Greatest Screenwriter of All-Time Tournament

[Crimson G 0]

With the greatest actors tournament out, I'd like to recognize the people who write the lines great actors deliver. I'd like to see who people think are some of the greatest screenwriters (TV and film writers are applicable, no authors of original novels that are simply adapted for the screen) of all-time before I head off to college to study screenwriting.

 

Nominate only 10 people, please. List them from 1-10 in order of importance. 10 points to a #1 rank, 9 points to a #2, etc. The most points will advance to the first bracket.

[Crimson G 0]

1. Aaron Sorkin

2. Quentin Tarantino

3. Mel Brooks

4. Woody Allen

5. George Lucas

6. William Goldman

7. Oliver Stone

8. Gregory Widen

9. Ryuzo Kikushima

10. Gary Ross

[godthedog 0]

how about we just have a discussion about who we think the greatest screenwriters are, and not a tournament? those tend to be more fun, and go somewhere.

[Ravenbomb 0]

I'm with godthedog on this

 

Paul Schrader and Charlie Kaufman are great

[Guest TheZsaszHorsemen]

For sentimental reasons I'll say I love Richard Maibaum's work. And Rod Serling's POTA script was genius.

[Crimson G 0]

how about we just have a discussion about who we think the greatest screenwriters are, and not a tournament? those tend to be more fun, and go somewhere.

Okay.

 

Aaron Sorkin is a friggin' genius. The guy created two of my favorite shows ever (The West Wing & Sports Night) and wrote on the vast majority of the episodes. Astounding. Secondly, he wrote The American President & helped fix the problems with The Rock (the movie, not the wrestler).

 

Fantastic work.

[ArkhamGlobe 0]

I'll chime in with my favourite writing team, which is any combination of Leigh Brackett, Jules Furthman and William Faulkner (Faulkner also being one of my favourite writers in general), mainly for their work with Howard Hawks on To Have and Have Not, The Big Sleep and Rio Bravo among others.

[Guest TheZsaszHorsemen]

I'll chime in with my favourite writing team, which is any combination of Leigh Brackett, Jules Furthman and William Faulkner (Faulkner also being one of my favourite writers in general), mainly for their work with Howard Hawks on To Have and Have Not, The Big Sleep and Rio Bravo among others.

The Big Sleep had a pretty awful script.

[The Mandarin 0]

Charlie Kaufman is definitely one of the most creative screenwriters ever.

 

Michael Mann did a great job on Heat as well.

[Downhome 0]

George Lucas shouldn't even be mentioned in this thread, ugh. I'll go with Charlie Kaufman, the Coen Brothers, and Quentin Tarantino as someo of my personal favorites.

 

The topic shouldn't continue in my view untill Ernest Lehman is mentioned also.

[Crimson G 0]

George Lucas shouldn't even be mentioned in this thread, ugh. I'll go with Charlie Kaufman, the Coen Brothers, and Quentin Tarantino as someo of my personal favorites.

 

The topic shouldn't continue in my view untill Ernest Lehman is mentioned also.

I was mentioning him for Indiana Jones, not Star Wars. Of course, that isn't evident from my post, so you shall be let off the hook.

[godthedog 0]

I'll chime in with my favourite writing team, which is any combination of Leigh Brackett, Jules Furthman and William Faulkner (Faulkner also being one of my favourite writers in general), mainly for their work with Howard Hawks on To Have and Have Not, The Big Sleep and Rio Bravo among others.

'to have and to have not' is genius. way more skill and grace than just about any other hollywood movie of the forties.

 

before I head off to college to study screenwriting.

congratulations. best of luck to you.

 

kaufman i think gets pigeonholed as a weirdo, and doesn't get enough credit for his grasp of the fundamentals. 'confessions of a dangerous mind' is a straight-up fantastic script: funny, taut, clever and human, and doesn't rely on any gimmicks. he's got great ideas, but he also has almost a pitch-perfect sense of what the human core of writing great characters and telling great stories. i have issues with 'adaptation', but kaufman's growing track record is telling me that was more the exception than the rule.

5. George Lucas

after 'american graffiti', lucas abruptly stopped caring about anything resembling character, resonance or subtlety. 'star wars' is ultimately a series of set pieces, and it REALLY shows in those stretches when they're not being chased or trying to blow something up. when the film isn't on an action set piece, it's dragging. in its quiet moments, when lucas is supposed to really hit home with who these characters are and what they're fighting for, we get the bare bones of motivations and such but they never come alive like they're supposed to. he does do a rather good job of creating another world (like introducing luke on the farm looking at the sunset and things), but when the emphasis is on the characters & not the world or the action it falls flat. like the droid bargaining scene, which is a good chance to just let the characters play off each other & let us get to know them; lucas tries to do this, but it's too forced, and it gets boring.

 

i'll withhold comment on 'the phantom menace'.

[Downhome 0]

I was mentioning him for Indiana Jones, not Star Wars. Of course, that isn't evident from my post, so you shall be let off the hook.

He didn't even write the screenplays for those films though. He simply came up with the base story and characters. Lucas busted out the screenplay for Star Wars, and he simply got lucky with it. The other actual screenplays that he has put together has sucked for the most part, aside from American Graffiti.

 

He went back and wrote Episode one and two (and the upcoming three) by himself, and of those three that have been released, the actual screenplays have been horrible.

 

Lucas is one of the most overrated guys in the history of Hollywood as far as I'm concerned, both as a writer and as a director.

[Crimson G 0]

5. George Lucas

after 'american graffiti', lucas abruptly stopped caring about anything resembling character, resonance or subtlety. 'star wars' is ultimately a series of set pieces, and it REALLY shows in those stretches when they're not being chased or trying to blow something up. when the film isn't on an action set piece, it's dragging. in its quiet moments, when lucas is supposed to really hit home with who these characters are and what they're fighting for, we get the bare bones of motivations and such but they never come alive like they're supposed to. he does do a rather good job of creating another world (like introducing luke on the farm looking at the sunset and things), but when the emphasis is on the characters & not the world or the action it falls flat. like the droid bargaining scene, which is a good chance to just let the characters play off each other & let us get to know them; lucas tries to do this, but it's too forced, and it gets boring.

 

i'll withhold comment on 'the phantom menace'.

See my post from above.

[Insane Bump Machine 0]

I'll throw Brian Helgeland in the mix, who has written Mystic River, Payback, Conspiracy Theory and L.A. Confidential

[ArkhamGlobe 0]

The Big Sleep had a pretty awful script.

Kindly elaborate. I'm fully aware of the plotholes and such, but I don't particularly care about them, the reason I mentioned the script is mainly on account of the dialogue.

[Guest TonyJaymzV1]

Kaufman is great at telling an engrossing story, bottom line. I mean, he is probably the only screenwriter that people know about, who isn't also a director.

 

I like Tarantino but was disapointed in Kill Bill. It had too much style over subtance(ala Lucas) and I just didn't care about the characters.

[DMann2003 0]

Robert Towne (Chinatown/Without Limits)- he also wrote the transition of power scene from the Godfather.

 

Lawrence Kasdan- who DID co-write Raiders of the Lost Ark, Empire Strikes Back, The Big Chill, Silverado

 

And how the fuck has no one mentioned William Goldman? Butch Cassidy, Marathon Man, Princess Bride, Misery.

[Crimson G 0]

And how the fuck has no one mentioned William Goldman? Butch Cassidy, Marathon Man, Princess Bride, Misery.

He's my #6.

[WrestlingDeacon 0]

My favorite screenwriter is Richard Price. Color of Money, Clockers, Ransom, the new Shaft, Mad Dog and Glory, Sea of Love, "The Wire." His dialogue is so specific to the world he's creating and he never utilizes heavy exposition. He's a master of charectrization and knows how to right a tight, on target story.

[Hank Kingsley 0]

And how the fuck has no one mentioned William Goldman?  Butch Cassidy, Marathon Man, Princess Bride, Misery.

I was just about to mention him.

 

"How are the banks in Australia?"

"Easy, ripe, and luscious."

"The banks, or the women?"

"If you've got one, you've got the other."

 

Tarantino, Helgeland, and Chris McQuarrie (The Usual Suspects) are up there for me, as well.

[bobobrazil1984 0]

He went back and wrote Episode one and two (and the upcoming three) by himself, and of those three that have been released, the actual screenplays have been horrible.

Just a little nitpick, he actually co-wrote Episode II (and possibly upcoming III) with Jonathan Hales. Your point still stands though. Lucas is not a Great Screenwriter in any sense of the word.

[thecitythesky 0]

two words: Davic Mamet.

.

and although it was mentioned above.

Woody Allen rocks my world.

[Mecha Mummy 0]

Maaan. Am I the only fan of Akira Kurosawa's films here?

[Edwin MacPhisto 0]

Maaan. Am I the only fan of Akira Kurosawa's films here?

No, not at all. I've seen a dozen of them, love just about all of them. Most people cite him for direction rather than writing, and I can see why. Although he had an incredible grasp of character and story, the first thing that comes to mind with him are laudatory images: swinging on the park in the snow in Ikiru, the humor and shock of the final duel in Sanjuro, the horses storming through the village and the slo-mo in Seven Samurai, etc.

 

Of course, he had to write all those situations out and deal with the subtleties of characters to make those beautiful images feasible. For being a writer/director, he also lacks (partly due to the nature of translation) the snappy, memorable dialogue that makes people point to a guy like Tarantino and say "great writer." Kurosawa's one of my all-time favorites for both the epic and the personal, which he so often managed to fuse.