

Die Hard proved so successful, it forever infiltrated the Hollywood mindset and became its own point of reference: “it’s Die Hard on a…”įor better or for worse, without Die Hard there would be no Speed, Under Siege, Passenger 57, Con Air, Air Force One, nor White House Down and Olympus Has Fallen. Die Hard proved that innovation-within a broad commercial framework-sells like gangbusters. Instead of the globetrotting James Bond formula or the (delightful) excesses of 1980s Schwarzenegger and Stallone, here was an average joe, shoeless and vulnerable, in the wrong place at the wrong time… a guy that didn’t want to be a hero and would have happily watched anyone else step up to the plate. The character that is the most endearing and personable is Anthony Perkins’ iconic Norman Bates, and we still feel for him even after we learn the truth about him in the film’s twist ending…and speaking of twist endings, is there a more definitive model for the modern twist ending than Psycho? Download the Psycho script!ĭie Hard forever changed an entire action genre.

Janet Leigh as Marion Crane is the closest thing to it, and not only is she far from likable, she gets killed off a third of the way through the film. It breaks so many rules and gets away with it, it’s almost criminal. Would we have The Last Samurai and Avatar without Dances With Wolves? Download the Dances with Wolves script! The script also exemplified the trope of a soldier interacting with a race of Others and finding a sense of identity and solidarity with them and choosing them over his own people. That it got made and became a success gives hope to us all that great writing will get noticed, even if it goes against the grain and what is currently considered commercial in the market. Western, at 180 pages it was an epic Western. One, it was a Western and got picked up and packaged by a superstar-turned-director at a time when the conventional wisdom was that Westerns were dead. Download the Chinatown script!ĭances With Wolves is an extraordinary script in several ways. It's a dark, cathartic story that stays with you long after it ends. The script is also second-to-none in how it seamlessly links theme and character. You feel the different parts of the story.they are all distinct.and yet they absolutely tie into each other to form a unified whole.

Every act break is razor-sharp and perfectly placed. film noir (think The Maltese Falcon, Out of the Past) and as a genuine entry in that genre. It's a moody, atmospheric narrative that functions both as a postmodern interpretation of the 1940s hardboiled P.I. Chinatown is widely considered to be the Great American Screenplay, and for good reason.
