Screenwriting : Films for a Beginner Screenwriter by Angel Marie

What are your interests or genre(s) you prefer? ;)

Beth Fox Heisinger i like drama, thrillers, horror, and comedy.

How about reading the screenplays of films you already like in those genres and/or watching with a simultaneous script read. https://www.simplyscripts.com/movie-scripts.html

This internal link leads to this year's best: https://www.stage32.com/blog/Coffee-and-Content-Download-All-the-Oscar-N...

There may be more in reading screenplays for an aspiring screenwriter, though viewing also works.

My list of movies I think everyone should watch:

Breakfast at Tiffany’s

Midnight Cowboy

The Graduate

Raging Bull

Taxi Driver

The Shawshank Redemption

Rocky

Blade Runner (both versions)

Do the Right Thing

Kids

Y Tu Mama Tambien

The Big Lebowski

Reservoir Dogs

American Beauty

No Country for Old Men

All the Kill Bills

Shaun of the Dead

Broke back Mountain

The Royal Tenenbaums

American Psycho

American History X

Roma

Call me by your Name

Get Out

The Florida Project

These are just some of my personal faves. I urge you to watch tons of movies, good, bad or otherwise. Immerse yourself in it.

Jody Ellis Thanks for the recommendations. I've noticed that I have watched some of the films on your list. I have watched Do the Right Thing (a powerful film), the Kill Bill series (my favorites), currently watching Roma, Call Me By Your Name (an interesting film, love Timotheé Chalamet), Get Out (loved it), and The Florida Project (such a funny film, felt very real). I will be watching the rest of the films I haven't see yet that are on your list.

Tony S. Thank you for the recommendation, I have actually downloaded the screenplays from that link this past Sunday. I have also been reading screenplays of my favorites as well. I will continue to do so!! :)

Right on!

I've learned more about writing from the following movies than any screenwriting books could ever provide. Tension, Dialogue, Visuals, Arc (in some cases, no arc at all from the main character, yet they do affect change in the other characters):

Bicycle Thieves

The Wages of Fear

Kiss Me Deadly

The Dark Knight

Paths of Glory

A Clockwork Orange

The Nights of Cabiria

Mon Oncle

Land of Mine

The Asphalt Jungle

I'd also watch silent movies, since visuals were the key to their success.

Hope this works for you.

Tom Batha Oooh, if it helped you I am sure it could help me. Thank you!

Jody Ellis I tried watching Breakfast At Tiffany's. I liked the beginning of the film where she is literally eating breakfast at Tiffany's. However, my view changed once the next scene arrived. In the next scene, Holly went to her apartment building and a white male actor was cast to play a stereotypical Asian Male. I think it is truly disgusting, but I am not surprised due to the time the film was created. It's sad to see such classics that people admire can be so racist. I really wanted to jump on the bandwagon, but my morality will not allow me to watch any further.

You might want to watch 'Juno'. It's a typical-written-by-the-book script (you can download it). Watch the movie & read the script at the same time to better understand the how & why. Note the number of scenes cut and how that dramatically impacted the theme and made it a more marketable product.

Bladerunner is one I go back to often. Learning how to write the silence is one of the best skills you can develop. There will still be words on the page, telling the story, but it's a good example of when dialogue isn't necessary.

Watch movies that you enjoy, but watch them from a screenwriter's perspective. Use a stopwatch and see where the story is at after 10 minutes (roughly page 10) and 25 minutes (roughly page 25), etc...what happens at those key points? Then, it would be great if you could get the scripts for those movies and watch the movie again with the script.

Angel Marie Yes that movie was made during a time when that kind of portrayal was unfortunately quite common.

Some great recommendations above. I always recommend "Battleship Potemkin" and "Breaker Morant." When I first got into screenwriting, an instructor who hung out in the same LA coffee shop as I did, said that "Breaker Morant" was one of the best scripts ever written... certainly the film is riveting and brilliantly constructed such that a court martial has not one wasted moment in the film.

Angel Marie - watch Persona by Ingmar Bergman. It's the most mind-bending film I've ever seen. There's no CGI - just screenwriting, directing, cinematography and acting at the highest level. It will completely unravel your understanding of film. The striking visuals and ideas were stuck in my mind for weeks.

3 of my favs Casablanca, Groundhog Day, and of course, Adaptation.

3 scripts that I read that I loved so much I didn't need to see the movie were: Ex Machina, Her(both oscar nominees for a screenplay) and Short Term 12(Nicholl's fellowship winner)

Kramer vs Kramer. It's a great example of subtext and scenes written well.