40 Scripts That Break All the "Rules" to Download and Study

I've curated an in-depth tour through rule-defying feature screenplays that helped me - and could help you - become a well-rounded professional screenwriter

Photo source: Leeroy, Freerange Stock

I’m going to say something that might offend some aspiring feature screenwriters. You guys often have some crazy, incredibly wrong ideas about the craft and what producers and studios/streamers want from you — and these ideas are all predicated on a mass-marketed obsession with “screenwriting rules” laid out in a guide, or online, or by some guru you paid to tell you how to break into Hollywood.

When I point out how flexible and even dumb these rules are, providing numerous examples of how the best screenwriters regularly ignore them, I’m told, “Well, they can do it because they had Movie X made” or “They’re a director” or similar. Well, I’m here to assure you that I do the same in my work all the time and, A, I’ve only had a very questionable TV series made to justify myself and, B, I keep working despite what a maverick I am (except I’m not, not really). I’ve also read many, many scripts from emerging writers that sold for small fortunes despite trying crazier shit than I’ve ever thought to.

The reality is, the only rule that really matters is: compel the reader keep turning the page.

Everything else is okay if you make it work on the page and it somehow helps the story, either narratively or the experience of reading it.

This is why today I’m sharing with you a carefully curated collection of 40 screenplays that break all the “rules” for you to download and study, including notes about what I think you should pay attention to in each.

These scripts defy one or several sacred screenwriting rules as they were laid out by the Hollywood gods. A few are non-American productions and I suggest some foreign-language films you should check out at the end, but in general, this is a compilation looking at the Hollywood style of telling stories for the screen.

Should you just take what you find here and replicate it in your own work? No, not at all. I mean, you can. But the better approach would be to wrap your brain around how flexible the screenwriting form can be, how creative cinema can be in terms of what constitutes plot (or the absence of it), and then load everything you learn here into your creative toolbox. That toolbox will serve you a lot better than the screenplay format and screenwriting template you were told all great Hollywood films follow (read “Why Screenplay Templates Are Making You a Hack (and What to Do About it)” for more on this.)

All of these screenplays tend to vanish, as all things do on the Internet. Download ASAP for your personal study. And if you want more resources like this one, be sure to check out my other script curations:

Enjoy the reads!

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It’s worth noting before you dive in that the MVPs of this curation are: Walter Hill, Charlie Kaufman, Richard Linklater, Christopher Nolan, and Quentin Tarantino. They show up more than anyone else on it, which you might want to consider when analyzing their work on both page and screen.

2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (1968) by Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke

The screenplay famously omits dialogue for the first and last acts of the film, relying entirely on visual storytelling and "pure cinema" to convey a narrative that spans millions of years. It’s fair to call the film cinema’s most successful “vibe”.

ADAPTATION (2002) by Charlie Kaufman

The screenplay is meta-commentary where the protagonist — a screenwriter — becomes a character in his own movie, eventually giving up on the book he’s been hired to to adapt and intentionally devolving into the very Hollywood tropes he spent the first half mocking. What makes it even more mind-bending is that the protagonist is the real-world screenwriter of the film, Charlie Kaufman himself — albeit played by Nicolas Cage — who was originally hired to adapt the “unadaptable” book at the center of this film. It’s…a trip.

ALIEN (1979) by Dan O'Bannon and Ronald Shusett

Dan and Ronald are absolutely the screenwriters behind this film, but a huge part of it was rewritten by my friend Walter Hill and David Giler. Walter’s draft has become famous in the industry for its "vertical prose" — short, telegraphic lines of poetry rather than paragraphs. It also describes things the camera can't see (like the internal feelings of the ship) to create a specific dread for the reader.

I break this script down in “A Tale of Two (Unlikely) Heroes: ‘Night of the Living Dead’ and ‘Alien’”.

AMADEUS (1984) by Peter Schaffer

The protagonist (Salieri) is actually the antagonist of the story, while the titular character (Mozart) is only viewed through his eyes.

ANATOMY OF A FALL (2023) by Justine Triet and Arthur Harari

In this "did she do it?" courtroom thriller, the script explicitly refuses to provide a flashback or evidence to prove the protagonist's innocence or guilt, forcing the audience to make a choice based on incomplete information. When I tell you here at 5AM StoryTalk to force your audience to lean in, to become participants in your story, this is what I mean.

ANNIE HALL (1977) by Woody Allen and Marshall Brickman

The screenplay repeatedly shatters the "fourth wall" through direct address, subtitles, and more that reveal what characters are actually thinking versus what they are saying. It’s also non-linear, which in 1977, was almost non-existent in US cinematic history and completely incongruous to the then straight-forward rom-com format.

ARRIVAL (2016) by Eric Heisserer

The screenplay uses "flashbacks" that are, in the film’s final scenes, revealed to be "flash-forwards. This trick is used to make the narrative’s final emotional beat land like a sledgehammer to your heart muscle.

Eric joined me for one of my artist-on-artist conversations before I introduced the 5AM StoryTalk Podcast. It’s one of my favorite from this period of this newsletter’s history. Read “Screenwriter Eric Heisserer on the Burden of Knowing What You Want to Become”.

BEFORE SUNRISE (1995) by Richard Linklater and Kim Krizan

The entire “plot” is just a long, continuous conversation in real-time. There are no subplots, no secondary characters, just dialogue and the quiet, building tension of falling in love.

THE BIG SHORT (2015) by Charles Randolph and Adam McKay

This screenplay uses celebrity cameos (like Margot Robbie in a bathtub) to explain subprime mortgages directly to the audience. In every way, this breaks the rule of good exposition…so why does it work? I discuss this and more in “Screenwriters: How to Fix Your Sh*tty Exposition”.

BOYHOOD (2014) by Richard Linklater

The screenplay, like the film, is untethered from the general rule of production timelines. It was filmed over 12 years with the same actors to capture the genuine, unsimulated aging process of its protagonist — and was written along the way, evolving with the input of everyone involved.

BURIED (2010) by Chris Sparling

Buried isn’t the only single-location screenplay on this list, but it’s the only one in which the protagonist cannot leave the location if they wish. That’s because he’s trapped inside a wooden coffin buried underground. His cellphone has just enough charge to communicate with his potential savior. The dramatic tension is intense.

BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID (1969) by William Goldman

It pioneered “vertical prose”, using short, punchy lines, no sluglines, and excessive white space to dictate the film's rhythm — all while breaking the “no camera directions” rule by speaking directly to the reader with personal asides. This is directing on the page.