Ah, December. Chestnuts roasting on an open fire, Jack Frost nipping at your nose, and Hollywood screenplays on the Internet. It's that time of year when the scripts that served as blueprints for the season's prestige films are placed online so that Academy voters, guild members, and critics groups can have a look as they wrestle with the question of which titles are awards-worthy. It's a generous gesture that makes it easier for scriptwriters at all levels of the industry to study the work of the writers they admire. Enjoy the reading material, and check back through Oscar season — we'll update the page with any last-minute contenders that make it online.
Belle
Written by Misan Sagay
Big Eyes
Written by Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski
Birdman
Written by Alejandro G. Iñárritu, Nicolás Giacobone, Alexander Dinelaris, Jr., Armando Bo
The Boxtrolls
Written By Irena Brignull and Adam Pava
Based on the book Here Be Monsters by Alan Snow
Boyhood
Written by Richard Linklater
Calvary
Written by John Michael McDonagh
Dear White People
Written by Justin Simien
The Fault in Our Stars
by Scott Neustadter & Michael H. Weber
Based on the novel by John Green
Get On Up
Story by Steven Baigelman and Jez Butterworth & John-Henry Butterworth
Screenplay by Jez Butterworth & John-Henry Butterworth
Gone Girl
Screenplay by Gillian Flynn
Based on the novel by Gillian Flynn
The Grand Budapest Hotel
Screenplay by Wes Anderson
Story by Wes Anderson and Hugo Guinness
How to Train Your Dragon 2
By Dean DeBlois
Inspired by the novels by Cressida Cowell
The Imitation Game
Written by Graham Moore
Based on Alan Turing: The Enigma by Andrew Hodges
Into the Woods
Screenplay by James Lapine
Music and Lyrucs by Stephen Sondheim
Based on the musical by Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine
Kill the Messenger
By Peter Landesman
Locke
By Steven Knight
A Most Violent Year
By J.C. Chandor
St. Vincent (de Van Nuys)
By Theodore Melfi
The Theory of Everything
Screenplay by Anthony McCarten
Unbroken
Screenplay by Joel Coen & Ethan Coen and Richard LaGravenese and William Nicholson
Based on the book by Laura Hillenbrand
Wild
Screenplay by Nick Hornby
Topics: Blog General Oscars awards 2015 oscars screenwriting
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Very interesting. After scanning a number of these I’ve concluded that writers who know how to write, write books. Those who don’t, write screenplays or teach. Good writing, however, does not necessarily make a good film. Ultimately the director makes it or loses it. But good writing makes reading a screenplay more satisfying and enjoyable. At least to this reader.
And those who don’t know anything about writing, screenwriting, or filmmaking are just over-inflated critics.
It is definitely a different style of writing than literature. Some of the best written screenplays that I have read were terrible movies. Some of the worse (to me) made the best films. This translate to books too. Some of the worse books (that read like screenplays not novels) make some of the best transistions to the screen. The screenplay is a different genre and format than the novel and should stand on it’s own merit and not in comparison to something else.
Ultimately it is the director and his point of view who determines the quality of the film. He may read between the lines of a rotten book or inept screenplay and produce a gem, conversely, he may completely miss the point of a masterpiece and give us garbage.
Locke was written and directed by Steven Knight.
yup, Haris Zambarloukos was the DP.
I liked Locke, and admire the micro (nothing) budget achievement immensely, but the inciting incident (ie call to adventure) happened off screen before the movie started (and not in front of us), so structurally did not maximise the creation of empathy for the main character. None the less – a great achievement – they’ve proven themselves with a low budget – give these dudes a few mi$$ion (ie 1-2) as a next step, and I’d expect a superb movie.