It Starts on the Page: 10 Great Films That Came From The Black List

Ever since its first circulation in 2005, Franklin Leonard’s The Black List has been one of the most relied-upon sources for industry figures looking for find interesting, quality screenplays. By surveying hundreds of development execs and producers for their favorite unproduced screenplays floating around Hollywood and presenting them in one easy-to-access list, Leonard found a way to help both screenwriters and industry figures looking to hire screenwriters. For writers, it gives them a chance to get the logline and info about their script in front of the entire industry, while busy producers can use it as a place to shop for new work or screenwriters to keep an eye out for. Out of the hundreds of films that have been produced from scripts featured on the Black List, a number of them have gone on to become modern classics, blockbuster hits, or well-respected independent films. 

This weekend, two films are being released by a major studio - Him at Universal and A Big Bold Beautiful Journey at Tri-Star - that both got their start as screenplays that ended up on the Black List. A lot happens between the page and the screen, so only time will tell if either of these films will have a lasting impact, but in the meantime, here are ten films that originally had their screenplays featured on The Black List long before they ever hit the screen.

Zodiac (2007)

A film based on Robert Graysmith’s book of his obsession with and hunt for The Zodiac Killer had been in the works for a decade before the David Fincher film finally hit the screen. The rights to the book were first purchased by Shane Salerno in 1997 but the project didn’t see any traction until James Vanderbilt, a young screenwriter responsible for thrillers like Basic and The Rundown, adapted the film as a spec script. This screenplay, written during a period when Vanderbilt knew Graysmith personally and worked closely with him, ended up on the very first edition of The Black List. The screenplay masterfully builds tension and is able to perfectly depict the loss of innocence of a particular era without ever feeling didactic, especially because Vanderbilt wisely uses editorial cartoonist Graysmith as an audience POV character whose obsession becomes our own.

There Will Be Blood (2007)

Paul Thomas Anderson’s screenplay for There Will Be Blood didn’t rank particularly high on the 2006 Black List, netting only two recommendations across the full survey, but it’s worth noting because, even on the page, his epic about American capitalism during the oil boom of the early 20th century broke most rules of what constituted a marketable screenplay. The first chapter of the screenplay is completely silent, with pages and pages of screen direction building up a mood before finally hearing Daniel Plainview’s voice via a page-long monologue describing himself as an oil man. Most screenwriting professors would tell aspiring writers that to avoid such lengthy passages of both dialogue and action or else you might risk losing readers, but the fact that a handful of voters for The Black List saw the value in his brilliant screenplay despite not following the ideal format shows that there are still forward-thinking executives in Hollywood.

(500) Days of Summer (2009)

Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber’s inventive, non-chronological romcom (500) Days of Summer is exactly the kind of script that usually ranks highly on The Black List. It fits neatly into a formula, specifically that of an indie romantic comedy from the late 2000s, but it presents the material in a way that feels entirely fresh and new. The screenplay opens with our two romantic leads breaking up, and then constantly flashes back and forward as it chronicles the male lead, Tom, meeting Summer and falling for her, up to the point when he finally breaks free of his obsession. This unconventional structure captures the imagination from page one, but perhaps most interesting is the film’s refusal to give the film a more traditional happy ending; the movie ends when Tom grows from his relationship and learns that he and Summer simply weren’t meant to be together, rather than Tom and Summer reuniting for a fake, superficial “happy” ending.

The Social Network (2010)

Screenwriter Aaron Sorkin began work on what would eventually become his Oscar-winning screenplay for The Social Network before the book it was based upon, The Accidental Billionaires, was ever released to the public. Beginning his research in 2008, he soon became attracted to what he saw as a story of friendship, power, loyalty, and backstabbing. Sorkin signed on to write the project at producer Scott Rudin’s company, and they soon hired director David Fincher to bring the screenplay to life. During the project’s filming in 2009, Sorkin’s intelligent, witty script ended up on the 2009 Black List, with industry figures relishing in his trademark witty dialogue and the framing device of Mark Zuckerberg’s twin lawsuits proving to be a great source of exposition without ever feeling clunky.

50/50 (2011)

Will Reiser worked as a producer on a number of comedy shows like Da Ali G Show and Best Week Ever, where he met writers Seth Rogen & Evan Goldberg and, at the age of 25, developed a rare form of spinal cancer. Rogen and Goldberg would often spend time with him and joke around as a way of lightening the mood during such a scary time. After Reiser’s cancer successfully went into remission, the duo convinced him to write a seriocomic screenplay about his experiences with the disease, at the time titled I’m With Cancer. This version of the screenplay ended up on the 2008 Black List, but unlike the previous few entries, it would take a few more years for Reiser’s film to reach the screen. During that time, Rogen’s star continued to rise and soon Reiser and Rogen attached indie comedy filmmaker Jonathan Levine to direct the film, with Joseph Gordon-Levitt starring as a Reiser surrogate and Seth Rogen as his Rogen-like best friend. The film received some of the best reviews of Rogen’s career and Reiser achieved several accolades for his screenplay - although, unfortunately, he has yet to have a follow-up screenplay produced.

The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)

Martin Scorsese’s career is full of unrealized projects - moments when the budgets fell through on certain films, or actors suddenly became unavailable, or acts of God prevented work from getting done - that even those he helps to develop from the ground up can languish in development hell for years before they ever see the screen. Back in 2007, Leonardo DiCaprio bought the film rights to Jordan Belfort’s memoir The Wolf of Wall Street, and Sopranos writer Terrence Winter was hired to write the script, which Scorsese helped to develop. But when the script was finished, fears of content restriction and a rather large budget for such a risque film meant that it was difficult to find funding to make the film as the team wanted to make it, so Scorsese and DiCaprio left to make Shutter Island instead. The screenplay did get around Hollywood, though, so much so that producers recommended it enough for it to end up on the 2007 Black List, a full six years before it ever saw the light of a projector.

Whiplash (2014)

From his first film, Damien Chazelle was a writer/director with a strong passion for music and a desire to make musicals, with his first film Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench being an inventive, micro-budget mumblecore take on a classic Hollywood musical. If Chazelle had his way, his next project would have been his long-dreamed-of screenplay La La Land, but instead he decided to turn his frustration into art with a script about a young man driven to perfection at all costs in Whiplash. The film was a powerful look at a toxic student/teacher dynamic that, even from the page, had execs on the edges of their seats, and Chazelle’s script for the film ended up on the 2012 Black List. Blumhouse and Right of Way Productions agreed to fund the production of fifteen pages of the script, which Chazelle turned into an award-winning Sundance short that got both companies to fund a complete production, eventually turning his screenplay into an Oscar-nominated sleeper hit.

Arrival (2016)

One of the most reliable trends in The Black List is having a film that fits into a specific genre, such as sci-fi or the aforementioned romantic comedy, and then having a twist on the subject that makes the whole story feel far more fresh than most other generic screenplays producers typically sift through. Arrival, in some ways, is a traditional alien story, based on a novella by Ted Chiang, but screenwriter Eric Heisserer structures the film in such a way that, by the final act, completely flips the story we thought we knew on its head in a deeply emotional way. It’s difficult to describe without getting into spoiler territory, but suffice to say that what is introduced in the film via flashback might not be as simple as mere emotional backstory for the main character. The surprise twist of the film, plus an intelligent and inventive look at alien life, helped land the script on the 2012 Black List, long before director Denis Villeneuve and star Amy Adams were attached to the film.

May December (2023)

While a number of the screenwriters on this list come from more established credentials before one of their titles ends up on The Black List, newcomer Samy Burch was a relative unknown when her screenplay May December popped up on the 2020 list. Burch collaborated with her now-husband, Alex Mechanik, on the story and wrote the film in early summer 2019 as a spec script. Having worked in the industry for a few years by that point, they were able to get producer Jessica Elbaum of Gloria Sanchez Productions signed on to the project and, soon, it made the rounds in the entertainment industry. Appearing on the 2020 list proved very beneficial for Burch, as within a year, Julianne Moore and Natalie Portman signed on to play the two leads, and with those two cast, director Todd Haynes of Safe and Carol soon came on board to shoot the film in Fall 2022, three and a half years after Burch wrote it as her first feature-length script.

Challengers (2024)

Before any of his work ever made it to the big screen, Justin Kuritzkes was a playwright and novelist whose work was primarily limited to the New York region alongside his wife, fellow playwright and future filmmaker Celine Song. After being inspired by the 2018 U.S. Open, Kuritzkes wrote his first feature-length screenplay, Challengers, about a love triangle among tennis players. As the script was passed around Hollywood circles, enough execs recognized the power and emotion behind the story that they recommended it enough times for the script to end up on the 2021 Black List. After that, it wouldn’t be long before producer Amy Pascal signed on to the film, eventually bringing in director Luca Guadagnino and star Zendaya that helped to take the promising screenplay and bring it to propulsive life.