Best movies like Final Draft

A unique, carefully handpicked, selection of the best movies like Final Draft Starring Michael Weston, Hamish Linklater, Emily Bergl, Laura Jordan, and more. If you liked Final Draft then you may also like: Waldo Salt: A Screenwriter's Journey, I Ought to Be in Pictures, Numb, Just Write, Barton Fink and many more popular movies featured on this list. You can further filter the list even more or get a random selection from the list of similar movies, to make your selection even easier.

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Marty, an anti-social realist, and Harry, a passionate ideologist, are two young writers who have come to Hollywood to make it as successful screenwriters.

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Waldo Salt: A Screenwriter's Journey

Documentary is about the life and work of American screenwriter Waldo Salt who won two Academy Awards and was put on the Hollywood blacklist in the 1950s. The story is told through interviews with collaborators and friends such as Dustin Hoffman, Robert Redford, Jon Voight, John Schlesinger and with clips from Salt's films, chiefly Midnight Cowboy.

I Ought to Be in Pictures

Grandmother has nothing to say when Libby tells her that she is off to LA to look up Dad, a Hollywood screenwriter. Grandmother has been in a New York cemetery for six years and Dad has been out of Libby's life for 16 of her 19 years. Libby arrives in LA on a Tuesday and phones Dad the one night that Stephanie, who does Jane Fonda's hair, stays over. Stephanie is there the next morning when Libby decides she needs to tell her story face-to-face.

Numb

Hudson Milbank is a successful Hollywood screenwriter who suddenly and strangely finds himself without any emotional feelings. He tries doctor after doctor and shrink after shrink, but nothing works. The Golf Channel, lesbian exercise classes and a dizzying variety of pills get him through the day, but don't quite solve his problem. His writing partner tries everything to get him back to normal, but it's not until Hudson meets Sara that he finds a real motivation to get better and to actually start feeling again. From the writer of Deuce Bigalow, comes NUMB, a romantic comedy following an unusual man looking for strange love.

Just Write

A Hollywood tour bus driver poses as a screenwriter to romance an up-and-coming young actress.

Barton Fink

A renowned New York playwright is enticed to California to write for the movies and discovers the hellish truth of Hollywood.

Adaptation.

Nicolas Cage is Charlie Kaufman, a confused L.A. screenwriter overwhelmed by feelings of inadequacy, sexual frustration, self-loathing, and by the screenwriting ambitions of his freeloading twin brother Donald. While struggling to adapt "The Orchid Thief," by Susan Orlean, Kaufman's life spins from pathetic to bizarre. The lives of Kaufman, Orlean's book, become strangely intertwined as each one's search for passion collides with the others'.

Swing Time

Lucky is tricked into missing his own wedding again and has to make $25,000 so her father allows him to marry Margaret. He and business partner Pop go to New York where they run into dancing instructor Penny. She and Lucky form a successful dance partnership, but romance is blighted by his old attachment to Margaret and hers for Ricky Romero.

New Terminal Hotel

Holed up in a seedy hotel, Hollywood screenwriter Don Malek is scripting a diabolical plan for revenge. But instead of writing about a bloodthirsty serial killer, Don is doing the dirty work with his own hands.

The Front

A cashier poses as a writer for blacklisted talents to submit their work through, but the injustice around him pushes him to take a stand.

The Iced Bullet

A "scientific detective" story about the attempted murder of a wealthy New Yorker in his mountain lodge is framed with a satire of Hollywood as the writer of the story comically tries to get the script read and accepted by a studio.

Life Itself

The surprising and entertaining life of renowned film critic and social commentator Roger Ebert (1942-2013): his early days as a freewheeling bachelor and Pulitzer Prize winner, his famously contentious partnership with Gene Siskel, his life-altering marriage, and his brave and transcendent battle with cancer.

Mistress

A comedy about a screenwriter (Wuhl) whose old movie script is read by a producer (Landau) and the search for financial backers begins. But it seems that each money source (Aiello, DeNiro, Wallach) has his own mistress that he wants put into the film. Gradually, the screenwriter is forced to make changes to his script to accommodate these backers until he finally sees no semblance of his original ideas in the writing.

Screamplay

A detective investigating a series of murders discovers that they are similar to the murders that occur in the new script of a Hollywood screenwriter.

Love and Other Disasters

Flighty Emily "Jacks" Jackson works for the British edition of Vogue magazine. Rather than pursue a relationship, Jacks regularly hooks up with her devoted ex-boyfriend, James Wildstone, and lives with Peter Simon, a gay screenwriter. When Jacks meets Argentinian photographer's assistant Paolo Sarmiento, she assumes he is gay and tries to bring him and Peter together, unaware that Paolo is straight and in love with her.

The Dying Gaul

A grief-stricken screenwriter unknowingly enters a three-way relationship with a woman and her film executive husband - to chilling results.

Tales from the Script

Shane Black ("Lethal Weapon"), John Carpenter ("Halloween"), Frank Darabont ("The Shawshank Redemption"), William Goldman ("The Princess Bride"), Paul Schrader ("Taxi Driver"), and dozens of other Hollywood screenwriters share hilarious anecdotes and penetrating insights in "Tales from the Script," the most comprehensive documentary ever made about screenwriting. By analyzing their triumphs and recalling their failures, the participants explain how successful writers develop the skills necessary for toughing out careers in one of the world's most competitive industries. They also reveal the untold stories behind some of the greatest screenplays ever written, describing their adventures with luminaries including Harrison Ford, Stanley Kubrick, Joel Silver, Martin Scorsese, and Steven Spielberg. The film was produced in tandem with the upcoming HarperCollins book of the same name.

The Lonely Lady

A young screenwriter allows others to exploit her in the hopes of "making it" in Hollywood.

That's Right - You're Wrong

J. D. Forbes, head of the almost-bankrupt Four Star Studios in Hollywood contacts band leader Kay Kyser, who puts on a radio and-live theatre program called "The Kollege of Musical Knowledge," to appear in films. When manager Chuck Deems gets the studio offer, he and band members Ginny Simms, Sully Mason, Ish Kabiddle, Harry Babbitt and the others are all fired up at the prospect of going to Hollywood and working in the movies, but band-leader Kay is all against it and says his old grandmother has told him to stay in his own back yard, but he relents. Once there, Stacey Delmore, a Four Star associate producer left in charge of the studio while Forbes is out of town, discovers that the screenplay writers have prepared a script that has Kay Kyser playing a glamorous lover in an exotic European setting.

Messages Deleted

A quivering voice begs to screenwriter, Joel Brandt, to pick up the phone on a message from his answering machine. Thinking it a prank, Joel deletes the message. The caller is found dead. Another caller leaves Joel a message; there is another murder...then another...then another. The killer has Joel's attention, and Joel has the attention of the police. Now the prime suspect in a series of murders, Joel discovers this psychotic killer has targeted him for a reason found within his body of work. Will Joel be able to re-write his ending, or be forced to pay the ultimate price?

The Nature of Romance

A busy travel writer goes glamping at a state park with her best friend and finds herself falling in love with one of the park rangers.

Black Butterfly

Paul is a down-on-his-luck screenwriter who picks up a drifter and offers him a place to stay. However, when the deranged stranger takes Paul hostage and forces him to write, their unhinged relationship brings buried secrets to light.

Below Zero

When Jack (Edward Furlong) is in danger of missing a deadline, his manager orders him to take whatever measures are needed to complete his screenplay. Jack locks himself in a slaughterhouse freezer but discovers that his inner demons are keeping him company. Despite the cold, Jack's imagination is red-hot as he concocts the story of Frank (Furlong), a tow truck driver who's locked in a fridge with the dying victim of a serial killer.

The Rewrite

An Oscar-winning writer in a slump leaves Hollywood to teach screenwriting at a college on the East Coast, where he falls for a single mom taking classes there.

Ms. Match

Aspiring writer Athena Carter has spent years working as a dating consultant with a less than successful dating history of her own. When her college ex suddenly reemerges, romantic complications ensue as Athena has to figure out who she really is and what she really wants.

Hearts of the West

Naive Iowa farm boy Lewis Tater dreams of being a famous Western novelist like his hero, Zane Grey. He leaves home to answer a writing correspondence course's ad for on-campus classes, only to discover that the school consists of a row of postboxes at an isolated Nevada train depot. On the run from the con men responsible, Lewis stumbles across "real" cowboys--cowboy actors shooting a movie in the desert. The would-be writer soon finds himself instead acting in Westerns, for the rundown Tumbleweed Productions studio, in Depression-era Hollywood.

Fast & Serious

A group of Hollywood writers try to create a screenplay for the next "Fast & Furious" sequel.

The Women's Club

Patrick is a struggling screenwriter who takes a second job as a male prostitute. He is supposed to write by day and do right by his lonely clientele at night, but he develops writer's block. When Patrick decides to draw from his amorous experiences as inspiration for his next screenplay, the women conspire to prevent it.

I'll Get By

I'll Get By is an updated remake of the 1940 20th Century-Fox musical Tin Pan Alley. William Lundigan and Dennis Day play William Spencer and Freddie Lee respectively, successful song publishers who make hits out of such numbers as "I Got a Gal in Kalamazoo", "Deep in the Heart of Texas", "You Make Me Feel So Young", "There Will Never Be Another You", and other favorites (the rights to all of these songs were conveniently held by 20th Century-Fox). The partnership has some hard times, especially during the feud between ASCAP and the radio networks, when only public-domain songs like "I Dream of Jeannie" were permitted to be broadcast.

Goodbye, Raggedy Ann

A compassionate Hollywood screenwriter attempts to talk a troubled actress out of taking her own life.

Dispatch

Hollywood is the cinema capital of the world - the place where dreams come true. It is associated with glamour and luxury. But for Nick, reality is very different. Years ago he was a successful screenwriter. Now he is just a dispatcher at Utopia, a Hollywood limousine company. Dispatch follows Nick from dusk to dawn on one overnight shift.

Advance & Retreat

Life is good for marketing professional Allison, she’s well on her way to earning a stellar promotion all while dating equally successful co-worker Bryce. Her biggest rival for the position, Vanessa, has the boss’ eye, but Allison has a plan. To win the promotion, she needs to impress her boss, Nathan, at their annual company retreat. Of course, she has a head start since she used to be a camp counselor. The only caveat, this year’s trip happens to be the site of Allison’s first heartbreak: her old camp. And who should still be working there but the handsome as ever ex-boyfriend who broke that teenage heart, Cody. But was it all a misunderstanding? Allison’s tasked with navigating not only the obstacle course but her relationships…past and present.

Ratchet

Having missed several deadlines, and with the studio's attorneys hassling him, screenwriter Elliot Callahan (Tom Gilroy) takes the advice of his agent and rents a beachside house on the island Nantucket to find the peace and quiet he needs to get the creative juices flowing. There he meets the seriously intense Henry Carver (Matthew Dixon), who's written a screenplay he wants Callahan to read. Before long, Callahan suspects that Henry might be a serial killer writing about himself and that his screenplay is worth plagiarizing.

Silent Motive

Notorious for writing the most successful - and scandalous - scripts in Hollywood, hit screenwriter Laura Bardell suddenly finds herself implicated in a baffling series of film-industry killings. What's worse, the killer is using the same ingenious methods Laura herself employed in her latest movie about a real-life murder case. To her horror, Laura realizes her script is coming to life - and turning her fictional words into homicidal reality.

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