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List of film screenwriters (all time)

A list of writers who create film plots, stories, and ideas. A.k.a. screenplay writers, screenwriters, scriptwriters, or scenarists.

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Aaron Sorkin
1

Aaron Sorkin

Aaron Benjamin Sorkin (born June 9, 1961) is an American screenwriter, producer, and playwright. His works include the Broadway plays A Few Good Men and The Farnsworth Invention; the television series Sports Night, The West Wing,...
8
8
from 1 vote
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Adam McKay
2

Adam McKay

(1968)
Adam McKay (born April 17, 1968) is an American film director, producer, screenwriter, comedian, and actor. McKay served as head writer for the NBC sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live for two seasons. He has a comedy partners...
8
8
from 1 vote
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Akira Kurosawa
3

Akira Kurosawa

Akira Kurosawa ( March 23, 1910 – September 6, 1998) was a Japanese filmmaker. Kurosawa directed 30 films in a career spanning 57 years.
8
8
from 1 vote
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Alejandro González Iñárritu
4

Alejandro González Iñárritu

(1963)
Alejandro González Iñárritu; credited since 2014 as Alejandro G. Iñárritu; born August 15, 1963) is a Mexican film director, producer, screenwriter, and former composer. He is the first Mexican director to be nominated for the Aca...
9
9
from 3 votes
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Alfred Hitchcock
5

Alfred Hitchcock

Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, (13 August 1899 – 29 April 1980) was an English film director and producer, often nicknamed "The Master of Suspense".
0
0
from 0 votes
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Andrew Stanton
6

Andrew Stanton

Andrew Stanton (born December 3, 1965) is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, and voice actor based at Pixar. His film work includes writing and directing Pixar's A Bug's Life (1998) (as co-director), Finding Nemo (...
7
7
from 1 vote
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Ang Lee
7

Ang Lee

Ang Lee (Chinese: 李安; pinyin: Lǐ Ān; born October 23, 1954) is a Taiwanese-born American film director, screenwriter and producer. Lee has won the Academy Award for Best Director twice: for Brokeback Mountain (2005) and for Life o...
8
8
from 1 vote
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Angelina Jolie
8

Angelina Jolie

Angelina Jolie Pitt (née Voight; June 4, 1975) is an American actress, filmmaker, and humanitarian. She has received an Academy Award, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, and three Golden Globe Awards, and has been cited as Hollywood'...
5.4
5.4
from 5 votes
Discuss [1]
Arthur C. Clarke
9

Arthur C. Clarke

Sri Lankabhimanya Sir Arthur Charles Clarke, CBE, FRAS (16 December 1917 – 19 March 2008) was a British science fiction writer, science writer and futurist, inventor, undersea explorer, and television series host. He is perhaps mo...
8
8
from 1 vote
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Atom Egoyan
10

Atom Egoyan

Atom Egoyan, (born July 19, 1960) is a Canadian stage director and film director.
9
9
from 1 vote
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Ava DuVernay
11

Ava DuVernay

Ava Marie DuVernay (born August 24, 1972) is an American director, screenwriter, film marketer, and film distributor. At the 2012 Sundance Film Festival, DuVernay won the Best Director Prize for her second feature film Middle of N...
8
8
from 1 vote
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Baz Luhrmann
12

Baz Luhrmann

Mark Anthony "Baz" Luhrmann (born 17 September 1962) is an Australian film director, screenwriter and producer best known for The Red Curtain Trilogy, comprising his romantic comedy film Strictly Ballroom (1992), the romantic dram...
8
8
from 1 vote
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Ben Affleck
13

Ben Affleck

Benjamin Geza Affleck-Boldt (born August 15, 1972), better known as Ben Affleck, is an American actor and filmmaker. He has won two Academy Awards and three Golden Globe Awards. Affleck began his career as a child actor, starring...
8
8
from 1 vote
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Ben Stiller
14

Ben Stiller

Benjamin Edward Meara "Ben" Stiller (born November 30, 1965) is an American actor, comedian, and filmmaker. He is the son of veteran comedians and actors Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara. After beginning his acting career with a play,...
8
8
from 1 vote
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Brian De Palma
15

Brian De Palma

Brian Russell De Palma (born September 11, 1940) is an American film director and screenwriter.
0
0
from 0 votes
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Bruce Campbell
16

Bruce Campbell

Bruce Lorne Campbell (born June 22, 1958) is an American film and television actor, director, writer, producer and author. As a cult film actor, Campbell is best known for his role as Ash Williams in Sam Raimi's hit Evil Dead seri...
0
0
from 0 votes
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Charlie Chaplin
17

Charlie Chaplin

Sir Charles Spencer "Charlie" Chaplin, KBE (16 April 1889 – 25 December 1977) was an English comic actor, filmmaker, and composer who rose to fame in the silent era. His career spanned more than 75 years, from childhood in the Vic...
0
0
from 0 votes
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Charlie Kaufman
18

Charlie Kaufman

Charles Stuart "Charlie" Kaufman (born November 19, 1958) is an American screenwriter, producer, director, and lyricist. He wrote the films Being John Malkovich (1999), Adaptation (2002), and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind...
10
10
from 1 vote
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Christopher Nolan
19

Christopher Nolan

Christopher Jonathan James Nolan (born 30 July 1970) is an English-American film director, screenwriter, and producer. He has created several of the most commercially successful films of the early 21st century. His nine films have...
8
8
from 3 votes
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Clint Eastwood
20

Clint Eastwood

Clinton "Clint" Eastwood, Jr. (born May 31, 1930) is an American actor, film director, producer, musician, and politician. He rose to international fame with his role as the Man with No Name in Sergio Leone's Dollars trilogy of sp...
8
8
from 2 votes
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David Cronenberg
21

David Cronenberg

David Paul Cronenberg, (born March 15, 1943) is a Canadian filmmaker, screenwriter, and actor.
8
8
from 1 vote
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David Hayter
22

David Hayter

David Hayter (born February 6, 1969) is a Canadian-American voice and screen actor and screenwriter. He is known as the English voice actor for Solid Snake, and his genetic predecessor Naked Snake, throughout many titles in the Me...
0
0
from 0 votes
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Denis Villeneuve
23

Denis Villeneuve

Denis Villeneuve (born October 3, 1967) is a French-Canadian film director and writer.
0
0
from 0 votes
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Dennis Hopper
24

Dennis Hopper

Dennis Lee Hopper (May 17, 1936 – May 29, 2010) was an American actor, filmmaker, photographer, and artist. He attended the Actors Studio, making his first television appearance in 1954, and soon after appeared in two films with J...
7
7
from 1 vote
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Don Bluth
25

Don Bluth

Donald Virgil "Don" Bluth (born September 13, 1937) is an American animator, film director, producer, writer, production designer, video game designer and animation instructor who is known for directing animated films, including T...
8
8
from 1 vote
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Duncan Jones
26

Duncan Jones

Duncan Zowie Haywood Jones (born 30 May 1971) is an English film director, film producer, and screenwriter. He is best known for directing the award-winning science fiction films Moon (2009) and Source Code (2011). He is also the...
0
0
from 0 votes
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Edward Norton
27

Edward Norton

Edward Harrison Norton (born August 18, 1969) is an American actor, filmmaker and activist. He has been nominated for three Academy Awards for his work in the films Primal Fear, American History X and Birdman. He also starred in o...
0
0
from 0 votes
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Eli Roth
28

Eli Roth

Eli Raphael Roth (born April 18, 1972) is an American film director, producer, writer and actor. He is known for directing the horror film Hostel and its sequel, Hostel: Part II. He is also known for his role as Donny "The Bear Je...
5
5
from 1 vote
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Francis Ford Coppola
29

Francis Ford Coppola

Francis Ford Coppola (born April 7, 1939) is an American film director, producer and screenwriter.
0
0
from 0 votes
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Frank Darabont
30

Frank Darabont

Frank Arpad Darabont (born Darabont Ferenc; January 28, 1959) is a Hungarian-American film director, screenwriter and producer who has been nominated for three Academy Awards and a Golden Globe Award. In his early career he was pr...
8
8
from 1 vote
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Frank Miller
31

Frank Miller

Frank Miller (born January 27, 1957) is an American writer, artist, and film director best known for his dark comic book stories and graphic novels such as Ronin, Daredevil: Born Again, The Dark Knight Returns, Sin City and 300. H...
7
7
from 1 vote
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Fritz Lang
32

Fritz Lang

Friedrich Christian Anton "Fritz" Lang (December 5, 1890 – August 2, 1976) was a German-Austrian filmmaker, screenwriter, and occasional film producer and actor.
8
8
from 1 vote
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Gary Oldman
33

Gary Oldman

Gary Leonard Oldman (born 21 March 1958) is an English actor, filmmaker, musician and author. He began acting in theatre in 1979, and gained his first starring film role in Meantime (1983). Oldman continued to lead a stage career,...
0
0
from 0 votes
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George A. Romero
34

George A. Romero

George Andrew Romero (born February 4, 1940) is an American-Canadian film director, film producer, screenwriter and editor, best known for his series of gruesome and satirical horror films about a hypothetical zombie apocalypse, b...
0
0
from 0 votes
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George Clooney
35

George Clooney

George Timothy Clooney (born May 6, 1961) is an American actor, screenwriter, producer, director, and activist. He has received three Golden Globe Awards for his work as an actor and two Academy Awards, one for acting and the othe...
0
0
from 0 votes
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George Lucas
36

George Lucas

George Walton Lucas, Jr. (born May 14, 1944) is an American filmmaker and entrepreneur. He is best known as the creator of the Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchises, as well as the founder of Lucasfilm and Industrial Light and Ma...
7.7
7.7
from 3 votes
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George Miller
37

George Miller

Dr. George Miller (born 3 March 1945) is an Australian film director, screenwriter, producer, and former medical doctor. He is best known for his Mad Max franchise. Aside from the Mad Max films, Miller has been involved in a wide...
0
0
from 0 votes
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Henry Selick
38

Henry Selick

Henry Selick (born November 30, 1952) is an American stop motion director, producer and writer who is best known for directing The Nightmare Before Christmas, James and the Giant Peach and Coraline. He studied at the Program in Ex...
0
0
from 0 votes
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J. J. Abrams
39

J. J. Abrams

Jeffrey Jacob "J. J." Abrams (born June 27, 1966) is an American director, producer, writer, actor, author and composer, best known for his work in the genres of action, drama, and science fiction. Abrams wrote and/or produced fea...
5.7
5.7
from 3 votes
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Jaco Van Dormael
40

Jaco Van Dormael

Jaco Van Dormael (born 9 February 1957) is a Belgian film director, screenwriter and playwright. Van Dormael spent his childhood travelling around Europe, before going on to study filmmaking at the INSAS in Brussels, where he wrot...
8
8
from 1 vote
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James Cameron
41

James Cameron

James Francis Cameron (born August 16, 1954) is a Canadian filmmaker, inventor, engineer, philanthropist, and deep-sea explorer who has directed the two biggest box office films of all time (Avatar and Titanic). He first found maj...
6.7
6.7
from 3 votes
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Jean-Jacques Annaud
42

Jean-Jacques Annaud

Jean-Jacques Annaud (born 1 October 1943) is a French film director, screenwriter and producer, best known for directing Quest for Fire (1981), The Name of the Rose (1986), The Lover (1991), and Seven Years in Tibet (1997). Annaud...
8
8
from 1 vote
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John Carpenter
43

John Carpenter

John Howard Carpenter (born January 16, 1948) is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, editor and composer. Although Carpenter has worked in numerous film genres, he is most commonly associated with horror and science...
0
0
from 0 votes
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Joseph Gordon-Levitt
44

Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Joseph Leonard Gordon-Levitt (born February 17, 1981) is an American actor and filmmaker. As a child actor, he appeared in the films A River Runs Through It, Angels in the Outfield and 10 Things I Hate About You, and as Tommy Solo...
7
7
from 1 vote
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Judd Apatow
45

Judd Apatow

Judd Apatow (born December 6, 1967) is an American producer, writer, director, actor, and comedian. He is best known for his work in comedy films, and is the founder of Apatow Productions and also developed the television series F...
8
8
from 1 vote
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Kevin Costner
46

Kevin Costner

Kevin Michael Costner (born January 18, 1955) is an American actor, film director, producer, musician, and singer. He has won two Academy Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, and one Emmy Award, and has been nominated for three BAFT...
0
0
from 0 votes
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Lee Unkrich
47

Lee Unkrich

Lee Edward Unkrich (born August 8, 1967) is an American director, film editor and screenwriter. He is a longtime member of the creative team at Pixar, where he started in 1994 as a film editor. He later began directing, first as c...
7
7
from 1 vote
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Luc Besson
48

Luc Besson

Luc Besson (born 18 March 1959) is a French film director, screenwriter, and producer.
0
0
from 0 votes
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M. Night Shyamalan
49

M. Night Shyamalan

Manoj Shyamalan (born 6 August 1970), known professionally as M. Night Shyamalan, is an Indian-American film director, screenwriter, producer and occasional actor.
5
5
from 1 vote
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Martin Scorsese
50

Martin Scorsese

Martin Charles Scorsese (born November 17, 1942) is an American director, producer, screenwriter, actor, and film historian, whose career spans more than 45 years.
9
9
from 1 vote
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