his was a strange year for Hollywood, especially for the writers. A dual writers’ and actors’ strike that drew out for months hobbled productions, reminding everyone of the power of the pen—especially with artificial intelligence methods getting “smarter” and more productive.
So the unveiling of the 2023 Black List feels like it carries a little more weight, now that the new writers’ contract has underscored the importance of the scribe in Hollywood. The annual compilation surveys film executives on their “favorite feature film screenplays that were written in, or are somehow uniquely associated with, 2023 and will not have begun principal photography during this calendar year.”
The list has become a big deal in Hollywood—it’s helped spur the production of Oscar-winning films including Juno, Argo and The King’s Speech, which all made the Black List. Producer Franklin Leonard, who founded the Black List in 2005, noted that this year’s edition is extra special.
“This year, the industry was defined by a debate about the value of writers within it, and I think it’s inevitable that this year’s Black List means more than it has in the past,” said Leonard. “I’ve been saying that writing is the lifeblood of the industry for almost 20 years now, and I’ll continue saying it until the industry actually starts acting like it. Now that the strikes are over, I look forward to these and other great scripts getting made so I can watch them as an audience member myself.”
This year’s list features 76 feature screenplays by 80 writers, selected by more than 375 film executives. It includes true tales, sports stories, romantic entanglements and some meta-commentary on Hollywood itself. It also has a film about the slaughter of a K-pop group, which sounds both disturbing and intriguing.
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