Watch Movies
Want to be a better screenwriter? Immerse yourself in cinema!
Want to be a better screenwriter? Immerse yourself in cinema!
Back in 2009, someone asked me what I thought was the key to learning the craft of screenwriting. I said this:
Watch movies. Read scripts. Write pages.
To this day, I’m convinced that’s true. Yet it shocks me how many aspiring screenwriters I meet who have yet to screen a majority of the movies on — for example — these two well-known lists:
The AFI Top 100 Movies of All Time
The IMDb Top 250 Most Popular Movies
So many reasons to watch movies. For example:
- You will feel comfortable in Hollywood meetings where movies are referenced all the time
- You will gain an appreciation of movie history
- You will feed your creative imagination
But mostly, you will learn about cinematic storytelling. Some of that knowledge will emerge from your grasp of what each movie is about. There’s also the Gestalt understanding you get from watching multiple movies, intuitively picking up on popular / common narrative techniques.
In that spirit, here are the fruits of a GITS initiative wherein blog readers provided their take on noteworthy movies decade by decade as well as international films.
Check out these movies. If you’ve seen them, feel free to respond in comments with your observations and reflections. If not, spotlight a handful of them and try to make watching them a priority.
Remember: Watch movies. Read scripts. Write pages. All three are important. But you can start by watching more movies.