The blank page is daunting, oppressive–the greatest hurdle any writer faces. If you’ve felt this way, you’re not alone. Generations of screenwriters have felt this pressure emanating from the page. Luckily, screenwriters past and present have trailblazed many paths to follow and learn from. Over a century of cinematic storytelling is at every writer’s fingertips to study and emulate.Studying the best screenwriters and their cinematic impact can reveal overarching narrative trends, showcase the pinnacle of styles of dialogue, pacing, atmosphere, and character development. As you study these writers, it becomes clear what you like and what is important to you as a screenwriter and the stories you are trying to tell.The greatest screenwriters of all time have moved and delighted generations of audiences across the globe. Understanding their success is critical for aspiring writers.
Why Study Screenwriting Legends?
With learning, going directly to the source of those who have already climbed the mountain can be the most direct route to knowledge. By reading and watching the stories of the greatest screenwriters of all time, the hidden mechanics of storytelling bubble to the surface.
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For instance, Sorkin and Tarantino are both known for their dialogue, but their dialogue manifest characterization in different ways. In Sorkin, his rapid-fire dialogue with complex sentence structure begets hyper-competent characters that exist in a world where every character is exceedingly well-spoken. Tarantino’s dialogue showcases his characters’ idiosyncratic tendencies and hyperfixates on seemingly superfluous details to round out the world these characters inhabit. Comparing and contrasting top screenwriters will help aspiring writers develop their voice by identifying their preferences in characterization, plot, and pacing.
The Top 20 Best Screenwriters
The best screenwriters of Hollywood have created iconic stories and memorable characters which have carved the modern cinema into what it is today. Their lasting legacy can be felt through filmmakers and writers all around the world that can claim influence from someone on this list.
1. Billy Wilder
The best screenwriter of all time could be argued to be one of some 200 writers across cinematic history. Billy Wilder’s filmography compares well to any of them. A master of multiple genres, Billy Wilder excelled in pairing morally ambiguous characters with plenty of pathos in noir films like Double Indemnity while also disarming mid-century American social conventions through comedies like The Apartment and Some Like it Hot.
Other notable works of this screenwriting legend include the Ace in the Hole and Sunset Blvd.
2. Charlie Kaufman
Conventional narratives need not apply for the storytelling of this award-winning screenwriter’s oeuvre. Charlie Kauffman has made a career by infusing his stories with surrealism and metafiction pushing narrative boundaries to explore themes surrounding identity crisis and reality. If your story doesn’t adhere to standard writing conventions, Charlie Kauffman should be your lodestar.
Highlighted works include Being John Malkovich, Adaption, Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind, Anomalisa, and I’m Thinking of Ending Things.
3. Paddy Chayefsky
“I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!” has resonated with audiences of all stripes for the past half century since Network debuted on the silver screen. In this highly decorated satire, media executives exploit a disaffected anchor by exacerbating his worst impulses to draw in ratings before ultimately throwing him away once his ratings decline. In the age of the loud and angry podcast bro, Network perhaps resonates more now than it did upon release.
4. William Goldman
Another of the best screenwriters in Hollywood was Wlliam Goldman, a consummate professional no matter the genre, from the fairytale fantasy The Princess Bride to thrillers like The Marathon Man and Stepford Wives to one of the greatest westerns in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Goldman remains one of the most versatile writers of any generation.
5. Robert Towne
The writer of Chinatown, a neo-noir mystery film about LA’s water wars, is ranked among the top screenplays of all-time. Featuring an unforgettable ending that is rarely seen in Hollywood storytelling, Chinatown is a must read for any aspiring writer of mysteries and noir, along with being a general masterclass of suspense, revelation, and payoff.
Other notable works include The Last Detail, Shampoo, and Mission: Impossible.
6. Quentin Tarantino
Perhaps the most popular screenwriter of all-time, Quentin Tarantino has created his own subgenre of pastiche wisecracking ne-er-do-wells and cavalier morally gray heroes. Tarantino thrives in unconventional storytelling structures like in Pulp Fiction being told out of chronological order.
Other works include Inglourious Basterds, Kill Bill, and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
7. Albert Brooks
Being a renowned screenwriter is not the first thing that comes to mind when someone talks of comedian Albter Brooks, but it is true nonetheless. Every reality tv show should have to pay Albert Brooks a licensing fee as he wrote Real Life in 1979. In it, a wayward documentary film producer has the incredible idea of just filming a normal American family with camera operators wearing a robot-looking camera rig on their heads. What’s played for laughs in 1979 is now a thriving 21st century industry. Other comedic works include Lost in America, Modern Romance, and Defending Your Life.
8. Aaron Sorkin
Considered among the best screenwriters ever in terms of dialogue, Sorkin has perfected his rapid-fire dialogue style, as seen in The Social Network and A Few Good Men. As mentioned above, his characters speak in complex, rapid sentences that invoke competency and allows for characters to speak with incisive invectives to browbeat each other. Sorkin’s character's speech can be violent.
Other notable works include his television series West Wing and The Newsroom.
9. Nora Ephron
In the 80s and 90s, Nora Ephron soared to the peak of the romantic comedy genre with the hits of When Harry Met Sally, Sleepless in Seattle, and You’ve Got Mail. In When Harry Met Sally, Ephron used interstitial interview clips interwoven into the narrative of couples talking about their meet-cute juxtaposed to Harry and Sally passing through each other’s lives more than once before they actually thought of each other as a potential partner. At the end of the film Harry and Sally deliver their version of their meet-cute, the rocky road that was full of tension and suspense of the will they-won’t they is now a cute reminiscence.
The Top 20 Female Screenwriters Shaping Cinema
10. Paul Schrader
If rom-coms aren’t your forte, that’s okay, as they’re not Paul Schrader’s cup of tea either. One of the most renowned screenwriters exploring dark themes and the underbelly of humanity, Schrader loves to explore outcasts and tortured souls in works like Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, and First Reformed.
11. Joseph L. Mankiewicz
“Fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy night” All About Eve reigned supreme at the 1951 Academy awards, winning screenplay, director, and picture. But the film suffered from its success as Bette Davis and Ann Baxter split the best actress All About Eve vote allowing Judy Holliday to win the award. All About Eve features the stunning duel of the established actress versus the rising star, and unpacks how the entertainment industry treats older actresses who aren’t allowed to age.
12. Bo Goldman
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest was only the second film ever to win the big five Oscar awards of Actor, Actress, Director, Writer, and Picture. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest follows criminal R.P. McMurphy as he feigns mental illness to be placed in a mental institution instead of a labor camp. Goldman brilliantly crafts a narrative to dissect Mcmurphy, his fellow patients, and the institution they find themselves stuck in. For a deep psychological breakdown of characters, look no further.
13. Preston Sturges
Preston Sturges was one of the leading screenwriters in Hollywood for the screwball comedy, a farcical comedy genre popular from the 30s to the 50s. Sturges put his characters through the ringer of ridiculous situation after ridiculous situation in the films Sullivan’s Travels, The Lady Eve, and The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek.
Joel & Ethan Coen
Joel and Ethan Coen excel at placing their eccentric characters into very serious situations across films like Fargo and Miller’s Crossing while also crafting eccentric characters that fit into an equally eccentric world like The Big Lebowski and O Brother, Where Art Thou? The Coen’s, however, can’t be pigeonholed into eccentrism as they can equally showcase thrills in No Country For Old Men, True Grit, and Blood Simple.
15. Ben Hecht
Writer of over 90 cinematic works, Ben Hecht was among the prolific writers of his era. And quantity does not trump quality with Hecht as he wrote some of cinema’s most celebrated classics from comedies like His Girl Friday and Design for Living to the original Scarface and many Hitchcock films including Notorious, Spellbound, and Lifeboat. Ben Hecht was prolific in both the output and variety of his classics.
21st Century Writers
For the final five selections, let’s go over some of the best screenwriters of today. The leading screenwriters of the 21st century who have broken into the industry in the past two and a half decades to rivet audiences around the world with their storytelling.
16. Jordan Peele
In 2021, the Writer’s Guild released a Greatest Screenplays of the 21st century list and Jordan Peele’s Get Out reigned supreme. The horror social commentary captured the post-Obama era racial tension between white liberals and the black community. Peele followed Get Out with Us and Nope to cement himself as one of the giants of the current generation of writers.
17. Greta Gerwig
The mumblecore star turned writer-director burst onto the scene with Lady Bird, a coming of age story featuring a complex and rewarding mother-daughter relationship. Gerwig followed her debut with Little Women and Barbie (which has made her one of the most famous Hollywood screenwriters today), two more stories featuring dynamic and complex female-centered characters.
18. Ryan Coogler
In his first five features, Coogler has written an arthouse drama, sports drama, two superhero blockbusters, and a vampire action-horror film. Perhaps the most eclectic of the 21st century writers, Coogler has honed the craft of screenwriter and is able to adapt to many different styles and genres. Hopefully his next project will continue the trend.
19. Bong Joon Ho
The list so far has been english centered, but it would be remiss to not include some of the top screenwriters globally. Of the international writers, Bong Joon Ho was the first to break into America’s anglocentric awards season with Parasite. Parasite, along with his other works Memories of Murder, Snowpiercer, Okja, and Barking Dogs Never Bite excoriate class divides, showcasing the wanton cruelty humans can exact on one another for superficial differences.
20. Joachim Trier and Eskil Vogt
This Nordic screenwriting duo, among the best European scriptwriters, are lighting up the festival circuit right now with Sentimental Value, a family drama that has a good chance to appear later on in this year’s award season to determine the best screenwriters in 2025. Prior to Sentimental Value, Trier and Vogt created devastating character studies in the dramas Oslo, August 31st and The Worst Person in the World. If in need of studying how to craft rich internal lives for your characters, this writing duo have the oeuvre to sample from.
Key Elements of Great Screenwriting
The best screenwriters in the world have created a lasting impact in both Hollywood and across the globe. Among the greats we can see how some writers have mastered conventional narrative techniques while others, like Charlie Kauffman and Quentin Tarantino, have blazed their own paths using metafiction and non-chronological narrative structures.
Among them all, feature a strong command of the human condition by crafting memorable characters with strong dialogue, and thrusting those characters into unjust societies, tenuous situations, and heartbreaking emotional connections. Every writer listed makes us care about their characters and what happens to them first and foremost.
The Enduring Legacy of These Screenwriting Legends
There are over 100 screenwriters who deserve to be on any all-time greatest screenwriters list, but these fifteen 20th century writers have created genres, mastered genres, and left audiences around the world in awe of the cinema’s storytelling capabilities. Along with the best screenwriters of the 21st century, here is a wide array of masters to learn from. With over a century of works to choose from, one of these 21 authors will have within their work a lodestar to follow.
Explore the works mentioned here as well as the rest of their filmographies (although, you’ll be here a while going through all of Hecht) and see how varied and unique the approaches can be to the best screenplay writers.
Lastly, two honorable mentions go to newer writers Celine Song and RaMell Ross. Past Lives and The Nickel Boys are among the finest works of the decade. If these works can be matched, they’ll be well matched among leading screenwriters in Hollywood.
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