Read 'The Black List' at http://www.SellingYourScreenplay.com.

“The Black List” is an annual list of the most popular unproduced screenplays as voted on by Hollywood insiders. If you haven’t heard about it /film did a good write up and listed the screenplays for 2008 here: http://www.slashfilm.com/2008/12/10/the-2008-black-list-the-hottest-unproduced-screenplays-of-2008/

The people who put The Black List together have set up an official website which can be found here: http://www.blcklst.com/

You can download the lists for the different years (including this years winners) in PDF format by going here: http://www.blcklst.com/tbl/list/

As a screenwriter it’s very interesting to dig into these scripts and have a look at what’s considered “popular” by industry insiders. You can find all of these scripts available for download here:

2008 The Black List Screenplays

2009 The Black List Screenplays

As the top entry on the 2008 list I started to read The Beaver by Kyle Killen. Mel Gibson is starring in it and it should be released next year. What’s interesting about this script to me is that while it’s very well written (Killen clearly knows about depression) it’s not a mainstream Hollywood film and I can’t see it doing any business at the box office. If it was a low budget indy-film starring Philip Seymour Hoffman it would probably win some academy awards but with Mel Gibson as it’s lead I doubt anyone will see it. I look forward to following this film through next year.

This is a great resource for any screenwriter and you should check out as many of these scripts as you can.