The Black List

Overview

The Black List is an annual survey and online platform that connects unproduced screenwriters with Hollywood decision-makers. Founded in 2005 by former development executive Franklin Leonard, the annual survey polls nearly 500 film executives about the best unproduced scripts they have read each year. The 2025 list featured 74 scripts by 86 writers. The online platform, launched in 2012, allows any writer to host scripts, receive professional evaluations, and make their work discoverable to industry professionals. More than 440 Black List scripts have been produced, grossing over $30 billion in worldwide box office and winning 54 Academy Awards from 267 nominations, including four Best Picture Oscars (Spotlight, Slumdog Millionaire, The King's Speech, Argo). If you are an unrepresented screenwriter with a polished feature or pilot, the Black List platform is a legitimate industry discovery pathway that does not require agent representation. Visit blcklst.com to create a profile and upload your script.

The Annual Survey

The annual Black List survey polls nearly 500 film executives, producers, and agents about the unproduced screenplays they most admired during the year. Scripts receiving enough votes appear on the list, with the most-mentioned scripts at the top. The 2025 list was published in December 2025 and was topped by Matisse Haddad's Best Seller, followed by Ward Kamel's Equity (35 mentions) and Rush by Read Masino and Cassidy Alla (34 mentions). The 2025 list included scripts about Yoko Ono, Kobe Bryant's NBA draft, and an AI David Bowie, reflecting the survey's tendency to capture scripts that are generating active industry enthusiasm.

The list is not a ranked "best of" list. It reflects which scripts are generating the most enthusiasm among industry readers at a given moment, often correlating with scripts in active development or that studios are competing to acquire. A script appearing on the annual Black List is immediately exposed to the broadest possible audience of industry decision-makers. Many Black List scripts go into production within one to two years of appearing on the list.

Notable films that appeared on the Black List before production include Juno, The King's Speech, Slumdog Millionaire, Argo, Whiplash, The Imitation Game, Promising Young Woman, and Spotlight. The full annual archive is available at blcklst.com/lists.

The Online Platform: Pricing and Services

The Black List platform operates on a pay-for-service model with the following current pricing:

Creating a profile and listing a screenplay catalog is free. Writers can create a profile without hosting a script, but a script must be hosted (and at least one paid evaluation purchased) to be considered for Black List programs and opportunities.

The platform requires at least one paid evaluation to be considered for its programs, including lab opportunities, partnership programs, and industry-facing features. Scripts rated 8 or above on the 1-10 scale are highlighted to industry users. The platform has analyzed 128,020 evaluations across more than 71,000 projects to measure evaluation consistency and improve its scoring system.

Free Hosting and Evaluation Rewards

The Black List provides substantial free hosting and evaluations to writers whose scripts perform well:

If two successive paid evaluations differ by 3 or more points overall, the writer can purchase an additional evaluation at cost ($60 for features, $45 for half-hour pilots) - the exact price the Black List pays its readers. The platform gave more than 2,000 free months of hosting and 2,000 free evaluations in a single year to writers whose scripts received at least an 8 overall from a paid reader.

Readers receive $60 per feature/hour-long evaluation and $45 per half-hour evaluation, with additional bonuses based on quality and volume. A reader completing 20 feature scripts per week earns approximately $60,000 in a 50-week work year.

What Filmmakers Should Know

For unrepresented screenwriters with polished feature or pilot scripts, the Black List platform provides a legitimate industry discovery pathway. A script that earns strong ratings and is featured in the platform's weekly newsletter reaches industry professionals actively seeking material. The minimum investment to test a script's reception is $130 ($30 for one month of hosting plus $100 for one feature evaluation). Guild members pay $104 ($24 hosting plus $80 evaluation with the 20% discount).

For directors and producers sourcing material, the annual Black List and the platform's highly-rated scripts represent a curated pool of quality unproduced screenplays. Many independent productions have been built around Black List scripts by emerging writers who did not yet have representation when their script was discovered.

The platform's evaluation data shows that a single 8+ score is a meaningful signal of quality. Writers should upload only polished scripts, as hosting fees accumulate monthly. The most cost-effective approach is to upload your best script, purchase one evaluation, and use the results to decide whether to invest in additional evaluations or revise before continuing.

The Black List also runs screenwriter labs and has partnerships with organizations including Macro, WarnerMedia (now Warner Bros. Discovery), and 30+ universities and grassroots film organizations that identify writers who would benefit from free platform access. All program submissions are free for writers hosting a screenplay on the platform.

See Also

For how script development relates to production financing, see Distribution Deals Explained. For the WGA's credit determination role once a Black List script goes into production, see Writers Guild of America, West in this directory. For screenwriters estimating the financial trajectory of a project from script to screen, use the Indie Film Budget Calculator to model production costs and the Ad Spend Break-Even Calculator to evaluate marketing investment against projected revenue.