What makes a screenplay the best you’ve read? Is it a hook, consistency, or an ending that lingers?

Our team of readers at ScriptReader.studio reviewed 49 scripts in 2023. Ours was a varied diet, from shorts to radio scripts to TV to feature films, and each week we debated the merits of each.

ScriptReader.studio has a unique way to track reader engagement. This means we can ask questions and get answers that others cannot as we capture data down to the page level.

As a diverse group of readers, we had a diverse range of tastes. This included a range of backgrounds — neurodivergent readers, considerations for accessibility, and personal histories that led some to avoid certain themes. This diversity added valuable layers to the script data we examined.

Three ways to study a script

Now, the traditional way to rate this would be to have a table with the average scores readers gave once they finished the script. And we have that data. But we can do something more than that as we are rich in data.

There are three ways we at ScriptReader.studio can look at the data:

1. The scripts with the best overall rating
2. The script with the best growth in rating
3. The script with the most consistent rating

While we have a range of metrics, we will be looking at the next page engagement: how eager the reader is to keep reading. This is what we call the engagement score.

“You have to get the reader to turn over the page,”

Ian Fleming

Scripts reviewed

Among the scripts we read were 15 from the 2023 Black List, the best unproduced scripts as rated by Hollywood producers. As such these scripts have some authority behind them as being good.

Best rolling rating

We don’t just ask readers to rate a script once they finish reading it. We also get data at the page level and so know what the ratings are, and have multiple readers to give richer data.

In short, the “Average rolling rating” is the average engagement score for all readers as the score “rolls” across a script.

The top scripts held our readers’ attention from beginning to end.

• Bad Boy (Travis Braun) is the story of a dog, a girl, and a psychopath — from the dog’s perspective. Despite the potential for cheesiness, it was top dog for our readers.
• Spoiler (Jordan Rosenbloom) ells the tale of a studio executive who finds himself trapped inside a screenplay he previously rejected; a meta commentary on the film industry.
• 10/24/02 (Connor McKnight) is a darker, tauter episode of the X-Files, a single room mystery that kept us gripped.

Can you see that there’s an 11 percentage point spread between first and third? That’s quite a drop between the highest and lowest scoring scripts.

But as I said, we have other ways the can look at the data. Average scores can mask scripts that started out doing well but slid down the engagement chart. Let’s look at those that grew the most.

Biggest score growth

This time we’ll look at scripts that had the most significant growth from the beginning to the end.

Why look at growth? Because it suggests that the script becomes more engaging as it progresses. And as the chart shows, scripts initially score between 60–70%.

While Bad Boy and Spoiler remained at the top, Untitled Missing Child rose to number 3 due to significant score growth throughout the script. However, it only rose from 59% average rating for the first page to 64% for the final 10.

This could be a weakness with the method: if a script starts with a low score then it is easier for it to go up the rankings.

Also, readers have the option to stop reading at page 10, 30 and 60, and this score does not reflect this. I have a way to update this so may do it next time.

So while this is okay it doesn’t tell us too much. So instead of looking at growth let’s go the other way and look at consistency.

Most consistent score

These are the scripts that are the most consistent in their “engagement scores, meaning their average score remained stable on a page-by-page basis.

Here the scripts are ranked where the lower the number the more consistent the engagement score. I chose this as it script consistency is important — Act 1 may be a stunner, but if it declines from there then it won’t have a high consistency as the scores for Acts 2 and 3 will be lower.

Or it could be that some scenes that gripped the reader were scattered throughout a script that otherwise did not. Or vice-versa, an engaging script let down by a couple of plodding scenes.

A consistent score throughout suggests the author has maintained a consistent story flow. It does not matter if it is high engagement score (it can even be low), consistency in the engagement score with the reader is hard to achieve in a script and I applaud the authors who did it.

Here the tables have been shaken up. Bad Boy is now a mid-ranking script, while Last Resort and Carousel are top.

Bonus: Where the story starts

We also asked where readers thought the story started . Was the inciting incident on the first page, did it get dragged out until halfway?

General guidance suggests that the inciting incident should occur within the first 10 pages, but as with most writing advice, this is a guideline, not a rule. Some stories don’t start until well into the script — Raiders of the Lost Ark doesn’t send Indy on his quest for the Ark of the Covenant until around 40 minutes (about 40 pages) in. Doesn’t mean it’s not a cracking story.

However, as something to look at with other rankings it is of interest.

Bad Boy is once again a top contender, as is 10/24/02, and I was surprised at Stakehorse having that rating as I felt the story was there, but my views don’t reflect all readers’ views. Spoiler was a reader favourite, although personally, Stakehorse would have been my pick for number 3.

What is interesting is that the vast majority of scripts — 11 out of 15 — have their story start in the first 20 pages. This is not something that all scripts can do and shows the quality of scripts within the Black List that so many start early.

Bottom ranked

I don’t want to dwell on the bottom ranked scripts as there can be numerous reasons why scripts fail to engage. As others have said, good scripts follow similar patterns but bad ones have many different reasons.

And these are not bad scripts by any definition. These scripts are still ranked on the Black List and all had positive reader engagement and feedback. They just didn’t perform as well as some strong competition

What is interesting is that only two scripts that we have read have a production status — Stakehorse, one of my favourites, and The Peasant, which was often in the bottom of our rankings. Which just goes to show that in Hollywood, and scriptreading, no one knows anything.

Summary

Considering all of the above, I am going to make a judgement call and say these are the top 3:

1. Bad Boy is the most engaging screenplay based on these reader scores. It is also the most consistent and has an upward trend.
2. 10/24/02 closely follows, having consistent reader scores, ranking as the second most engaging, and appearing in the top 3 across most charts.
3. Spoiler shows a high growth and high average engagement. Although not my favourite script — I would have put Stakehorse as my number 3 — the readers loved this.

Here’s some quotes from some of our readers.

What readers loved about Bad Boy

• “I loved this script. Within the first few pages I was emotionally attached to Gary… I connected to him more than most protagonists because he is an animal and therefore doesn’t have any complicated emotions.”
• “The POV of the dog is an unusual one but very enjoyable… Telling it from a dog’s POV could have been risky but the author makes it work well, flow, and give a unique perspective without making it silly.”
• “Convincing readers of a dog’s POV is done subtly and convincingly… Gary is a dog, not a human, and he thinks and acts as a dog would.”

What readers loved about 10/24/02

• “A taut, claustrophobic sci-fi thriller set in the backdrop of New Mexico, 2002. The action is full of beautifully worded descriptions and loaded with figurative language, making the script dense and detailed.”
• “The tension in the plot is palpable at times as his obsession turns into paranoia in the claustrophobic confinement of room 7.”
• “I liked the premise of the script because I find pieces that challenge realities and narratives interesting. The script took a while to grow on me — to begin with it felt quite clunky and drawn out with perhaps too much backstory.”
• I thought this was a thrilling and utterly tense script that felt like if Alfred Hitchcock directed a sci-fi movie with Drew Goddard and took inspiration from The Conversation, directed by Francis Ford Coppola.”

What readers loved about Spoiler

• “Nice to see a film hold a mirror to its industry, some good moments of black comedy and intriguing experimentation with form. Very meta theatrical.”
• “There were some great details that made the screenplay as organic as the plot intended — like the blood from the nosebleed appearing on the page and the strikethrough of Cut to Black at the end.”
• “Nice to see a film hold a mirror to its industry, some good moments of black comedy and intriguing experimentation with form. Very meta theatrical.”
• “The dialogue on the other hand is what keeps this story together… the writer was able to effectively personalize the characters making you entertained by them.”

Thoughts

There is no one way to see what makes a script great. That’s why we have a variety of data we can play with.

We also asked readers to identify the point where they felt the incident incident happened and the story began. Most stories start within the first 20 pages, and Bad Boy and 10/24/02 start right away in the first 10 pages.

We’ll keep looking at the data and try again this year to see if further trends emerge.

If you’d like to look at the summary data you can do so at the StoryProspects Coda.io page with this blog and the charts in clickable format, along with extra data not included here.