This year features 80 (mostly) unproduced screenplays. Here are another 11, indexed from M to O.
You can read and download some of the best "2020: Top Unproduced Screenplays" of the year, according to hundreds of industry professionals who've read and rated them.
They're cataloged and indexed alphabetically for quick access. For Your Consideration, the next batch of 11 scripts. Including Elijah Bynum's "Magazine Dreams," Tara Cavanagh's "Occupied," and everything in between.
If you're a young writer looking for study guides, you've found the right place. Stay a while, learn a lot. Welcome to 8FLiX.
Unsure about exactly what makes these scripts so popular?
You're thinking about writing movie scripts? Do your research.
The odds are firmly against you making a career out of writing. Anyone can write, but not everyone can be a writer.
Screenwriting is like any other art: it's subjective. So is it worth paying for someone's opinion about your writing? A professional script reader can read your screenplay and hate everything about it. On the flip side, a different person can read the same script and love every word. The end result is you'll get conflicting advice about how to "improve" your writing, and their opinions may have nothing to do with the fundamentals of screenwriting.
That's the problem with subjectivity when an artist is looking for advice. Not everyone is the same, and not all script readers are created equally. The point is this: keep writing, keep revising until YOU are happy. If you've got what it takes to be a writer, to be a good writer, then everything else will fall into place.
Read screenplays. Read a lot of screenplays. Read unproduced screenplays, read award-winning screenplays. Discover what's not written on the page; look beyond what's black and white. Don't be afraid to make a mistake, but also know when to say when.
Anyone can write, but not everyone can be a writer.
A word about voting... and other important stuff about the "best of" 2020 Unproduced Scripts.
Some of the scripts listed here may have since been optioned and produced. However, at the time of "voting" they were not.
Also, like all of the screenplays on this site, copyrights remain with the writer(s). 8FLiX does not claim ownership of any screenplay, nor were we involved in voting for, or choosing what makes them the "best of" a particular year.
If you're the writer and wish to update the version, change your contact information, or to remove your screenplay from the database, send an email to Nick Runyeard for immediate assistance. I can also be reach through social media:
Magazine Dreams
Written by: Elijah Bynum
Votes: 9
A Black amateur bodybuilder struggles to find human connection in this exploration of celebrity and violence.
The Man in the Yard
Written by: Sam Stefanak
Votes: 14
When a dangerous stranger shows up at her front door, a depressed widow must confront her own past in order to protect her two children.
Margot
Written by: Emily Adams
Votes: 7
Annie Mills has always known Margot Ellison to be two things: her best friend and a devout Mormon. But as high school graduation nears and Margot starts to crave change, the girls must grapple with the fear that growing up might require growing alone.
May December
Written by: Samy Burch
Votes: 10
Twenty years after their notorious tabloid romance gripped the nation, a married couple buckles under the pressure when an actress arrives to do research for a film about their past.
Mouse
Written by: Kelly O'Sullivan
Votes: 9
When seventeen-year old Minnie’s best friend Callie is killed in an accident, she struggles to find an identity of her own and forms a complicated friendship with Callie’s grieving mother.
Murder in the White House
Written by: Jonathan Stokes
Votes: 9
The President is murdered during a private dinner, and Secret Service agent Mia Pine has until morning to discover which guest is the killer before a peace agreement fails and leads to war.
My Dear You
Written by: Meghan Kennedy
Votes: 11
Based on a short story by Rachel Khong. A love story set in the afterlife about our struggle to let go of the past, even when our present is heaven... literally. Tess keeps searching for the love of her life without realizing he’s right there next to her the whole time, helping her look.
Nanny (2022)
Written by: Nikyata Jusu
Votes: 9
Aisha is an undocumented nanny caring for a privileged child. As she prepares for the arrival of her only son, who she left behind in her native country, a violent supernatural presence invades her reality, jeopardizing the American Dream she’s carefully pieced together. IMDb
Neither Confirm Nor Deny
Written by: Dave Collard
Votes: 26 (3rd overall in 2020)
An adaptation of David Sharp’s book The CIA’s Greatest Covert Operation that chronicles the clandestine CIA operation that risked igniting WWIII by recovering a nuclear-armed Soviet Sub, the K-129, that sunk to the bottom of the ocean in 1968.
The Neutral Corner
Written by: Justin Piasecki
Votes: 13
A Nevada court judge who moonlights reffing high-profile boxing matches must face his demons when he’s assigned to the Olympic fight of an ex-con he’d previously sentenced for murder.
Occupied
Written by: Tara Cavanagh
Votes: 11
When a tactless Nordstrom’s store manager denies two trans women access to the bathroom, Fran and Althea seek restitution and occupy the ladies room in protest.
