelandic “end of life” resort to kill herself while also looking into the surprise suicide of her girlfriend, who killed herself here several months prior.
From Review: You have a much better chance of people recommending your script to others if it’s hopeful, or upbeat, or optimistic. I see viewers watching this trailer and thinking, “Why would I go see that?” “Why go see a movie about people killing themselves?”
45 – The Final Score
11 votes
Will Hettinger
Genre: Crime
Logline: Two FBI agents are pitted against a crew of bank robbers–and each other–as they grapple with order and chaos inside their own department and home lives.
From Review: THE READER KNOWS WHEN YOU DIDN’T PUT IN ENOUGH EFFORT. You cannot and will not EVER FOOL THEM.
44 – High Concept
21 votes
Alex Kavutskiy & Ryan Perez
Genre: Comedy
Logline: In the early 2000s, two totally opposite best friends, Mike (an uptight lawyer) and BJ (a stoner slacker), awake one morning to find that they have swapped bodies, are stuck in a time loop, and are afflicted with many other high-concept comedy premises of that era. Drawing upon their knowledge of those type of movies, Mike & BJ must learn their lesson(s) and get their lives back to normal.
From Review: “I was just telling this to a writer earlier today in a Zoom consultation about his comedy script. All the reader cares about in the end with comedies is “did I laugh enough?” The plot is secondary. I didn’t laugh enough here to recommend it.
43 – Backcountry
11 votes
Kevin Sheridan
Genre: Thriller/Survival
Logline: A famous former extreme skier attempts to re-ski the mountain that ended his career, this time with the son of his old rival, with the threat of an avalanche looming.
From Review: If our hero isn’t solving problems, why even have a hero?
42 – The Wolf in Chiefs Clothing (Review Missing)
11 votes
Adam Christopher Best
Genre: Comedy
Logline: A lovable loser from a family of criminals becomes the Kansas City Chiefs’ most famous superfan. His newfound status is expensive, so he teams up with his imaginary friend–an anthropomorphic version of the team’s wolf mascot–and goes on a bank-robbing spree.
From Review: Can’t find the review but the main thing I remember is that the execution didn’t push the envelope enough. It was too expected.
41 – Fistmas
14 votes
Genre: Comedy/Holiday
Jack Waz
Logline: In order to propose to the girl of his dreams, a lovestruck guy must first survive her hometown’s annual Christmas fighting tournament.
From Review: I’m not sure what the theme of this movie was. It seems to be that leaders take advantage of violence to control people? But the script is too goofy to sell such a sophisticated theme. Let me reiterate that a grown man fights a teenage girl while everyone stands around and cheers. That’s not the kind of movie you try and push a 12 Days A Slave level theme onto.
40 – Mole People
7 votes
Nathan Elston
Genre: Horror/Thriller
Logline: When an unhoused teen turns up brutally murdered, his estranged brother searches for answers in the underworld of New York City and uncovers a series of horrifying crimes hiding deep in the abandoned subway systems.
From Review: Most readers (and viewers) aren’t going to care if a man has gone missing or murdered.
39 – Personal Best
10 votes
Ryan Hoang Williams
Genre: Comedy/Biopic
Logline: Based on the true story of James Hogue, a talented student and long-distance runner who was admitted to Princeton University under the false identity of “Alexi Indris-Santana”–an orphaned, self-educated, teenage ranch hand.
From Review: The script has its moments. It’s not bad by any means. It’s just one of those scripts you read and nod your head every once in a while thinking, “That was a pretty good scene.” But the totality of the experience doesn’t move you so you’ll never recommend it to anyone else.
38 – 8 Habits of Highly Murderous People
7 votes
Michael Boyle
Genre: Thriller/Mystery
Logline: Psychologist Dr. Martin Park specializes in working with clients trying to curtail extreme violent urges. However, when a series of brutally murdered bodies are discovered in his small New England hometown, it’s up to Martin to figure out which of his patients is responsible.
From Review: This script needed more of a deft touch to handle the tone it was going for.
37 – Undying
10 votes
Ben Ketai
Genre: Drama/Supernatural
Logline: A woman, suffocated by motherhood, has an affair with a man she hasn’t seen since high school– only to discover he has been dead for years.
From Review: I find “almost horror” to be one of the trickier genres to pull off. Cause the horror folks are always going to be frustrated that you’re not giving them enough horror. And the drama folks tend to get judgy when you introduce anything ‘horror’ into the screenplay.
36 – The Pentester
12 votes
Jesse Quiñones
Genre: Thriller
Logline: A Pentester (ethical hacker who plans cyber attacks to help organizations identify security vulnerabilities) is set up in the murder of one of the richest most influential men in the world.
From Review: You must deliver on the Promise of the Genre. If you’re writing in the comedy genre, you gotta be funny. If you’re writing in the Action genre, you gotta have great action set pieces. And if you’re writing in the espionage thriller genre, you need the plot beats built around espionage to be convincing. The laziness of that plot point was the dagger that made this script stagger.
35 – Head Games
25 votes
Genre: Psychological Thriller
Logline: A corporate spy poses as a personal chef to the disgraced founder of a neuroprosthetics firm in order to steal his seismic-shifting new invention from his secluded villa in Greece.
From Review: In the end, this script reminded me of a very specific movie, the 2001 film, “Antitrust,” starring Ryan Phillipe and Tim Robbins. It had the same young-old cat-and-mouse technological slant to it. But just like that movie, it never did anything strong enough to grab you and pull you in.
34 – The Great Pretender
12 votes
Kirill Baru & Eric Zimmerman
Genre: Comedy
Logline: When Tom Hanks, the nicest guy in Hollywood (and arguably the world), finds his life stolen by a Tom Hanks impersonator, the only way to get it back is to do the one thing he’s never been able to: stop being nice.
From Review: I wanted way more instances of Tom Hanks having to be mean. That’s where your humor’s going to come from
33 – Die Fast
9 votes
Julian Meiojas
Genre: Action
Logline: Following a severe, soon to be fatal, brain injury during a violent attack, an NYPD sergeant embarks on a harrowing journey of vengeance, which leaves her only a few hours of adrenaline-bursting consciousness to hunt down those who took her daughter and killed her husband before she dies.
From Review: It’s overly specific try-hard too-cool-for-school writing, which often results in reader “double-takes” (the reader has to re-read sentences to understand them). When you’re writing a script like this one that is so reliant on its fast pace, double-take lines are script killers.
32 – Harness
7 votes
Leigh Janiak
Genre: Sports/Drama
Logline: In the violent world of underground horse racing, a wannabe female jockey and her trainer brother- in-law become entangled in an illicit relationship full of blood, sweat, and sex that pushes the limits of their bodies and the law.
From Review: I never liked Ruth. I never understood why I would like her. She’s cold. She’s bitchy. She’s selfish. That’s three-strikes-you’re-out.
31 – Untitled Missing Child
13 votes
Brenna Galvin
Genre: Mystery
Logline: A mommy vlogger’s child goes missing but when the detective assigned to the case starts looking into it, she suspects that the missing child may not exist.
From Review: It’s stuff like this that makes me question the Black List’s criteria. Cause that isn’t even the last twist. There are three more major twists, all of which make the story less and less believable.
30 – Toxoplasmosis
13 votes
Andrew Nunnelly
Genre: Comedy
Logline: After his girlfriend dies, a guy who hates cats begins an unexpected bromance with her widowed cat, who reveals himself to be an alien that is here to save the world.
From Review: The problem is that there’s an unhinged quality to the writing. It gets so untethered at times that you stop believing in what’s going on.
29 – Spoiler
42 votes
Jordan Rosenbloom
Genre: Thriller/Comedy
Logline: After passing on a hot new screenplay, a studio executive finds himself trapped as the protagonist inside the film and must regain control before the credits roll.
From Review: They say to never write a script about the industry. I have an addendum to that. Never write a script about the industry UNLESS YOU’RE IN THE INDUSTRY. Because if you’re in the industry, you can inject the requisite specificity required to sell this world.
28 – Better Half
15 votes
Gaelyn Golde
Genre: Comedy
Logline: When her best friend since childhood falls in love and starts spending all her time with her new boyfriend, a selfish codependent career woman will do anything to get her back.
From Review: We see the value of that here when Hank enters the equation. When it was just Bridget and Rae, sure, they had a fun back-and-forth. They said some funny things. But their interactions became infinitely more interesting when Hank entered the equation.
27 – Lure
8 votes
Nick Tassoni
Genre: Horror
Logline: When a park ranger ventures into the wilderness to find a missing hiker before a storm, she finds herself lured into the woods by a dangerous, unearthly predator mimicking her dead daughter.
From Review: Lure is built on that old horror conceit of being stuck in a place where your dead family member keeps showing up to test you in some way. I’m never thrilled with this setup.
26 – Blasphemous
9 votes
Luke Piotrowski
Genre: Horror/Religious
Logline: An inexperienced priest and a charismatic possessed woman form a dark and dangerous bond while on the run from sinister forces within the Catholic Church.
From Review: That’s a microcosm of my bigger issue I had with the screenplay. Which is that I don’t get the sense that the writer truly understands the world he’s writing about. I think he SORT OF understands it. But when you only “sort of” understand your world, the execution of your story only “sort of” works.
25 – Palette
9 votes
Zack Strauss
Genre: Drama/Thriller
Logline: A woman who discovers she is suffering from severe synesthesia gets recruited into the secretive, cult-like industry of color design by a mysterious corporation but then uncovers the bloody, dark, and twisted reality of what it really takes to make the world’s next great hues.
From Review: Then there’s the overarching plot. There was none! We’re just watching her come to work every day and work on colors. There’s no bigger plot!
24 – The Last Tower
10 votes
Aaron Sala
Genre: Zombie Thriller
Logline: When a disaster strikes, a family is trapped in their high-rise Miami hotel. With danger closing in fast, they’re left with only one way to go: Up.
From Review: Despite this, the concept’s fun-factor overrides the negatives. This is definitely a movie.
23 – Blow up the Chat
7 votes
Amos Vernon & Nunzio Randazzo
Genre: Comedy
Logline: When their embarrassing, sometimes filthy, possibly cancellable group chat falls into the wrong hands, a group of dudes must go on a madcap scavenger hunt around town to appease a mysterious blackmailer.
From Review: This script always had one hand tied behind its back because it wasn’t willing to expose the kinds of texts that people would REALLY WRITE. The kind of texts that would REALLY CANCEL someone.
22 – The Adults in the Room
8 votes
Jake Disch
Genre: True Story
Logline: On November 1, 2022, FTX was valued at $32 billion. On November 11, 2022, it filed for bankruptcy. This is the incredible true story of the meteoric rise and catastrophic fall of FTX and its enigmatic founder, Sam Bankman-Fried.
From Review: So Disch, instead, placed Nishad in the protagonist role. Nishad is more sympathetic as he’s constantly questioning Sam’s decision-making throughout the story. It also allowed Disch to include all this commentary on Sam through the eyes of Nishad.
21 – U.P.S.E.T.
13 votes
Ben Bolea
Two border cops in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula find themselves in the crosshairs of Canadian biker gangs, international drug cartels, and shady government agents after intercepting a drug deal gone bad–all the day after an awkward one-night stand.
From Review: I’m always looking for ANYTHING FRESH in a script. The more freshness you can provide to your script salad, the more eagerly I will chow down. So to start with a cop snowmobile chase was a cool opening!
20 – Didier
24 votes (top 5)
Jackson Kellard
Genre: Biopic/Sports
Logline: Set in the early 2000s, superstar Ivory Coast soccer player, Didier, joins his flailing home-country team again, but finds that they’re divided by the political civil war brewing within their nation.
From Review: I would still be surprised if anyone who wasn’t an Ivory Coast history buff made it through the whole thing. It’s still a biopic so it’s never going to win over the casual movie fan.
19 – If I Had Your Face
9 votes
Ran Ran Wang
Genre: Thriller/Horror
Logline: When Jo’s best friend, Rina starts dating a white man, she begins transforming into something different: a white woman. Through it all, Jo can’t seem to convince anyone that there is cause for concern. But when three unidentifiable white women turn up dead, Jo realizes that they had all been Asian women who dated the same man, and now that he has Rina in his sights, it’s up to Jo to save her before she becomes his next victim.
From Review: This is something newbie writers do all the time in horror. They write trippy stuff and expect the reader to do the work for them.
18 – Sea Dogs
11 votes
Josh Woolf
Genre: Drama
Logline: After two down-on-their-luck lobster fishermen botch a hijacking attempt on the high seas, they are forced to confront the consequences of their actions as they struggle to navigate a world they no longer recognize.
From Review: There are a million scripts about guys running from cops in small towns. But there are very few where people are trying to rob a giant container ship.
17 – The Crowd
11 votes
Jack Heller
Genre: Horror
Logline: In a claustrophobic race against time, a woman must unravel the mystery behind a malevolent crowd before she succumbs to their relentless pursuit.
From Review: I’m guessing the writer thought that if there was too much crowd stuff, it would lose its impact. I suppose that’s an okay argument. But not if you get inventive. I already liked this rule he created where sometimes the crowd just watches. It doesn’t move in on you.
16 – Please Come Back
7 votes
Mike George
Genre: Horror
Logline: A young couple who perform rituals to raise people from the dead get more than they bargained for when they attempt to re-animate a young girl who doesn’t remember how she died.
From Review: Two things I absolutely love in a screenplay are 1) Show me something I haven’t seen before. And 2) Give me a deep compelling mythology that I know you know intimately. This script nailed both.
THE LINE OF DEMARCATION – EVERY SCRIPT LISTED BELOW THIS LINE IS WORTH READING
15 – Old Time Hockey
7 votes
Kevin Jakubowski
Genre: Comedy
Logline: A forty-three-year-old snowplow driver decides to get his high school hockey team back together to play a state championship game.
From Review: It takes courage to write a script like this because, let’s be honest, these types of scripts aren’t in favor these days. With that said, I’m constantly telling you guys to write AGAINST the grain, not with it.
14 – Boy Fall From The Sky
9 votes
Hunter Toro
Genre: True Story
Logline: An anxious playwright finds himself tangled in a web of deceit, injury, and intellectual property as he adapts his first Broadway musical, Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark. Inspired by a true story.
From Review: I don’t like true stories. But if you’re going to write one, this is the exact type of story you want to re-tell. It’s big, it’s weird, it’s chaotic, and let’s be honest – it’s funny to watch something fail so spectacularly.
13 – Stakehorse
47 votes
Justin Piasecki
Genre: Crime
Logline: A racetrack veterinarian who runs an off-the-books ER for criminals finds his practice and life in jeopardy when he’s recruited for his patient’s heist.
From Review: if you’ve got a character piece that doesn’t have a hook, consider turning it into a crime film. Cause it all of a sudden becomes a million times more marketable. It’s one of those few times that crime does pay.
12 – Boxman
7 votes
Adam Yorke
Genre: Thriller
Logline: After a botched bank heist leaves nineteen people locked inside a state-of-the-art vault, the FBI recruits the world’s foremost box-man from federal prison so he can break them out before they suffocate inside.
From Review: The attention to detail, the deep research that went into the safe-cracking, the multilayered story, the clever subplots (there’s an “inside man” in the vault), and the fun central plotline (will this safe-cracker both save 19 lives AND free himself from prison) combined for a script that is worthy of producing.
11 – Chaperones
10 votes
Sarah Rothschild
Genre: Horror/Comedy
Logline: A single dad tries to bond with his teenage daughter by chaperoning her field trip, only to have to save the world (and possibly her virginity) when an ancient evil is unleashed.
From Review: This script is actually good and if you’re into these types of movies, read it. It’s a great template for how to approach this genre with just the right balance of humor, horror, character, and craft.
10 – Sundown
8 votes
Nick Hurwitch
Genre: Horror
Logline: Monsters that roam in daylight keep a small, rural family confined to a nocturnal lifestyle. But when their son starts to question the monsters’ existence, his parents must see how far they’re willing to go to keep him safe.
From Review: Get ready for a nifty little twist.
9 – The Nowhere Game
9 votes
Alex Pototsky
Genre: Thriller
Logline: Two young women are kidnapped, brought deep into the woods, given a head start, and then hunted down by their sadistic captor all for the pleasure of the online fans of “The Nowhere Game.”
From Review: I’m really happy that I came across this script because it’s a wonderful reminder that if you can tell a simple story well, you’re a screenwriter.
8 – Blood Rush
11 votes
Andrew Ferguson
Genre: Action/Horror
Logline: A Miami cop joins a secret Black Ops team who are fighting a gang war against a mysterious, possibly even supernatural, opponent.
From Review: Every group of characters, whether it be a group of 2 characters like Training Day, three characters like Challengers, or a group of characters, like Knives Out, has a dynamic. And how little or how extensively you explore that dynamic can be the difference between a boring movie and an exciting one.
7 – The Peasant
12 votes
Will Dunn
Genre: Period/Thriller
Logline: In the 14th Century, a lone shepherd rages against a company of mercenary knights after they ransack his peaceful peasant community, proving that he is more than he seems.
From Review: It appears that this script was (smartly) written to become a franchise. There are so many John Wick clones these days, how do you separate yourself? You separate yourself in the way that I told you to at the beginning of this review. Jump back 800 years or so. That world is so different from ours today that you can literally copy the exact same template as John Wick and it feels like a completely different movie.
6 – Runner
13 votes
Logline: A high-end courier has three hours to transport a liver from LAX to a Santa Barbara hospital to a dying seven-year-old girl with the rarest blood type on the planet while contending with the head of the Southland’s most dangerous crime syndicate, who needs the organ to survive.
Tommy White & Miles Hubley
From Review: There’s this scene around page 35 where Hank and Ben are pulled over by these bad guys. The scene just sits there in its suspense, soaking the silence up, as we wait for the bad guys to move. What are they going to do? That was the peak of the screenplay for me. The story AND the writing were firing on all cylinders.
5 – The Masque of the Red Death
13 votes
Charlie Polinger
Logline: The long-lost twin sister of a Duchess infiltrates the kingdom’s walls, impersonating her dead sister, who, unbeknownst to the kingdom, fell victim to the fast-rising killer pandemic known as “The Red Death.”
From Review: It’s also built on a powerful storytelling device – LYING. Lying is a very powerful engine in and of itself because it requires characters to hide things. And that’s always fun to watch.
4 – People Walk Dogs Late At Night In The Suburbs
7 votes
Drake Wootton
Genre: Drama/Thriller
Logline: A charming high school math teacher-about to be a father-comes up with a plan to course correct his life after having an affair with his student.
From Review: This is the closest script I’ve seen to matching the power, the character-exploration, and tone of one of my favorite movies, American Beauty. It has the potential to be that good.
3 – 10/24/02
16 votes
Genre: Sci-Fi
Logline: Told in real-time, a man who recently broke into Area 51 stops at a motel and begins to execute his plan to send the incredible footage he took to the five biggest news sources in the country.
From Review: There’s another thing going on here that’s important to note for anyone writing a single location low-character-count screenplay. It has to feel like you don’t have enough time to tell your story. It can’t feel like you’re trying to fill time up.
2 – Roses
8 votes
Evan Twohy
Genre: Sci-Fi/Thriller
Logline: A married man takes his girlfriend on a romantic getaway to a villa. There is a swimming pool.
From Review: The genius of this script is that it never stops leaning into its unique premise. It keeps going back to that swimming pool well.
1 – Bad Boy (newsletter review)
49 votes
Travis Braun
Genre: Thriller
Logline: A rescue dog suspects his loving new owner is a serial killer.
From Review: Braun then turbo-charges the writing by keeping it “vertical.” What that means is he keeps the paragraphs as short as possible and minimizes his sentence length. This ensures that the eyes keep moving down the page, which gives us less time to talk ourselves out of that suspension of disbelief.
Nicholl-winning script!
Genre: Supernatural/Love Story/Drama
Premise: (from Black List) Aden was born with a rare condition where he becomes invisible to those who love him. He struggles when he falls in love with his childhood best friend.
About: This script finished in the middle of this year’s Black List, which was released last week. You can see my assessment of every idea on the list here. This script won the 2024 Nicholl Fellowship. Kayla Sun is a writer-director who is expanding a short film of hers called, “Velare.”
Writer: Kayla Sun
Details: 97 pages
Finn Wolfhard for Aden?
I heard a few of you discussing how much you liked this one in the comments.
I’m glad you did because, otherwise, I probably wouldn’t have read it. I thought the logline had a lot of problems.
“Aden was born with a rare condition where he becomes invisible to those who love him. He struggles when he falls in love with his childhood best friend.”
It sounds drifty. Young-Adult’ish. Unsure of itself. Lightweight. There’s a big idea here. There’s even the beginnings of a concept. But it ultimately feels like one of those scripts where the writer operates more on feel than craft. Like they’re going to discover the story along the way instead of it being meticulously plotted, like the way Conclave (which I just watched) was.
Hopefully, I’m wrong. But we’ll see!
7 year old Aden has lived a unique life, one in which his family can’t even see him because of his condition – a rare unnamed condition where you are unseen by those who love you. As a result, Aden has always needed to keep people at arm’s length. That’s because the closer they get to him, the less visible he becomes, until he’s vanished entirely.
Therefore, it’s non-love at first sight when he meets Velare, a hardcore sociopath (we know this because other school children mention it) who despises everyone. Since there is no fear of Velare liking him, Aden pushes for friendship. She never really accepts this but allows him to hang around anyway.
Then, one day, Velare comes home to find that her crazy father killed her mother then shot himself. As Velare is being whisked off by the police, she spots Aden and tells him she never wants to see him again.
Cut to 11 years later and Aden is working as an assistant private detective. When a client comes in and says that someone is stealing other people’s personal items that don’t have any monetary value, he’s on the case.
This eventually leads to him finding Adult Velare, who is working for a psychic. Velare takes us into a flashback of her childhood from her POV. We learn that Velare has a power as well. She can see how people die just by touching them. So she knew years ahead of time that her dad would kill her mom. She knew years ahead of time that zoo tigers would maul her foster parents.
Back as a 7 year old, we see her getting to know Aden, him slowly becoming more transparent to her, and her coming to the conclusion that he must be an imaginary friend. That’s why she told him she never wanted to see him again! Cause she was done being a child and didn’t want imaginary friends anymore.
Cut back to the present and we gradually learn that Velare is stealing personal items from people around town, but not to hurt them, to SAVE THEM. For example, when she touches a man and learns that he dies by running into his burning building to save his precious books, she preemptively steals the books so that he’ll never run into the fire in the first place.
But can these two and their quirky existences mesh into an actual relationship? Or is the universe so brazenly conspiring against them that love has no chance?
Let me start by painting a positive assessment of this story. This is unlike any love story you’ve ever read before. It is its own unique thing. It has its own unique tone. If you like offbeat love stories, stuff like “Wristcutters,” there’s a chance you’ll be into this.
In addition to this, you have a morsel of a compelling concept at the center of your script. That being, what if people couldn’t see you once they loved you? How would that affect the way you interacted with everyone? You would want to get close to others, but also keep them at arms’ length because the more they liked you, the less they saw you. I’m not saying that the script explored this idea in the most effective way, but it is a compelling idea.
Now let me paint a more objective view of this story. This script felt entirely inauthentic from the jump. You could always tell that a writer was writing it. In place of authentic human moments, you got manufactured unrealistic developments that never seemed genuine.
For example, our female lead can see others’ deaths by touching them. So we see the murder of her mother. We see her foster parents get mauled by zoo tigers. We see someone get accidentally shot by a kindergartener playing with a gun. We see someone die in a fire. These are the types of things that don’t happen to the everyday person. They only happen when writers with big imaginations who are trying to create giant affecting moments write them. That Velare only seemed to know people who died in these fantastical ways was ridiculous. Why didn’t anybody die in a bed of, you know, old age?
This is the act that writers go through, especially when they’re younger, whereby they force things into the script that aren’t based in reality. Even if you try and make the argument that this concept itself isn’t based in reality, you still have to ground most elements of your story. Not everything can be fantastical. This is not an animated film. It’s supposed to be set in the real world.
That was my big problem with Boy Girl Fig. Nothing in it is based in reality. From multiple superhero characters to jobs that no average person would have to deaths that only exist in one’s wildest imagination. There’s no ground underneath the story. It’s all floating up in the air.
If you want to emotionally affect an audience, you need to base some aspect of your story in reality so that people can relate to it. I never related to anything here and that’s why I didn’t like it.
There are aspects of this script that are going to be visually powerful in the final film. For example, due to the fact that his parents can’t see Aden, they must tie an orange balloon to him. Certain people are in different stages of how much they care for Aden and, therefore, Aden is of varying opaqueness to all these people. I could see how that would look intriguing in a trailer.
But the world, and subsequent rules, the writer creates for this story are so unbelievable that I was never close to suspending my disbelief. It wasn’t for me.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: The second I pick up on something that doesn’t feel genuine in a script, I get worried. I don’t give up on the script right then and there. But if I see another example of the same thing, I will lose faith in the script quickly. Early on, a seven year old says this, “But you know, my point is, fig does have flowers. I read it in a book yesterday. Their flowers just grow inward. They are the sticky things you see when you cut a fig open. Isn’t that interesting? Do they teach that at school?”
There is no world in which a 7 year old talks like this. It’s a small thing but actually a big thing. Cause it set the precedent for a number of moments in the script that weren’t believable.
Genre: Comedy/Holiday
Premise: After finding his dream girl, a young man heads to her small hometown for Christmas, only to realize that the town has an annual “Purge”-like game where, in order to keep the peace 364 days of the year, anyone who has beef with anyone else takes them on in a fight.
About: Jack Waz has had several scripts make the Black List in recent years. This is from last year’s list. In a Creative Screenwriting interview from 2018, this is what Jack said was the key to getting a manager: “Two things: have a great sample, and a personality to match. Your manager and agent are your partners in your career, and you need to treat them as such. Finding people who believe in you and are willing to put up with years of investment before payoff is key. Be honest, open, direct in what you want.”
Writer: Jack Waz
Details: 91 pages
Well, the weather outside is frightful. But the fire is so…
Okay, I’m totally lying. The weather outside here in Los Angeles is a perfect 70 degrees. I’m wearing shorts and sipping an ice-cold Coca Cola. There’s nothing frightful about my situation at all.
But cut me some slack. I’m trying to get in the Christmas spirit. The Christmas spirit back in my hometown of Chicago could be encapsulated in a single word: MISERY.
The snow this time of year wouldn’t even be white. It would be that dirty snow that would get mixed with the fallen snow, turning into a grayish mixture. Combined with the 300 days a year of gray skies in Chi-Town, it’s a miracle I ever learned how to smile.
But once you pull on that sweater, get cozy beside the fire, and light up the Christmas tree, a lot of that frustration melts. Especially when you put on a good Christmas movie.
Which is what I’m hoping to find in today’s script.
Grab your stockings which, by the way, are hung by the chimney without care (I was in a hurry), load up that Red Ryder BB gun, and let’s shoot some people in the eye while summarizing today’s holiday adventure…
Harrison Powell, who’s in his late 20s, is at a bar during the most annoying event of the year, SantaCon, where everyone dresses like Santa and gets wasted. He’s so disgusted by the actions of these Santas that he storms out of the bar.
But as he’s leaving, he runs into the gorgeous Emily, and when the two meet, they know it’s love at first sight. They spend every waking second together and within months, Harrison is ready to propose. Emily invites him to Christmas at her family’s place and his plan is to win her parents over then ask her to marry him.
They travel to the small secluded town of Summit Valley, voted the most peaceful town in the U.S., and after meeting the family, which includes her dad, Tom, who’s the town mayor, they head out to “The Pagent.”
Except when they get to the Pagent, it’s not a pagent at all! Two townspeople who have beef with each other square up… then start beating each other’s brains out! This is when Harrison learns Summit Valley’s secret. In order to keep the peace, the town allows anyone who has beef with someone else to square off in a brawl in the three days leading up to Christmas.
All of a sudden, Harrison is pitted against the teenage store clerk he got snippy with when they came into town. And after he’s done with her, he has to fight the 70+ year old snow plow driver who hates him for no reason.
As Harrison keeps fighting people, he starts to realize that Tom, who came up with this whole ‘Fistmas’ idea, has been cheating every election! And that his plan is to keep everybody in town angry with each other so they don’t realize he’s a terrible person. But Harrison is finally going to reveal it, even if that means losing Emily.
On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me…
A bizarre comedic Christmas premise that kinda works?
Let me give Mr. Waz props for, at the very least, coming up with a Christmas idea that I have never encountered before. Every other Christmas script I’m sent is some version of Red One. Santa is kidnapped and our hero needs to save him.
This is most certainly not that.
But does it work?
I’m not sure. It’s like one of those presents you didn’t ask for, so you don’t care about it when you first open it. But then surprisingly you find yourself playing with it a few days later.
One of my big things with writing comedy is that with your big jokes and your big set pieces, to utilize what’s specific about your concept.
And Fistmas does a good job of that.
This movie is all about these Christmas fights. The first fight, Harrison takes on a teenage girl. The second fight, he takes on an old man. The third fight, he fights inside this active snow globe. All of these scenes were either imaginative or funny or both. That part I liked.
But nothing else really works in the script.
You have this Emily romance that’s thrust on us for most of the movie. Yet, Harrison starts falling for her sister? Maybe if Emily was more of a clear villain, that would work. But we liked her. And the only reason we’re given not to like her is that she lives in this weird town.
Which left us without much to grab onto. I’m not sure what the theme of this movie was. It seems to be that leaders take advantage of violence to control people? But the script is too goofy to sell such a sophisticated theme. Let me reiterate that a grown man fights a teenage girl while everyone stands around and cheers. That’s not the kind of movie you try and push a 12 Days A Slave level theme onto.
It seems to also be about how violence is bad. But if that was the point, it wasn’t set up very well. It’s not like Harrison was in the Peace Corps and Emily used to fight in the UFC. It’s almost like the writer stumbled upon that theme and said, “Oh yeah, I guess this is what I’m writing about,” but then never went back to set it up.
Pro Tip: When you discover important things while writing the later parts of your script, make sure to go back and set those things up in future drafts.
Maybe the most frustrating thing about this script is that I think if you had changed the genre, it could’ve been amazing. If you made this a dark mix between the original Finnish version of Speak No Evil, a dash of Get Out, and then Fight Club? This could’ve been iconic. As a comedy it has its moments. But as a dark thriller, it would’ve been badass.
Finally, I will leave you with the best script line I read this month. Props to Jack Waz for coming up with it: “Season’s beatings, motherf**ker.”
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: I hate expected replies to common lines. Here’s an early line and reply.
HARRISON
It’s so great to meet you. Emily’s
told me so much about you.
TOM
All nice things, I hope.
Yaawwwwwwn. I’ve read, “All nice things I hope,” in 600 screenplays.
I could probably even get ChatGPT to create a better response to that line. Actually, I’ll go ask it right now. Give me a second.
Okay, I’m back. Here’s what it gave me for Tom’s response: “It’s nice to hear I made the highlight reel. But you’re here to see the full game, aren’t you?”
Great line? No. Ten times better than “All nice things, I hope?” Definitely.
Dude, if AI is writing better lines than you? You’re not trying hard enough!
