Looking to break into the world of screenwriting but unsure where to start? You might be surprised to find that the right movies can serve as both an inspiration and a blueprint for your first script! From heartwarming romcoms that can make you laugh out loud to edge-of-your-seat thrillers that’ll have you biting your nails, there’s a whole universe of film genres just waiting to ignite your creativity. Have you ever wondered how a simple love story can evolve into a timeless classic like “Casablanca,” even amid the chaos of war? Or how a quest to destroy an ancient ring can foster friendships in “The Lord of the Rings”? Here, we’ve curated a collection of films spanning the major genres—each one showcasing exemplary scripts that not only entertain but also teach the art of storytelling. So grab that notepad and get ready to dive in, because your screenwriting journey starts right here! LEARN MORE
Whether you’re deciding to put paper to pen for the first time or you’re just searching for some inspo, the movies are a great place to start. No matter the genre you have in mind, you can look through our script library and find some of the most quintessential scripts of any given type.
From romcoms to action flicks to old-fashioned mystery thrillers and hair-raising horror movies, we have picks that can send you in the right direction. With the ten main genres of story in mind, here is a list of films showing you what those genres can do.
Scripts from this Article
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Casablanca (1942)
Romance, Drama
Screenplay by: Murray Burnett, Joan Alison, Julius J. Epstein, Philip G. Epstein, and Howard Koch
With a World War looming ever-present, can a love story really survive the pressure? This movie answers that question beautifully and delves into the heart of who the main character really is—even if he has forgotten himself quite a bit.
From his moral struggle to the love he lost, Rick (Humphrey Bogart) faces conflicts in Casablanca that make this story stand out to this day as cinematically—and narratively—magnificent.
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Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
Adventure
Screenplay by: George Lucas, Philip Kaufman, and Lawrence Kasdan
Nothing is quite as satisfying as watching Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) punch Nazis while he tracks down a legendary relic of untold significance. If you have a hankering to follow an adventure and a hero from start to finish in search of a powerful piece of history (and perhaps divine history at that), there’s no genre movie better for that than Raiders, which immediately starts things off with some pulse-raising stakes.
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Halloween (1978)
Horror
Screenplay by: John Carpenter and Debra Hill
Hailed far and wide as a masterful transition into the age of the slasher, John Carpenter’s Halloween started the fascination with an iconic movie villain known as Michael Myers, which Carpenter initially called The Shape. With inhuman movement and the masked face, Myers became a symbol of evil incarnate—fitting for one of the most trendsetting horror genre flicks ever to hit the big screen.
Read More: Top 10 Most Influential Slasher Films
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Chinatown (1974)
Thriller, Mystery
Screenwriting: Robert Towne and Roman Polanski
Murders, mysteries, and crimes against nature are all wrapped up in this neat little love letter to the heyday of the film noir genre. Starring Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway, this detective novel of a movie hits hard but burns slow, giving you plenty of time to absorb the sense of decaying morality in the face of powerful people.
This thriller doesn’t jump out to grab you. Instead, it’s the paragon of intentional, well-paced storytelling in a crime mystery.
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Star Wars: Episode IV — A New Hope (1977)
Fantasy
Screenplay by: George Lucas
“But there are lasers and spaceships!” Yes, there are “typically sci-fi” world elements—but this world, the whole premise of Star Wars, is a fantasy: Space wizards fight over the balance of an all-encompassing magic as predicted by ancient prophecy.
That doesn’t keep this genre film from being a unique source of fantastical storytelling. In fact, it’s so profoundly tied to Joseph Campbell’s idea of the Hero’s Journey that this 1970s blockbuster has become a bona fide guide to narratology.
Read More: 10 Films That Teach You Everything You Need to Know About Sci-Fi
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Men In Black (1997)
Comedy
Screenplay by: Lowell Cunningham and Ed Solomon
Also rife with sci-fi elements—though not a long, long time ago—Men In Black shows the behind-the-scenes of extraterrestrial activity with a fish-out-of-water comedy starring Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones.
In their “buddy cop” routine as their planet’s biggest secret keepers, these two agents manage to make a ridiculously quotable comedy film while still defending Earth from annihilation.
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Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
Action, Science-Fiction
Screenplay by: James Cameron and William Wisher
Where action and sci-fi meet, there is one movie that reigns supreme: Terminator 2. Everything about this film screams “classic action film,” from its chase sequences to the switcheroo of villain for protector (Arnold Schwarzenegger).
Meanwhile, a concerned and very traumatized mother (Linda Hamilton) kicks ass and tries to save the world her own way the minute things go haywire.
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The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
Drama
Screenplay by: Frank Darabont
The internal and external factors that beat down on anyone stuck in prison are something worth exploring through story, and a drama like The Shawshank Redemption does that amazingly.
Chronicling the introduction of Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins) into incarceration—an innocent man framed—we see the struggles surrounding acceptance, hope, and circumstance forge in him a new possible outcome for his life.
Read More: Film Behind Bars: Prison Movies That Captivate Audiences
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My Best Friend’s Wedding (1997)
Romance, Comedy
Screenplay by: Ronald Bass
Jules (Julia Roberts) attempts to sabotage the wedding of her best friend (Dermot Mulroney) and the woman he fell for (Cameron Diaz) all to get him back. But each time she does, the outcomes are completely different from what she imagines, making this mission hilariously difficult.
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The Mummy (1999)
Action, Adventure
Screenplay by: Nina Wilcox Putnam, Richard Schayer, John L. Balderston, Stephen Sommers, Lloyd Fonvielle, and Kevin Jarre
With a little fantasy-horror flair, The Mummy is as self-aware as it is charming, giving characters exaggerated but believable flaws and carrying with it the major, world-altering stakes of a thousands-year-old curse. With dashing heroics and an acute sense of humor, this adventure film has had audiences enamored for a quarter of a century.
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Shaun of the Dead (2004)
Comedy (and Horror)
Screenplay by: Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright
Framed in the parody of classic horror films, this deliberate nod to George A. Romero’s Dawn of The Dead uses plenty of his established tropes while using them to provide joke setups throughout the whole film. As a skillful homage, the film is just as hilarious as it is gruesome—making it a huge success in two genres, rather than one.
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Psycho (1960)
Thriller
Screenplay by: Joseph Stefano and Robert Bloch
No thriller out there still has quite the acclaim of the classic Hitchcock film, Psycho. With its jarring perspective change and its psychotic revelation at the end, this film has defined suspense, surprise, and shock for audiences (and writers) for decades since.
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The Godfather (1972)
Drama
Screenplay by: Mario Puzo and Francis Ford Coppola
Talk about high stakes—taking the mantle of the Corleone family might be about as high as they get. And Michael (Al Pacino) has a lot to live up to, whether he wants to or not. The interplay of agendas, violence, and inner conflict in a story like this make The Godfather a timeless drama.
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Citizen Kane (1941)
Mystery
Screenplay by: Herman J. Mankiewicz, Orson Welles, and John Houseman
Your legacy ought to have some meaning. But to make it a whole mystery worth solving, it takes a really impressive person—or a really impressive ego. For Charles Foster Kane (Orson Welles), leaving a last impression makes it necessary to follow his entire life story to get some answers.
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Alien (1979)
Horror, Science-Fiction
Screenplay by: Dan O’Bannon and Ronald Shusett
Steeped in sci-fi but blooming as a horror icon, Alien is Ridley Scott’s answer to the question, “What’s really out there?” And the answer is just as horrifying years later as it was back in the ’70s, with body horror and visceral suspense dripping out of every minute of the film.
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When Harry Met Sally (1989)
Romance, Comedy
Screenplay by: Nora Ephron
The quintessential romantic comedy—a story of friends to lovers—this genre film has been quoted to death, but still carries a powerful reminder of how easily relationships can become the centerpiece of a narrative if done right. Any writer who wants that skill might want to start looking here first!
Read More: 6 Lessons from Nora Ephron’s “When Harry Met Sally…”
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The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
Fantasy, Adventure
Screenplay by: Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, and J.R.R. Tolkien
An unassuming hero, a quest to save the world, all the fantastic things a fantastic story requires; but more than that, Fellowship became a technically perfect introduction into Middle-Earth, creating a fandom with a subculture all its own based on the world first crafted and written by legendary author J.R.R. Tolkien.
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The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
Thriller, Mystery
Screenplay by: Ted Tally and Thomas Harris
We need to solve a crime and catch the bad guy, but the best way we can do that is to ask the devil we know. That’s Clarice Starling’s dilemma (Jodie Foster) as she begins her investigation and her conversations with Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins), a psychopathic genius whose own agenda comes into play along the way.
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The Exorcist (1973)
Horror
Screenplay by: William Peter Blatty
Linda Blair’s character Regan in full possession haunts the dreams of many to this day, and the chilling refrain that we find synonymous with the movie today still sends goosebumps up the necks of those who’ve seen this demonic horror classic. If you’re looking for a masterclass in “disturbing,” start here and nowhere else.
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Mean Girls (2004)
Comedy
Screenplay by: Tina Fey
Quippy, quotable, and cutting, this genre film took the world by storm in the mid-2000s and inspired a musical—as well as a movie based on the musical, a la Hairspray. Tina Fey’s masterful dialogue and witty intrigue keep this revenge story moving quickly, with every word committed to memory as if it had lyrics all along.
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Saving Private Ryan (1998)
Action, Drama
Screenplay by: Robert Rodat
A war drama often shows desperation, but nothing quite hits that note like Saving Private Ryan—whose first minutes are dedicated to the soldiers storming Omaha Beach. The movie wastes no time gripping your sympathies and shocking your system, making it the perfect combination of action and drama.
Read More: 15 of the Most Important War Movies
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Planet of the Apes (1968)
Science-Fiction
Screenplay by: Michael Wilson and Rod Serling
Might as well call it a mystery, too, given its final revelation, but this science-fiction genre film still receives ultimate praise from audiences everywhere for its powerful worldbuilding, storytelling, and the notion of utter shock when you discover where this strange simian world came from—as do the humans who crash-land there.
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Want to be a film student, an aficionado, or a well-read screenwriter? This is where you start: learning the best films of every genre.
It is never too late, considering that each of these genres can overlap and create more amazing combinations, be they action comedies or romantic horror films. By knowing how the best of each genre has come about in cinema, you’ll get a better idea of how to make that happen in your own writing or film work!
