25 Biopic Scripts to Download and Study

5AM StoryTalk has curated a tour through big-screen biographical dramas for you to learn from

Sep 23, 2024

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On irregular Monday mornings (PST), 5AM StoryTalk will share “educational resources” to help you in your creative journey. From curated screenplay collections, to curated film compilations you can watch for free, to advice and other wisdom I’ve collected over my years pursuing the arts — and much more. This is one of them.

I miss going to the movies to watch biopics, don’t you? Once upon a time, they seemed to come out every other weekend. These days, they’re an endangered species on the big screen…but that doesn’t mean they’re extinct, or, more importantly, that they’re not a splashy way to introduce yourself to the film/TV market. A great biopic script can win you competition accolades, land you on The Black List, or secure you an agent. In most ways, it doesn’t even matter if your biopic even gets made - as long as it announces to the world that you’re here, that you’re brilliant, and you’re ready to do more of the same for producers.

But that said, biopics are also hard. I’ve written a few and, while I’ll say they’re one of my favorite kinds of scripts to work on, they require a very specific set of skills. You have to be able to not only research a subject to death, but also identify the most dramatic moments of it and distill those into a cinematic story that doesn’t end up feeling like a boring history lesson. If you’re thinking about writing one yourself, I’ve curated 25 biopic scripts for you to study and otherwise prepare for your own project - amongst them titles like Lawrence of Arabia, Amadeus, Malcolm X, and Oppenheimer.

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All of these screenplays tend to vanish, as all things do on the Internet. Download ASAP for personal study. Oh, and if you want more resources like this one, be sure to check out my other curated screenplay collections (most of which are not behind paywalls):

Enjoy the reads!

12 YEARS A SLAVE (2013) by John Ridley

Subject: Abolitionist, author, and escaped enslaved person Solomon Northrup

ALI (2001) by Michael Mann, Eric Roth, Stephen J. Rivele, and Christopher Wilkinson

Subject: Boxer and Civil Rights activist Muhammad Ali

AMADEUS (1984) by Peter Shaffer

Subject: Composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

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