Where is Zendaya’s movie on this list??
It is time for the official RE-RANKING of the Black List. As we all know, at this point, the Black List ranking system is all over the place. It’s being manipulated by managers and agents. It’s promoting agendas that don’t include the quality of the script. It ignores scripts from seasoned writers with no clear delineation about who’s allowed and who’s not allowed to be on the list. We all have major reservations at this point. That’s not to say I think the list is irrelevant. There are still good scripts on it. They’re just not ranked correctly. Which is why you have me! I’ve read the scripts so I can tell you what’s good and what’s nowhere close to good. You can see the original rankings here.
There are twelve scripts on this list I haven’t read yet (Operation Milk and Cookies, Believe Me, Shania, Hello Universe, A Hufflepuff Story, St. Mary’s Catholic School Presents The Vagina Monologues, Lift, Sleep Solution, Thicker Than Ice, The Unbound, The Way You Remember Me, Ways to Hinder Winter). Eight of them I would rather lower myself into a boiling pot of water and die slowly inside, than read, so it’s safe to say they’d probably be non-factors on this list. But I will review a few more and, if anything is good, I’ll retroactively add it to this list. I’m excited to see what the true Top 10 looks like! We’re going from worst to best, here. Let’s get started!
59. Candlewood by Jason Benjamin and Jessica Granger
Logline: In 1992 a seaplane crash in a lakefront community sparks a relationship between three young sisters and the mysterious, injured female pilot.
Votes: 11
Original Rank: 27 (Tie)
Thoughts: This was one of the most baffling entries on the list. The story is so light and airy and devoid of conflict it’s almost as if it doesn’t exist. Everything from the random choice in time (set in 1992???) to the lesbian subplot that feels more like a ploy to get on the list than a genuine story choice, it’s one of those scripts you see on the list and just shrug your shoulders cause you have no idea why it got there above many more deserving screenplays.
58. Lady Krylon by Brandon Constantine
Logline: Two rival graffiti artists engage in a series of street battles, culminating in an otherworldy duel after the art starts bleeding into th ereal world.
Votes: 12
Original Rank: 22 (Tie)
Thoughts: To use an apt analogy, this script was like quickly scribbled graffiti art. It was so messy, I didn’t know what the artist was trying to paint. At the end of this script, the writer is making up mythology on the spot. Nothing is set up. It’s all random. I don’t now how this made the list.
57. Fiendish by Edgar Castillo
Logline: While meeting her boyfriend’s dysfunctional family at their ancestral manor, a young woman finds herself entangled in a bizarre and terrifying mystery when the family’s patriarch claims to have been cursed by a demon.
Votes: 9
Original Rank: 39 (Tie)
Thoughts: A horror script without enough original scares and without enough scares period.
56. Whittier by Filipe Coutinho and Ben Mehlman
Logline: While looking into a client’s murder, a Los Angeles social worker stumbles on a political conspiracy in the wake of the 1987 Whittier earthquake.
Votes: 15
Original Rank: 12 (Tie)
Thoughts: I remember reading this logline and thinking, “This is either going to be a huge miss or great.” Cause it wasn’t your typical setup for a movie. I liked that. But whenever I see these loglines with pieces that don’t organically connect, it almost always bleeds into the screenplay itself. And that’s what happened. It had a “Chinatown written by a first-time screenwriter” vibe to it.
55. Loud by Whit Brayton
Logline: A famed experimental musician finds himself embroiled in the race to solve Earth’s primary existential threat: A deafening sound that never stops, forcing all of humanity to survive in silence.
Votes: 13
Original Rank: 16 (Tie)
Thoughts: Nooooooo! I was so looking forward to this script. It had one of those newish high concept ideas I’m always looking for. The big critique I had for this one was that it was unsophisticated. And it’s trying sooooo hard to be the opposite. So every time it tries, it shines an even brighter light on how it’s failing. It didn’t feel like the writer had enough life experience to know what he was writing about.
54. It Was You by William Yu
Logline: With the future of Manhattan’s Chinatown at stake, a stubborn store clerk battles against an innovative CEO’s expansion plan, while both are unaware they’ve been falling in love with each other on a new, anonymous dating app.
Vote: 9
Original Rank: 39 (tie)
Thoughts: The Shop Around The Corner or You’ve Got Mail but not nearly as good. Wonky rule-set that doesn’t really make sense.
53. Skeleton Tree by Paul Barry
Logline: When an accident sinks their boat, two teenaged boys must learn how to survive the wilds of the remote Alaskan coastline, endure one another, and to come to terms with a long-held life-altering secret.
Votes: 10
Original Rank: 32 (Tie)
Thoughts: If the central relationship in your story isn’t working, nothing will work. And the central relationship between these two boys didn’t work. With that said, if you liked “Mud,” you might want to check this out.
52. The Dark by Chad Handley
Logline: When stranded on the far end of Manhattan by a mysterious city-wide blackout, a group of inner-city middle schoolers must fight through seemingly supernatural forces to make their way back to their parents in the Bronx.
Votes: 7
Original Rank: 57 (Tie)
Thoughts: A lot of you rightly pointed out that this was, basically, Attack the Block. Writers make this mistake all the time (especially young ones). They inadvertently rewrite their favorite movie. They’re so blind to it that they can’t see it. But we all do.
51. Killers and Diplomats by John Tyler McClain and Michael Nourse
Logline: The true story of the murder of four American churchwomen in El Salvador in 1980 and the low-level American diplomat who teamed with his most dangerous informant to smoke out their killers. Based on Raymond Bonner’s work for The Atlantic.
Votes: 7
Original Rank: 57 (Tie)
Thoughts: This script was just a big fat bummer. It never felt like a story that needed to be told. I’m not going to say, “who cares” about these women. But what’s the point of telling this story in 2022?
50. Indigo by Ola Shokunbi
Logline: An art thief who takes priceless objects from museums and private collections and redistributes them to their original countries of ownership is tracked by a dogged FBI Agent across the globe.
Votes: 11
Original Rank: 27 (Tie)
Thoughts: A James Bond wannabe with an art thief as its protagonist. Not the worst idea but this was a 747 plane that never got off the ground due to its faulty premise logic about stealing paintings from one museum and giving them to another. It’s like that script you write when you’re 22 and know nothing about how the real world works. You make up your own world rules which is fun as heck until you start sending the script around and people look at you cross-eyed. Although I guess this did get 11 votes.
49. Cauliflower by Daniel Jackson
Logline: Under the cruel guidance of a mysterious coach, an ambitious high school wrestler struggles to become a state champion while battling a bizarre infection in his ear that both makes him dominant in his sport and threatens his sanity.
Votes: 32
Original Rank: 1
Thoughts: The only thing I remember about this script was how messy it was. Just a year earlier, there was a great script on the Black List called Magazine Dreams that covered a lot of the same territory. And Magazine Dreams was smart, specific, sophisticated, and had a strong voice. It showed how these scripts *should* be written. We didn’t get anything close to that with Cauliflower, which felt like the low-rent version of Magazine Dreams.
48. Cruel Summer by Leigh Cesiro and Erica Matlin
Logline: During the summer of 1998, five camp counselors accidentally kill a stranger in the woods.
Votes: 10
Original Rank: 32 (Tie)
Thoughts: A way too thin script with way too few laughs.
47. Carriage Hill by Emi Mochizuki and Carrie Wilson
Logline: A pregnant couple hoping to start their family in the suburbs find themselves embroiled in a decades long mystery which threatens to shatter their American dream.
Votes: 7
Original Rank: 57 (Tie)
Thoughts: I love movies where people move into mysterious new communities and weird things start happening so I was kinda into this. But eventually things just stopped being believable.
46. Rabbit Season by Shanrah Wakefield
Logline: Supernatural horror about a woman stalked through a dark city park by the most monstrous manifestation of manhood during her walk home from her high school reunion.
Votes: 13
Original Rank: 16 (Tie)
Thoughts: I barely remember this one. But from what I do remember, it felt unrealistic that the main character was stuck in the park the whole movie. If you’re going to set up a movie dependent on its rules, those rules need to be rock solid. These were not.
45. The Devil Herself by Colin Bannon
Logline: When an elite assassin is sent to the haunted Harz Mountains in Germany on an extraction job she intends to be her last, she quickly learns that the local legends about witchcraft are true and must face a sinister supernatural threat.
Votes: 8
Original Rank: 46 (Tie)
Thoughts: Annnnnnd…. ACTION! And more action. And more action. And more action. The Devil Herself never slows down. And, ultimately, we can’t keep up with it.
44. Wheels Come Off by Kryzz Gautier
Logline: In the year 2065, a fiery teenager with a wild imagination, her paraplegic mom, and their clueless robot struggle to navigate the post-apocalypse; but when the mother’s wheelchair breaks, the trio must venture out into the dangerous “outside” for a chance to survive.
Votes: 11
Original Rank: 27 (Tie)
Thoughts: If this logline were a piece of jewelry, it would be one of the shinier ones on this list. Zany “out-there” concepts are fun to write. They really are. But I often feel they’re more fun for the writer than the reader. And that’s probably how I’d categorize this one. Kudos for giving us something different. But it’s ultimately too weird.
43. Sandpiper by Lindsay Michel
Logline: Still reeling in the wake of her husband’s death, master thief Viola Crier signs on to a risky, last-minute job set to take place inside a man-made time loop, but as the number of loops increases, the job begins to spiral out of control
Votes: 10
Original Rank: 32 (Tie)
Thoughts: As I helped develop a time loop script once, I can confirm they are some of the hardest concepts to pull off. There’s a lot of rule-setting that needs to happen and this script didn’t do its homework. I just remember this being big and cumbersome and confusing. It didn’t work for me.
42. Killer Instinct by Lillian Yu
Logline: After a Hollywood assistant is publicly fired for admitting while on a conference call that he’d love to kill his boss, he finds his boss dead in the office the next morning and goes on the lam to figure out the real culprit, all while being hunted by his boss’s assassin.
Votes: 23
Original Rank: 4
Thoughts: It’s never a good sign when I have to go back to the review to remember what happened. But after skimming the review, I immediately remembered my big problem with this script, which was that the writer wasn’t following the right protagonist. That is Screenwriting 101 so that failure meant this script didn’t do well with me.
41. The Masked Singer by Mike Jones and Nicholas Sherman
Logline: Mickey Rourke loses his mind after he’s forced to take a gig on television’s highest rated show: The Masked Singer
Votes: 12
Original Rank: 22 (Tie)
Thoughts: What I remember most about this script is that I thought it was going to be funnier. This happens a lot with comedy. You’ve got these really funny loglines. Which means you gotta deliver the funny in the actual script! This was still not bad, though.
40. Go Dark by Josh Marentette and Spencer Marentette (newsletter review – e-mail carsonreeves1@gmail.com to join!)
Logline: A team of black-ops soldiers use an experimental technology to travel into the afterlife and rescue their dead teammate.
Votes: 8
Original Rank: 46 (Tie)
Thoughts: Oh how I was looking forward to this one. I saved it. Savoring that I had it in my back pocket for a tough day. This is a movie premise and then some! But this felt like a first draft. It was like Inception with all its cool imagery. But that imagery hadn’t been carefully woven together yet. In my estimation it’s at least 10 drafts from nailing its execution. Not a quick fix by any means.
39. Four Assassins (And a Funeral) by Ryan Hooper
Logline: The Adoptive daughter of a legendary assassin returns home for his funeral… and finds herself in the crosshairs of her four highly trained, highly dangerous siblings.
Votes: 8
Original Rank: 46 (Tie)
Thoughts: One of the better titles on the list leads to a fairly decent script. I always admire writers who can tell you exactly what their move is in the title, and this does that.
38. Michael Bay: The Explosive Biopic by Sean Tidwell
Logline: Packed with enough C4 to split an asteroid in two, this tell-all Michael Bay origin story reveals the explosions that defined him, the fire that ignited his little heart, and the fate that sealed his Hollywood destiny.
Votes: 12
Original Rank: 22 (Tie)
Thoughts: In retrospect, this script had a tough task. It’s doing a biopic as a comedy. The comedy was definitely the focus, though, and it wasn’t up to par. There were some LOL moments. But, when it comes to successful comedy scripts, the reader should be laughing out loud 30-40 times. I laughed out loud maybe five times here? Needs more laughs!
37. Worst. Dinner. Ever. By Jack Waz
Logline: An estranged father and son have to survive terrorists, explosions, and, most terrifying of all, dinner with each other.
Votes: 16
Original Rank: 10 (Tie)
Thoughts: If we were ranking these scripts on which are most likely to become movies, Worst Dinner Ever would probably be in the top 3. It’s a really fun premise. I just felt that the execution was predictable and the comedy wasn’t very funny. I still think this will get made. It’s a good enough premise that you hire a name screenwriter to rewrite it.
36. Idol by Tricia Lee
Logline: The true story of American Idol viral sensation, William Hung.
Vote: 9
Original Rank: 39 (Tie)
Thoughts: In retrospect, I was probably too harsh on this script. I detest biopics so much that just seeing that genre denomination can cloud my judgement. At least the writer came up with an unexpected subject in William Hung. And she does treat him like a real person and not like a joke. If I had to do it over again, I probably would’ve given this one a little more love.
35. See How They Run by Lily Hollander
Logline: A blind mother moves into a remote farmhouse with her young daughter, but the mystery of the home’s previous inhabitants intrudes upon her attempts to repair their relationship.
Votes: 30
Original Rank: 2
Thoughts: I barely remember this script. It’s got a pretty good concept, which I suspect is why it made the list. And with horror, as we just saw with “Smile,” you don’t need a whole lot to win over an audience. But I still felt like the writer didn’t do anything special with the premise. I was hoping for more.
34. Mimi by Scarlett Bermingham
Logline: A successful illustrator finds herself friendless after her best friend gets engaged, forcing her to embark on an epic quest to “date” for new girlfriends — as an adult.
Votes: 10
Original Rank: 32 (Tie)
Thoughts: A bit try-hard with the illustration component rearing its head into the story. It’s something I’ve seen before. And the best part of the premise, the “dating for friends” stuff, wasn’t as good as it could’ve been. Rallies late but doesn’t ultimately live up to its promise.
33. Divorce Party by Rebecca Webb
Logline: Patricia Ford feels pretty good about trading her South Boston roots for a “perfect” life on New York’s Upper East Side, until everything falls to shit and her raucous girlfriends throw her a Divorce Party at the home she’s about to lose. As the night goes from wild to totally insane, Patricia takes back control of her life.
Votes: 25
Original Rank: 3
Thoughts: What I’ll say about this script is that when I read the logline, I remembered the story. What you have to keep in mind with readers is that most scripts are forgettable. You literally forget 99% of what happened within 72 hours. Because there just wasn’t anything in them that stood out. So this script had to have had something about it if I remembered the whole thing. I suppose its success will depend on how they cast it. But it definitely has “the female version of The Hangover” vibes.
32. Bella by Chris Grillot
Logline: A young college student is forced to confront her family’s dark past when a mysterious stalker appears, derailing her life and sending her spiraling into a web of anxiety and paranoia.
Votes: 7
Original Rank: 57 (Tie)
Thoughts: This script feels current, sort of like a cousin episode to Euphoria. Like, “What if we followed Maddy into her own movie?” If you liked Black Swan, you’ll love this.
31. Hard to Get by Dan Schoffer
Logline: After Amanda is seemingly ghosted by the man of her dreams, she’s delighted to discover he’s actually been kidnapped — and takes it upon herself to be his rescuer, going on an adventure of epic proportions along the way.
Votes: 9
Original Rank: 39 (Tie)
Thoughts: I always smile when I read this logline so that’s a good sign. And I could see this script fetching an A-list actress, which may make it look more desirable. But I just thought the same thing that I think for a lot of scripts I read, which is that the writer didn’t go to enough lengths to give us a fresh experience. I felt like I’d been here before.
30. Chicago For One by Madeleine Paul
Logline: Based on Robbie Chernow’s hilarious viral solo adventure, a newly heart-broken groomsman takes Chicago by storm celebrating a solo Bachelor Party Weekend after the rest of the party — including the groom — get stuck over 700 miles away
Votes: 9
Original Rank: 39 (Tie)
Thoughts: This is a cute idea. It’s a cute screenplay. But this reminds me of the movie “Tag.” They had a viral story that didn’t quite work as a movie but they made it a movie anyway. That feels like what they’re doing here. It’s an okay script but don’t go looking for anything more than that.
29. Max and Tony’s Epic One Night Stand by Thomas Kivney
Logline: A disastrous Grindr hookup goes from bad to worse when a meteor unleashes a horde of aliens on New York and the two ill-matched men must depend on each other to make it through the night alive.
Votes: 7
Original Rank: 57 (Tie)
Thoughts: I commend the writer for coming up with a non-obvious LBGTQ story. I would watch this movie a million times over before I watched Bros.
28. Dennis Rodman’s 48 Hours In Vegas
Logline: Before game 7 of the NBA finals, Dennis Rodman tells Phil Jackson he needs 48 hours in Vegas. What follows is a surreal adventure with his skittish assistant GM that involves a bull rodeo, parachuting out of a Ferrari and building a friendship that neither one of them ever thought was possible but will end up solving both of their problems.
Votes: 7
Original Rank: 57 (Tie)
Thoughts: This was a big spec sale! Of the comedies on the list, it’s probably one of the better ones. If you’re unaware of Dennis Rodman, it’s a pretty sweet ride. Cause he basically did a lot of this stuff for real. Okay, maybe he didn’t drive a Ferrari off a cliff and jump out in a parachute.
27. Ultra by Colin Bannon
Logline: When an ultramarathoner earns he is one of the ten contestants chosen to take part in a secret race known as “the hardest race on earth,” he is forced to confront his past when he realizes there are deadly consequences for breaking the rules.
Votes: 19
Original Rank: 6
Thoughts: Ohhhhhh! This one started off so good! And I loved the big concept. The mythology gets dicey at the end, though. When you’re building that mythology into your script, stay away from “absolutely batsh#t insane.” It sounds good in theory but it’s just going to leave your audience scratching their heads. This should be a good movie though.
26. The College Dropout by Thomas Aguilar and Michael Ballin
Logline: A young Kanye West’s intimate journey to create his seminal first album that reinvented hip hop music.
Votes: 13
Original Rank: 16 (Tie)
Thoughts: A testament to the writers that I didn’t hate this script. Probably because Kanye West is one of the most complex people on the planet. He’s such an oddball and he’s got mental issues and he’s a musical genius. I do think it’s kinda cheap to write a biopic about him because anyone can do that and get on the Black List. But this was pretty good.
25. Jellyfish Days by Matthew Kic and Mike Sorce
Logline: A young woman and her devoted boyfriend’s lives are dramatically altered by a medical procedure that could potentially quadruple their lifespans.
Votes: 11
Original Rank: 27 (Tie)
Thoughts: One of the more frustrating scripts on the list. It has some good moments, including a surprising twist around the page 30 mark. But its a heavy script that doesn’t give you enough to justify all the work you have to do ploughing through those heavy parts. If they could get another screenwriter on this to clean it up, it could be good. Right now it’s teetering between okay and good.
24. Barron’s Cove by Evan Ari Kelman
Logline: When his young son is viciously murdered by a classmate, a grieving father with a history of violence kidnaps the child responsible, igniting a frenzied manhunt fueled by a powerful politician — the father of the kidnapped boy.
Votes: 8
Original Rank: 46 (Tie)
Thoughts: I remember this script for having one great jarring chase scene. Also, for successfully tackling a difficult setup. It’s good enough to check out.
23. The Fire Outside by Yumiko Fujiwara
Logline: Peter, a seventeen-year-old painter, lives with his controlling mother in a lonely house in the wilderness. When he meets a mysterious stranger, he begins to question the reality he was raised to believe, gathers the courage to leave his mother, and unveils the sinister truth behind his upbringing.
Votes: 8
Original Rank: 46 (Tie)
Thoughts: It should be noted that I remember the details of this script intimately. Which is strange because I didn’t exactly like it. But if I’m remembering details this many months after reading a script, there must be something to it. Sure, we guess the twist fairly early on. But the way that twist is executed still contains enough uncertainty to keep us hooked.
22. *Weird by Augustus Schiff
Logline: An autistic kid tries to do normal college things — making friends, figuring out if girls like him, getting over his mom’s death — while seeing life in his own “musical” way.
Votes: 14
Original Rank: 15
Thoughts: This one caught me by surprise. I thought it was quite good and did a good job of taking us into the mind of someone with autism. I’ve read a lot of younger characters with autism. I’d never experienced an autistic protagonist in college though.
21. Homecoming by Murder Ink
Logline: Ten years after graduation, one of New York’s most eligible bachelors and his eccentric wanderlust wingman try to pull their recently divorced friend out of his rut by taking him back to Howard University’s legendary Homecoming for the best weekend of their lives.
Votes: 15
Original Rank: 12 (Tie)
Thoughts: The big thing I remember about this script was that it was super-fun. When you’ve got a simple premise, like coming back to your school for Homecoming Weekend, you need to be able to create good characters and write strong dialogue because the plot isn’t doing anything for you. So it’s up to the characters and the dialogue to do that work. Which this did.
20. Mr. Benihana by Chris Wu (newsletter review – e-mail carsonreeves1@gmail.com to get on!)
Logline: When a short Japanese kid from post-war Tokyo decides to make it big in the US of A, he discovers a winning recipe of exploiting his heritage with good old-fashioned American entertainment, to the great shame of his traditionalist father. This is the larger-than-life immigrant story of the OG daredevil playboy tycoon: the one-and-only Rocky Aoki
Votes: 16
Original Rank: 10 (Tie)
Thoughts: Look, I may not like biopics. And you may not like the fact that I constantly remind you that I don’t like biopics. But if your biopic is written well, I will respect it. And this was written well. It wasn’t mind-blowing but it has a unique character and I found it to be entertaining.
19. The Villain by Andrew Ferguson
Logline: The completely outrageous and completely true story of “pharma bro” Martin Shkreli — from his meteoric rise as wunderkind hedge fund manager and pharmaceutical executive to his devastating fall involving crime, corruption and the Wu-Tang Clan — which exposed the rotten core of the American healthcare system.
Votes 21
Original Rank: 5
Thoughts: Hey, have I told you I don’t like biopics? Luckily, this dude is a pretty interesting guy. I definitely think it’s braver to chronicle a villain in a biopic because it’s harder to make us care. So the writer gets points taking that challenge on. And the script does exhibit some voice. Not bad at all.
18. Apex by Jeremy Robbins
Logline: When an adrenaline junkie sets out to conquer a menacing river, she discovers that nature isn’t the only thing out for blood.
Votes: 7
Original Rank: 57 (Tie)
Thoughts: This script keeps changing things up at just the right times in the story, keeping you interested from start to finish. It isn’t blazing any trails. But it travels the already-traveled trails quite well.
17. The Family Plan by David Coggeshall
Logline: A former top assassin living incognito as a suburban dad must take his unsuspecting family on the run when his past catches up to him.
Votes: 7
Original Rank: 57 (Tie)
Thoughts: This is a great example of how to write a comedy spec. It’s all in the concept. If you get the concept down, it will do a lot of the work for you. Your uncle is a retired John Wick? I can imagine 10 comedic scenarios in a couple of minutes from that premise alone. So I wasn’t surprised at all, after I reviewed this, when it came together as a film, which will star Mark Wahlberg.
16. Abbi and the Eighth Wonder by Matt Roller
Logline: When a misogynist explorer meets his sudden (and violent) end, his long-overlooked understudy seizes the moment and embarks on an adventure that will earn her a place in the annals of history.
Votes: 10
Original Rank: 32 (Tie)
Thoughts: Very funny main character. Also some great supporting characters. This script takes on questions of feminism and misogyny in a lighthearted way. I feel like Black List scripts these days are designed to trigger you. This was the opposite. Which is probably why I liked it so much.
15. Follow by Michael Kujak
Logline: When a social media influencer meets a fan at a meet-and-greet, she’s so taken with her cleverness and vulnerability that she invites the fan to intern with her for the summer. At first, they’re an unstoppable team, but soon, the influencer is forced to wonder who she has let into her life.
Votes: 10
Original Rank: 32 (Tie)
Thoughts: This one was great. It really got the stalker-friend dynamic right. These scripts are all about building that central friendship that the reader knows is going to explode at some point. And it wasn’t a disappointment when the explosion came.
14. Blackpill by Alexandra Serio
Logline: Awkward and lonely, Jared is only able to find a community online — until the day he realizes that his favorite Youtuber lives nearby. Desperate for a connection, he becomes determined to find a way into her life… whether she wants it or not.
Votes: 7
Original Rank: 57 (Tie)
Thoughts: A fun little stalker script that doesn’t quite go how you expect it to. Had the potential to be even better, though, if it went deeper into its main character’s desire for fame.
13. Hot Girl Summer by Michelle Askew
Logline: After witnessing a drug deal gone wrong, thirteen-year-old (and exceptionally awkward) Beatrice accidentally finds herself in the middle of an underground drug ring…and on the perfect route to having a proper hot girl summer
Votes: 13
Original Rank: 16 (Tie)
Thoughts: An unexpectedly fun fish-out-of-water script. Does a good job of going right up the line but never crossing it. I described it in my review as Little Miss Sunshine meets Euphoria. I don’t know if that’s totally apt, but it does seem to exist somewhere between those two universes. And it’s funny!
12. Hotel Hotel Hotel Hotel by Michael Shanks
Logline: A man wakes up trapped in a mysterious hotel room. All alone in a mind-bending prison, his only chance for escape is teamwork: with himself.
Votes: 13
Original Rank: 16 (Tie)
Thoughts: Easily the hardest of all the executions to pull off on this list. So Michael Shanks gets credit just for making us care the whole way through. This is the ultimate trippy low-budget production that has a big enough concept to potentially break out. There are some really clever moments in here. This one surprised me.
11. Wait List by Carly J. Hallman
Logline: A troubled millennial from small-town Texas will do anything to get into her top-choice law school, including murder.
Votes: 19
Original Rank: 7
Thoughts: This was a good script! It reminded me a lot of Promising Young Woman, which I loved. It’s not as well written but it shares a common theme of making you think this is going to be some “all women are amazing and all men are terrible” scripts, but then making its female protagonist do more and more questionable things. It engaged with the gray area when all anyone wants to do today is live in the black and white. This was a good one.
10. From Little Acorns Grow by Laura Kosann
Logline: After a woman becomes one of the first female presidents of a 1950s publishing house in New York, she draws a former college classmate into her orbit, who soon finds her literary empire is not what it appears to be.
Votes: 8
Original Rank: 46 (Tie)
Thoughts: This is one of a handful of scripts on the list that I thought I may have been too harsh on with my review. It’s basically one of those “chess match” scripts, where two people are playing each other. And the script does a good job of exploring that. It is slow in its second act, but its big third act makes up for it.
9. False Truth by Thomas Berry, Isaac Gabaeff, and Nathan Gabaeff
Logline: The life of a cynical San Francisco criminal lawyer at the top of his career unravels when he agrees to represent a father accused of killing his infant son in an extraordinary case that challenges widely accepted medical beliefs, a biased justice system, and his own personal worldview. Based on true events.
Votes: 7
Original Rank: 57 (Tie)
Thoughts: Easily the biggest surprise of the list. If you would’ve told me ahead of time that I would’ve been riveted by a true story about “shaken baby syndrome” I would’ve told you you were bananas. But it looks like I’m the banana here cause this was actually good!
8. Yasuke by Stuart C. Paul
Logline: The true story of the first and only African Samurai in feudal Japan who rose from being a slave for the Jesuits to fighting as a Samurai in the unification of Japan.
Votes: 11
Original Rank: 27 (Tie)
Thoughts: Ava Duvernay, who used to get sent every African-American project town, once said, frustratedly, “Not every story about the first black person in a situation is worth telling.” And that went through my mind when I saw this logline. But I was happy to be proven wrong. This is not only a good story, it’s a script where the writer clearly cares about the subject matter. There’s a ton of specificity here that draws us into this world. A very strong Black List entry.
7. Symphony of Survival by Daniel Persitz
Logline: The incredible true story of Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich writing an epic symphony during the deadly World War II siege of Leningrad — a work of art so powerful it would save him and his family, all while helping to unite his people with the Allies.
Votes: 12
Original Rank: 22 (Tie)
Thoughts: I went back to this review recently and, after thinking about it, I probably gave it more praise than it deserved. If I remember correctly, I hadn’t read a good script in a long time so I was just happy to read anything that was good. In retrospect, the script probably needs more depth. But it’s still a really good story. When they’re stuck behind enemy lines with no way out and they’re starving… I felt it. I felt that pressure and that fear. So this is definitely worthy of being a top 10 Black List script.
6. In the End by Brian T. Arnold
Logline: In the near future, terminal patients are given the opportunity to go out with a bang with personalized VR “perfect endings.” But when the best Transition Specialist gets far too close to a patient, he finds himself questioning everything in his life.
Votes: 17
Original Rank: 9
Thoughts: I was surprised when I re-read this review and saw that I gave In The End an “impressive.” I remember liking it, but it’s hard to get an “impressive” from me these days. Maybe I was bowled over by the fact that someone finally mixed the oil and water genres (drama and sci-fi) together and it worked. Definitely one of the better scripts on the list.
5. Grizz by Connor Barry
Logline: A car accident strands a young paramedic in the rugged Pacific Northwest where she is hunted by a ravenous grizzly bear.
Votes: 15
Original Rank: 12 (Tie)
Thoughts: I love simple stories told well and this is the perfect example of that. There isn’t a ton of plot going on here. But the tension stays high throughout and we’re invested all the way til the last page.
4. Ballast by Justin Piasecki
Logline: A naval engineer and her crew find themselves trapped in a deadly game on a shipping vessel in the middle of the Atlantic when they learn a series of car bombs are hidden amongst the thousands of vehicles on board.
Votes: 8
Original Rank: 46 (Tie)
Thoughts: Easily one of the coolest concepts on the list. While I get what some people are saying about it being too serious and cerebral and not enough fun, I thought the writer did an ace job with the execution. Yeah, it does’t play like a Die Hard movie but that’s what I liked about it. One of the few scripts on this list that I was looking forward to and, which, also delivered!
3. Challengers by Justin Kuritzkes
Logline: Framed around a single tennis match at a low-level pro tournament, three players who knew each other when they were teenagers — a world-famous grand slam winner, his ambitious wife/coach, and their old friend who’s now a burnout ranked 201 in the world — reignite old rivalries on and off the court.
Votes: 9
Original Rank: 39 (Tie)
Thoughts: As a tennis guy, it took me a while to be able to imagine Zendaya as a tennis pro. The girl doesn’t have a single muscle in her body. And she looks clumsy as all getup. Tennis is a graceful sport. But, once I got past that, I really liked this. So much so that it grew on me in the weeks since. And I’m thinking we might actually get the first great tennis movie ever (and no, King Richard is not a great tennis movie).
2. Air Jordan by Alex Convery (newsletter review)
Logline: The wild true story of how an upstart shoe company named Nike landed the most influential endorsement in sports history: Michael Jordan
Votes: 13
Original Rank: 16 (Tie)
Actual Rank:
Thoughts: One of the most effortless reads on the list. Maybe any Black List. Damon and Affleck have been trying to make their Jerry Maguire for years. They finally have it in this script. A really fun main character. I expect this to be a great movie.
1. Mercury by Stefan Jaworski
Logline: When a first date takes a dangerous turn, down-on-his-luck Michael risks everything to save his newfound love from her past. Little does he know, the night — and his date — are not what they seem. Michael soon finds himself on a high-octane cat-and-mouse race across the city to save himself and uncover the truth, armed with nothing but his wit, his driving skills, and a 1969 Ford Mercury.
Votes: 18
Original Rank: 8
Thoughts: Whatever the current trend in town is, readers will always hate it. Because every time they open a script, they’re reading another script in that trend. This gives writers an opportunity, though. Whatever the trend is, write something different. That reader will be so happy to finally be reading something fresh for once. This was just a really fun smartly-written enjoyable read. It felt like a movie from the very first page. This is why I continue to love reading screenplays. Because, every once in a while, you run into a “Mercury.”
Get a logline consultation from the guy who’s seen over 25,000+ loglines! What better way to see if yours stacks up. They’re just $25 and include a 150-200 word analysis and a logline rewrite! E-mail me at carsonreeves1@gmail.com if you have any questions. I also offer full screenplay consultations!
