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What is your favourite screenplay?

Nique Zoolio

Nique Zoolio

This might be quite a tough one to answer. I am just curious. Its strange that this is a question screenwriters do not ask eachother often, as its from questions like this, I find, that some form of analysis occurs, where we learn what is common among seemingly different scripts - and can help make us better script writers.
So, please, tell me (potentially all of us, i cannot promise you that people will not see) what is your favourite screenplay, and a little bit on why.
 
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Hmmm- tough one right off the bat to answer...

I love Charlie Kauffman...
Malkovich: Brilliant and off-beat.
Adaptation: Comes together with the fine point of a sharp dagger at the end. Brilliant.
Confessions: Dark and witty. Strange. Brilliant.
Sunshine: Off the wall, yet dark. It has a resounding personal note for me too- bonus points. Ultra-brilliant.

Also, I loved the dialogue in Clerks. It was very chum-humorish but with intelligence and satire. Much like Dawson's Creek tries to be, but just seems out of place coming from valley-born high school students... oh, ok... I have a soft spot for Pacey's witty banter, I mean, who can resist that Joshua Jackson? What a charmer! :weird:

I also enjoyed the style and humor of Coffee and Cigarettes. There was a lot of brilliance there.

That's it for now!

-Logan-
 
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its really impossible for me to narrow it down to a script or two. Here's a few off the top of my head.

Kubrick's Lolita- Nabokov's script had an amazing blend of comedy and drama. I love the sense of humor that comes through the dialogue that the characters say. And the opening and closing for it is an almost dark gloomy mystery form, which is really the total opposite of the rest of the story. It also has great pacing.

Lynch's scripts have really grown on me. I really love Wild At Heart, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk WIth me, Lost Highway, and Mulholland Drive. Again, love the dark sense of humor, and unpredictibility and sometimes unlinear view of things. It took me a long time to realize how great he is at writing dialogue. its sometimes realistic, strange, witty, or hillarious.

I do love Kevin Smiths dialogue as well and to me, its the best as far as comedy goes. Clerks, and the first half of Chasing Amy is some of the funniest stuff I ever heard. You can keep your eyes shut and still laugh your ass off.Chasing Amy from the start makes you think you have a predictible romantic comedy yet it changes so much. And of course Dogma is so smart and mature, and still full of Smiths dirty dialogue. all of his scripts from clerks to dogma are great.

and I still love Tarantinos scripts as well (Though I'm as big a fan of his films as I was a year or so ago). But I guess I don't have to explain them. Someone else might do it anyway somewhere on this thread. :D

thats all I can think of off the top of my head. :cool:
 
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I can't boil it down to one, but I would like to mention a work which has always fascinated me because it seems to be a cooperative effort between writer/director and a brilliant cast, and that would be 'The Deerhunter'. It struck me that much of the dialogue may have been improvised (there was something so simple, local, and pedestrian which seemed to come from real friends interacting)...but framed in very stylized , universal circumstances (love/marriage, death/hunt/war, renunciation/regret, forgiveness). To me this film could almost be a genre onto itself.
 
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Another one I forgot to mention would be Bergman's The Seventh Seal. As far as dialogue goes it's the most beautiful script i've ever heard. Every line is like poetry.
 
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Are you watching the movie or reading the script for this question?

I love to read those post production scripts where the writer shows you what got cut and what got changed. I'd also like to see us writers band together and start producing these books with inflamintory remarks on how so-and-so director changed this and I hated it or the studio made us change this and now it sucks. Keep it underground and hush hush so nobody gets fired. :evil:
 
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I find most screenplays almost unreadable, (most of them are like reading the manual for assembling an ikea table) however the screenplay to "Withnail and I" by Bruce Robinson is wonderful and a pleasure to read. In many respects it's better than the film and in my opinion no-one writes descriptive passages better than Bruce.
 
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I find most screenplays almost unreadable, (most of them are like reading the manual for assembling an ikea table) however the screenplay to "Withnail and I" by Bruce Robinson is wonderful and a pleasure to read. In many respects it's better than the film and in my opinion no-one writes descriptive passages better than Bruce.
Click to expand...

Clive,

Is this a formatting problem or are most screenplays' scenerios terrible? Thanks!
 
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On this subject, I have to throw it all the way back to Casablanca: a film that underwhelmed me when I finally saw it, but wowed me when I read it years later. My favourite screenplay, easily.
 
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I used to have the same view as clive when it came to reading screenplays. But the more I read, the more I like the format. There are still times when I come across a script that is a difficult read, but most of the time I enjoy it.

I wouldn't consider myself having read a ton of scripts, but one I read recently would have to be my fav at this point - Chinatown by Robert Towne (.pdf file).

Poke
 
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clive said:
I find most screenplays almost unreadable, (most of them are like reading the manual for assembling an ikea table)
Click to expand...

Ditto to that. I can't remember one complete screenplay I've read other than friend's screenplays. Most of the time, if I ever look at one, it's just to see how one scene played out vs. how it was written.
 
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I've also got to say the Kauffman screenplays (I'm a big fan of his work)...
but I also liked...

-Big Fish
-Pulp Fiction
-Reservoir dogs
-The big kahuna
-Boilerroom
-Amelie
-A beautifull mind
-25th hour
-Happiness
(The Coen Bro's)
-O brother, where art thou?
-Barton Fink
-The big lebowski
-Fargo
-....
you know what...there are so many good screenplays...It's pretty hard to choose one...
 
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