Read Oscar-Contending Screenplays from 2018 Films

It’s screenplay season — that special time of year when Hollywood’s PR armies unleash a volley of film scripts across the Internet in hopes that Academy voters (and other awards-season pundits) will page through them to get insight on how some of the most acclaimed films of the year were originally conceived by their screenwriters. More than mere transcriptions of dialogue and scene descriptions, screenplays are the blueprints that film crews work from when planning shots and sequences, and studying them can shed unexpected light on a project’s journey from script to screen. What’s more, they’re free, for a limited time only — so you may as well take advantage.

22 July  (Netflix)
Written by Paul Greengrass
Based on One of Us by Åsne Seierstad

All Is True (Sony Classics)
Screenplay by Ben Elton

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (Netflix)
Written by Joel Coen & Ethan Coen

Timothée Chalamet and Steve Carell in Beautiful Boy
Francois Duhamel/Amazon Studios

Beautiful Boy (Amazon Studios)
Screenplay by Luke Davies & Felix van Groeningen
based on the books Beautiful Boy by David Sheff and Tweak by Nic Sheff

Black Panther (Disney)
By Ryan Coogler & Joe Robert Cole

BLACKkKLANSMAN (Focus Features)
Written by Charlie Wachtel & David Rabinowitz and Kevin Willmott & Spike Lee

Boy Erased (Focus Features)
Screenplay by Joel Edgerton

Can You Ever Forgive Me? (Fox Searchlight)
Screenplay by Nicole Holofcener and Jeff Whitty
Based on the book by Lee Israel

Capernaum (Chaos) (Sony Classics)
Screenplay by Nadine Labaki, Jihad Hojeily, Michelle Keserwani

Keira Knightley and Dominic West in Colette
Bleecker Street

Colette (Bleecker Street)
By Richard Glatzer & Wash Westmoreland and Rebecca Lenkiewicz

Crazy Rich Asians (Warner Bros.)
Screenplay by Peter Chiarelli and Adele Lim
Based on the novel by Kevin Kwan

Destroyer (Annapurna)
Written by Phil Hay & Matt Manfredi

Rachel Weisz and Rachel McAdams in Disobedience
Candlelight Productions/Bleecker Street

Disobedience (Bleecker Street)
Written by Sebastian Lelio, Rebecca Lenkiewicz
Based on the novel by Naomi Alderman

Eighth Grade (A24)
Written by Bo Burnham

First Man (Universal)
Screenplay by Josh Singer
Based on the book by James R. Hansen

First Reformed (A24)
Written by Paul Schrader

The Front Runner (Sony Pictures)
Written by Matt Bai & Jay Carson & Jason Reitman

The Green Book (Universal)
Written by Nick Vallelonga & Brian Currie & Peter Farrelly

The Happy Prince (Sony Classics)
By Rupert Everett

Regina King in If Beale Street Could Talk
Annapurna Pictures

If Beale Street Could Talk (Annapurna)
Written for the screen by Barry Jenkins
Based on the book by James Baldwin

Leave No Trace (Bleecker Street)
Written by Debra Granik and Anne Rosellini
Based on the novel My Abandonment by Peter Rock

Mary Poppins Returns (Disney)
Screenplay by David Magee
Screen story by David Magee & Rob Marshall & John DeLuca
Based upon the “Mary Poppins” stories by P.L. Travers

Mary Queen of Scots (Focus Features)
Screenplay by Beau Willimon

Cai Cohrs in Never Look Away
Caleb Deschanel/Sony Pictures Classics

Never Look Away (Sony Classics)
By Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck

The Old Man & the Gun (Fox Searchlight)
Written by David Lowery
Based on the New Yorker article by David Grann

Puzzle (Sony Classics)
Screenplay by Oren Moverman and Polly Mann
Based on the film Rompecabezas by Natalia Smirnoff

A Quiet Place (Paramount)
Screenplay by Bryan Woods & Scott Beck and John Krasinski
Story by Bryan Woods & Scott Beck

The Rider (Sony Classics)
Written by Chloé Zhao

Roma (Netflix)
Written by Alfonso Cuarón

Still from Ruben Brandt, Collector
© Ruben Brandt LLC; Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics

Ruben Brandt, Collector (Sony Classics)
Screenplay by Milorad Krstić and Radmila Roczkov

The Sisters Brothers (Annapurna)
Written for the screen by Jacques Audiard and Thomas Bidegain
Based on the book by Patrick deWitt

Lakeith Stanfield in Sorry to Bother You
Peter Prato/Annapurna Pictures

Sorry to Bother You (Annapurna)
Written by Boots Riley

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (Sony Pictures)
Screenplay by Phil Lord and Rodney Rothman
Story by Phil Lord

Stan and Ollie (Sony Classics)
A screenplay by Jeff Pope

A Star Is Born (Warner Bros.)
Screenplay by Eric Roth and Bradley Cooper & Will Fetters

Vice (Annapurna)
Written by Adam McKay

What They Had (Bleecker Street)
By Elizabeth Chomko

The Wife (Sony Classics)
Screenplay by Jane Anderson
Based on the novel The Wife by Meg Wolitzer