What scripts do you consider essential for all screenwriters? I want to read a few scripts to improve my craft.

It depends what genre you want to write.  I don't think there is an exact script that I think everyone needs to read, but you should read as many as you can, in my opinion.  Try to blend other people's styles with your own.  That's what I do.

For example I have literally learned off of Wachowski and Shyamalan scripts.  They cover the genres I like to write and have helped me signifcantly.  

I would start with the oscar winners, though.  Don has a section on the top list that says "Oscar Scripts" some of them are really good.

Also do you have a favorite movie?  Hopefully you do.  Whatever it is, find tat script and read it.  If you can't find it, look for your second favorite movie.  

Read, read, read.  It can only help you.    

I switched the subject line so there's no confusion between produced and unproduced scripts.

I'd recommend just going through the list on the site, finding a movie you like and checking it out.

Be wary of shooting scripts though.  They'll throw you off completely.

Are there any specific genres?

Either way, I guess two obvious ones would be Chinatown and Gone With the Wind.  Those are both regarded almost universally as pretty darn fantastic scripts.

Movies you like and/or movies that are in your style of writing.

I'll give you a couple that I know are good:

"Affliction":  This is by Paul Schrader, a master craftsman.  A fascinating character study of a very dysfunctional father/son relationship.  Read it before you see the film and you'll get alot out of it.

"Alien 3":  This one I'm taking about is not actually "produced" -- I mean the unproduced script by David Twohy -- they guy who wrote "Pitch Black" -- and he knows what he is doing.  It still takes place in a prison, but without the religious mumbo-jumbo.  This one is so much better than the one they actually made that you wonder just what the hell they were thinking...

"The Salton Sea":  A little-seen film, by Tony Gayton, who I've never heard of.  But I really enjoyed this script.  He has a very sarcastic edge to his writing that works well on the page.  I took a little something away from this script in terms of my own (still-evolving) writing style.

All of these are available here on the Movie Scripts page.

Quoted from Tinman What scripts do you consider essential for all screenwriters? I want to read a few scripts to improve my craft.

Reading scripts will not help you as a writer as much as reading some books on screenwriting and writing some scripts, yourself.  Too often people will read a script from a very well established writer who is allowed to break the rules of script writing.  As a result, the new writer breaks the same rules, which he is not allowed to do, and it will look bad for him.


Phil

Tinman, read as much as you can, dude; produced and not produced, including my scripts, of course. Hehe! How much you read much you will will write your best.

Why not start with what the writer's guild of america considers to be a great script?  

http://www.simplyscripts.com/wga_top_101_scripts.html

dab

If you want to learn screenwriting, you shouldn't read scripts.  A member of these boards did that and spent a good deal of time annoying other people with it.  There are plenty of books out there on writing and writing screenplays.  Read all of them!


Phil

Quoted from dogglebe If you want to learn screenwriting, you shouldn't read scripts.

Of course you should read scripts, produced scripts, hundreds of them.

I think Phil's point is that you should be careful not to pick up bad habits and shooting script directions from the pros. You can't get away with that stuff in a spec.

In terms of telling a compelling, visual story, you MUST read the best scripts you can find. The more you read, the better you'll get. Screenwriting books are helpful, but nothing compares to reading quality screenplays.

You are a tinman, aren't you, as I know tinman has got a heart, so listen to your heart. But if you can pay a screenwriting course do that, if you can't learn for yourself reading as much you can, dude. Don't listen to a certain sunday morning people around there!

Quoted from Martin I think Phil's point is that you should be careful not to pick up bad habits and shooting script directions from the pros. You can't get away with that stuff in a spec.

You also have to consider that, when you are first learning to write scripts, you won't know what a good script looks like.

An unnamed member of these boards criticized one of my scripts for being poorly formatted.  He based this on scripts that he read.  As it turned out, the scripts he 'learned from' were shooting scripts by people so established in Hollywood that they could've handwritten their work on toilet paper and no one would've complained.

Until you are that established, you have to follow the rules and you can't do that until you learn them.


Phil

I actually learned the beats of a story by reading produced scripts. It was very motivating, and you really got a feel for how the story side of things should be done. I will admit my early impression of proper format came from these scripts, but that helped build the foundation for things to come. As long as one understands that there's more to learn, reading produced scripts is an excellent way to begin.

Incidentally, it also helps by showing how to format things for which there might be no rules...split screen comes to mind.

That's right, master Willson.

When I went to a screenwriting course in London, I learned how to put (how coordenated them) my ideas on the paper, but was reading books like Sid Fields, Linda Segers, Robert McKee's etc and lot of screenplays, mainly these that I loved wached into film, I felt more confident! But Tinman, I'm not an good example to follow.

I was think...I had a Russsian master I used to drink with, that said me between some vodka shots a clever thought about how we can know if a story is good or not: you take your written papers with your story put inside an iron recipient fulled with acid and wait, if you became pissed off, blaspheming seen the paper melting is because your story was very good, but you didn't care was because it not worth nothing.