LOVE OF YOUR LIFE by Julia Cox is a script I read when it hit the town, and I can still remember how much it moved me. It was, and still is, the best script I've read in years. And now, as a film, I couldn't imagine a better realization of it by the brilliant Rachel Morrison.
@MuseZack I suspect it's not the generation who watched those movies who has the objectively good taste but the producers and execs who greenlighted them. Those producers would be GI or Silent Generation. The Boomers are the execs of the last two decades - which says a lot.
@whit_brayton Reminds me of Mannheim's Ideology and Utopia -- toggling back and forth between the two. Some, like Popper, argue that the Radical Progress/Utopia cycle is perhaps more dangerous -- e.g., the amount of death caused by revolutions -- although I am skeptical of his reasoning.
@beneverard Great list. Schindler's List, Hacksaw Ridge, and Life is Beautiful are the top of the mountain for me.
I wrote one last year based on the life of August Landmesser. The pitch: Titanic in WWII.
So many tragic stories from that period, especially re: the Nazi legal system.
BASIC INSTINCT by Joe Eszterhas sold in a bidding war for 3 million dollars. He wrote the script in 13 days. Eszterhas' writing is simple, clear, and loaded with subtext. But what struck me most was how effectively the script's mystery was constructed in the first act.
DEJA VU by Bill Marsilii & Terry Rossio is a perfect example of exploiting a script's premise to its fullest. Selling for 5 million in 2004, this was the biggest spec sale in history -- a good reminder that concept is everything.
ARLINGTON ROAD by Ehren Kruger is a remarkable mystery that builds to a riveting climax. When Kruger was 24 years old, he won the Nicholl with this script. It was produced three years later. Screenwriting prodigies are rare to find, but Kruger is surely one of them.
THE SUPERCONDUCTING SUPERCOLLIDER OF SPARKLE CREEK, WISCONSIN by David Koepp & John Kamps is an incredibly charming script. I particularly liked the 'falling in love' bookends in the action description. A clever and literary unfilmable.