What’s getting nominated for Best Original and Best Adapted Screenplay this year? Well, three off the top of my head that seem like locks for Best Original Screenplay are Bo Burnham’s “Eighth Grade” Yorgos Lanthimos’ “The Favourite” and Paul Schrader’s “First Reformed” and our own awards guru Gregory Ellwood’s Oscar predictions concur (he also gives strong love for “Roma,” and more). Frontrunner picks for Best Adapted script include “A Star is Born,” “BlacKkKlansman,” “Can You Ever Forgive Me?,” “First Man” and more (Greg’s Oscar predix here). Now, do you want to download and read nearly all these scripts, most of which are likely going to receive an Oscar nomination in a few weeks? You’ve come to the right place.
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It is For Your Consideration season—the frame where studios politely ask that you, the Oscar voter (and the journalist or film critic that has some influence over these voters) to consider a film in a certain Academy Award category. So, in the screenplay categories, to facilitate these nominations, film studios annual offer these screenplays for free. They become a kind of perfect, instructive teaching tool for those that want to learn and hone the craft of screenwriting, but they’re also just an entertaining read. They often also yield broader insights into the filmmaking process in general, seeing what’s cut, seeing how something reads on the page versus the way it was actually shot, how things changed and finessed and more.
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Nearly all the film studios out there have released screenplays for their films—though IFC Films and Well Go USA, the absence of available screenplays for “Wildlife” and “Burning” feels a little bit like dereliction of duty, to be honest (both scripts are incredible and felt on the screen, both those studios don’t seem to have FYC pages). Also missing are Fox Searchlight’s “Isle of Dogs” and “Can You Ever Forgive Me?,” but both of those screenplays have been mailed out to voters in an old school, physical form. Maybe a genuine nomination will force their appearance online. Well, lots to download and read. Get to it.
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Click here for our complete coverage of the best and worst of 2018.
22 July (Paul Greengrass – Netflix)
All is True (Ben Elton – Sony Classics)
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (Joel and Ethan Coen – Netflix)
Beautiful Boy (Luke Davies & Felix van Groeningen – Amazon Studios)
BlacKkKlansman (Charlie Wachtel, David Rabinowitz, Spike Lee, Kevin Willmott – Focus Features)
Black Panther (Ryan Coogler & Joe Robert Cole – Disney)
Boy Erased (Joel Edgerton – Focus Features)
Capernaum (Nadine Labaki, Jihad Hojeily & Michelle Keserwani – Sony Classics)
Colette (Richard Glatzer & Wash Westmoreland – Bleecker Street)
Crazy Rich Asians (Peter Chiarelli and Adele Lim – WB)
Destroyer (Phil Hay & Matt Manfredi – Annapurna)
Dumplin’ (Netflix)
Disobedience (Sebastian Lelio & Rebecca Lenkiewicz – Bleecker Street)
Eighth Grade (Bo Burnham – A24)
First Man (Damien Chazelle – Universal Pictures)
First Reformed (Paul Schrader – A24)
The Front Runner (Matt Bai & Jay Carson & Jason Reitman – Sony)
Green Book (Nick Vallelonga, Brian Hayes Currie, Peter Farrelly– Universal)
The Happy Prince (Rupert Everett – Sony Classics)
If Beale Street Could Talk (Barry Jenkins – Annapurna)
The Kindergarten Teacher (Sara Colangelo, Nadav Lapid– Netflix)
The Land of Steady Habits (Nicole Holofcener – Netflix)
Leave No Trace (Debra Granik & Anne Rosellini – Bleecker Street)
Mary Queen of Scots (Beau Willimon – Focus Features)
Mary Poppins Returns (David Magee – Disney)
Never Look Away (Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck – Sony Classics)
On the Basis of Sex (Daniel Stiepleman – Focus Features)
The Other Side of the Wind (Orson Welles – Netflix)
Private Life (Tamara Jenkins – Netflix)
Puzzle (Oren Moverman and Polly Mann – Sony Classics)
A Quiet Place (Bryan Woods & Scott Beck and John Krasinski – Paramount)
Quincy (Alan Hicks, Rashida Jones– Netflix)
Ruben Brandt, Collector (Milorad Krstić and Radmila Roczkov – Sony Classics)
The Rider (Chloé Zhao – Sony Classics)
Roma English and Espanol (Alfonso Cuarón – Netflix)
Roxanne Roxanne (Michael Larnell ( – Netflix)
The Sisters Brothers (Jacques Audiard and Thomas Bidegain – Annapurna)
Sorry to Bother You (Boots Riley – Annapurna)
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (Phil Lord and Rodney Rothman – Sony)
Stan & Ollie (Bill Pope – Sony Classics)
A Star Is Born (Eric Roth, Bradley Cooper & Will Fetters – WB)
Vice (Adam McKay – Annapurna)
What They Had (Elizabeth Chomko – Bleecker Street)
The Wife (Jane Anderson – Sony Classics)