sulky 6 Posted April 9, 2006 Share Posted April 9, 2006 The Writer's Guild of America recently released a list of the 101 Greatest Screenplays.George Lucas' script for Star Wars was placed at 68 (right below Melissa Mathison's script for E.T., which came in at 67).Here's the full list. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Breathmask 555 Posted April 9, 2006 Share Posted April 9, 2006 I see Raiders came in even higher (42). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ollie 1,059 Posted April 9, 2006 Share Posted April 9, 2006 For once I can say that's a list I agree with. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deimos 0 Posted April 9, 2006 Share Posted April 9, 2006 Very interesting list. They dared to consider some recent screenplays to be as good as the classic ones, which never happens in other fields and lists. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nightscape94 965 Posted April 10, 2006 Share Posted April 10, 2006 I find the presence of American Beauty interesting, since the end of the screenplay was never filmed, and is widely regarded as a huge blunder in scripting, as it ends with a completely useless Court trial.Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind also struck me as grossly out of place, especially that high on the list.Tim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Justin 2 Posted April 10, 2006 Share Posted April 10, 2006 100. MEMENTOScreenplay by Christopher Nolan. Based on the short story "Memento Mori" by Jonathan NolanShould have been placed higher but I'm still glad to see it on there.Justin - Who thinks Seven or Fight Club should be on there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Morlock 11 Posted April 10, 2006 Share Posted April 10, 2006 A lot of excellent choices there (glad to see Network made the top 10). Tootsie blongs much lower. Same Eternal Sunshine. Groundhog Day is great, but not that great. One Flew over the Cooku's Nest belongs lower. Schindler's List belongs much higher. Sixth Sense doesn't deserve a place on the list. Neither does Star Wars. But I am really impressed with a whole lot of the names on the list. I'm not quite sure why Casablanca is consistantly #1 on these things but it is a marvelous script (not as marvelous as The Godfather, though)00 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoeinAR 1,949 Posted April 10, 2006 Share Posted April 10, 2006 Hannah and Her Sisters, I hadn't thought of it in quite some time, that is a movie I need to revisit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Morlock 11 Posted April 10, 2006 Share Posted April 10, 2006 Great movie, one of Woody's very best. He certainly hasn't made a film as good as that since. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stewdog1 50 Posted April 10, 2006 Share Posted April 10, 2006 Very happy to see Field of Dreams on that list at #88. It should have been higher. But I digress. It was just one of the most perfect movies to ever be made. The final scene with his Dad makes me cry like a baby everytime."Dad? You wanna have a catch?"I'm tearing up as I'm writing about it. Just one of the few movies to really dig into me emotionally. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Unlucky Bastard 7,782 Posted April 10, 2006 Share Posted April 10, 2006 Casablanca is great, but Psycho should have been Number 1. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Morlock 11 Posted April 10, 2006 Share Posted April 10, 2006 I myself was wondering if Psycho belonged on the list at all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Unlucky Bastard 7,782 Posted April 10, 2006 Share Posted April 10, 2006 I myself was wondering if Psycho belonged on the list at all.Let's all talk about Psycho, shall we? A boy's best friend is his Psycho DVD. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Morlock 11 Posted April 10, 2006 Share Posted April 10, 2006 I still can't watch that film alone. The psychiatrist scene at the end scares the bejesus out of me! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Unlucky Bastard 7,782 Posted April 10, 2006 Share Posted April 10, 2006 My only gripe with Psycho is it looks like Hitch was being stingy with money, so he shot a good deal of the film in Alfred Hitchcock Presents TV style. Otherwise, a brilliant motha' of a film. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joni Wiljami 1,206 Posted April 10, 2006 Share Posted April 10, 2006 Being John Malkovich should be in the top 10.hornist - who has never seen the number 1 movie of this list Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Morlock 11 Posted April 10, 2006 Share Posted April 10, 2006 My only gripe with Psycho is it looks like Hitch was being stingy with money, so he shot a good deal of the film in Alfred Hitchcock Presents TV style. That's one of my favorite things about the film, Hitch not taking the glossy, high class feel he had just achieved, par excellence, on North By Northwest, but using his TV show's crew, (relatively)shoe-string budget, creating a film of an entirely different nature. My only problem with the film is the notoriously out of place ending. Though it's still my favorite Hitchcock film. @hornist: Why is Being John Malkovich so great? This is an honest-to-god question. I used to know why, but upon seeing it recently, I forgot what's so friggin' great about the film. What is the point of the film? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Romão 2,274 Posted April 10, 2006 Share Posted April 10, 2006 Nice to see Lawrence so high on the list. It is one of the most quotable films ever. I'm also glad for Raiders, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Graduate and Back to the Future. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joni Wiljami 1,206 Posted April 10, 2006 Share Posted April 10, 2006 Morlock wrote:@hornist: Why is Being John Malkovich so great? This is an honest-to-god question. I used to know why, but upon seeing it recently, I forgot what's so friggin' great about the film. What is the point of the film? The whole story is so original and absurd.Very well written dialoque , the jokes are funny.It felt so fresh exception to the mainstream movies I'm so tired of.I'm not a big fan of John Cusack but here he made brilliant role like the rest of the crew.The puppet dancing sequence in the opening(with Bartok's music) is fabulous and theuse of music is overall gives you many great moments.These are some reasons that make this movie enjoyable in my opinion. hornist - who has never seen the number 2 movie of that list either Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ymenard 54 Posted April 10, 2006 Share Posted April 10, 2006 The list is so USA-centric it's laughable...blah Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Romão 2,274 Posted April 10, 2006 Share Posted April 10, 2006 WGA doesn't exactly stand for Word Writers Guild.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265 Posted April 10, 2006 Share Posted April 10, 2006 The magic of Star wars does not lie in it's screenplay, but more in the execution of it to a film.I can see the same material go terrible wrong. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Romão 2,274 Posted April 10, 2006 Share Posted April 10, 2006 Indeed, Steef. Just by reading the screenplay, the whole thing seems to be a very very bad idea.I loved Lucas' speech in the AFI homage:I went from not being able to write a word to becoming the king of wodden dialogue". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
77 3 Posted April 10, 2006 Share Posted April 10, 2006 The list is so USA-centric it's laughable...blahI only spotted two films not in English on the whole list! They were near the end, too. How lucky I am to have all the best screenplays ever made produced in my native language. I can now confidently ignore German and Japanese cinema, safe in the knowledge I'm missing nothing. (Presumably non-American writers were eligible for consideration since Christopher Nolan and Peter Shaffer, among others, are on there.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
orrakul 0 Posted April 10, 2006 Share Posted April 10, 2006 Steef and Merkel are correct.Even the WGA can't rank screenplays, and say which is best. Duel or Jaws directed by a lesser talent than Steven Spielberg could have been the most forgettable of films.The small polls that we've all done recently are more valid than the list the WGA has compiled; at least we voted on our "favourite", which is very different from saying with any certainty what's the "best". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChrisAfonso 186 Posted April 10, 2006 Share Posted April 10, 2006 "Adaptation" needs to be on there... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Romão 2,274 Posted April 10, 2006 Share Posted April 10, 2006 I think it is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nightscape94 965 Posted April 10, 2006 Share Posted April 10, 2006 #77 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoeinAR 1,949 Posted April 10, 2006 Share Posted April 10, 2006 The list is so USA-centric it's laughable...blahsince its the writers guild of AMERICA, it would be USA centric.which is fine, because thats where the best movies are made.Good God, can you see the uproar of all those non American, having their hissy fits right about now Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
77 3 Posted April 10, 2006 Share Posted April 10, 2006 The Writers Guild of China also recently published their list of the greatest screenplays; they were all Chinese. Of course, the rest of the world just laughs at their blinkered attitudes, pitying those with such narrow views... When they become a free democracy, that will all change, won't it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Justin 2 Posted April 10, 2006 Share Posted April 10, 2006 which is fine, because thats where the best movies are made.It's also because, undoubtedly, the majority of films you have watched are American.Joe thy name is fallacy. Justin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ymenard 54 Posted April 11, 2006 Share Posted April 11, 2006 It's just that... if they want to do a real WGA list... then stick to it, don't go "hey let's include those screenplays 'cause there's a couple of spot left near 100" even if they are from outside the USofA. It doesn't make any sense. If they had excluded them I would have understood (the fact that it's the WGA), but to include them makes the list laughable.Anyway I know personally which are my *own* best screenplays, and it's all what counts for me. It's just shameful of them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoeinAR 1,949 Posted April 11, 2006 Share Posted April 11, 2006 really, why take it so personally, Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marcus 390 Posted April 12, 2006 Share Posted April 12, 2006 Not bad, as far as lists go..."Patton" should have ranked higher, though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A24 4,347 Posted April 12, 2006 Share Posted April 12, 2006 The magic of Star wars does not lie in it's screenplay, but more in the execution of it to a film.I can see the same material go terrible wrong.Good observation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tpigeon 3 Posted April 12, 2006 Share Posted April 12, 2006 Perhaps Star Wars. But Jaws is a fine screenplay. It's structuring and scene pacing is perfect, the characters well-drawn, and the dialogue quite sharp. Yes, it could have been less than the masterpiece that it is. But it has a brilliant screenplay.Ted Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Romão 2,274 Posted April 12, 2006 Share Posted April 12, 2006 Not to mention Raiders. Well, pretty much everything about that film is spot on perfect. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nightscape94 965 Posted April 12, 2006 Share Posted April 12, 2006 Not to mention Raiders. Well, everything about that film is spot on perfect. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Romão 2,274 Posted April 12, 2006 Share Posted April 12, 2006 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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