We spend our days plotting murders, planting clues, and torturing characters, and yet the hardest scene to stage is the one where a writer just sits there writing. Nothing blows up. Nobody gets shot. It all happens inside our heads. That’s why so few movies are really about writing, even though plenty of them have a writer in the lead. Here are my favorites, the ones that capture what it feels like to drag a story out of your head and onto the page. (Mystery fans, there’s even a gangster and an Agatha Christie whodunit in the mix.)
Bullets Over Broadway (1994), comedy written by Woody Allen. A young playwright (John Cusack) wants to make deep Art and doesn’t care whether audiences are entertained. His play’s backer is a gangster who insists his mistress gets a part, so the playwright has to compromise to get the show made. Meanwhile the gangster’s henchman (Chazz Palminteri) turns out to have a real flair for story. He starts making suggestions, proves to be the true talent, and is willing to kill a bad actress to save “his” play. Two creative truths here: writers can be pretentious and untalented, and good ideas can come from anyone.
See How They Run (2022), comedic mystery written by Mark Chappell. A fictional murder mystery set around Agatha Christie’s real play The Mousetrap, full of the drama of turning a hit play into a movie, including the writer battling the director over the script. Better still, the mystery is packed with Christie tropes that echo the play. Fun fact: The Mousetrap has run continuously in London’s West End since 1953, apart from the lockdowns.
Wonder Boys (2000), comedy written by Steve Kloves from Michael Chabon’s novel. Once-promising novelist Grady Tripp (Michael Douglas) doesn’t do much writing on screen, but he nails the mania of trying to live up to your own book, and the fear of being eclipsed by a younger, more talented writer.
Shakespeare in Love (1998), comedy written by Marc Norman & Tom Stoppard. Shakespeare falls for Viola, who is disguised as a man so she can act. The romance inspires him to rework his latest play into Romeo & Juliet. It’s a delight to watch this made-up origin story for one of his most famous works.
Sweet Liberty (1986), comedy written by Alan Alda. An author (Alda) watches his nonfiction book get turned into a movie, and the Hollywood folks change it left and right. He fights to protect his book while trying to make the screenplay good. An overlooked gem, with great turns from Michael Caine and Michelle Pfeiffer as temperamental movie stars.
Adaptation (2002), black comedy written by Charlie Kaufman. Kaufman struggled so much to turn The Orchid Thief into a movie that he wrote the screenplay about his struggle. It perfectly captures the agony of not being able to crack a story while everyone around you seems to be sailing along.
The Muse (1999), comedy written by Albert Brooks & Monica Johnson. A blocked screenwriter (Brooks) hires a kooky professional muse (Sharon Stone). She may be crazy, but there’s method in her madness. She helps him find a new idea and gives his wife the confidence to start a business. If only we could all have a muse on call.
Sunset Boulevard (1950), film noir written by Billy Wilder, Charles Brackett & D.M. Marshman Jr. A desperate, broke screenwriter meets a desperate, unhinged movie star, while a sweet assistant writes her first screenplay. Sometimes being a writer is deadly.
Stranger Than Fiction (2006), comedy written by Zach Helm. IRS agent Harold Crick (Will Ferrell) suddenly hears narration and realizes he’s a character in someone’s novel. What happens when he tries to break out of the plot and falls in love?
Authors Anonymous (2014), comedy written by David Congalton. A group of dysfunctional, unpublished writers welcomes inexperienced Hannah (Kaley Cuoco) into their writers’ group, and they never see her overnight success coming. A comedy about competition and creativity.
Something’s Gotta Give (2003), romantic comedy written by Nancy Meyers. Diane Keaton plays a playwright who turns the heartbreak of falling for her daughter’s boyfriend, a man her own age, into her next hit play. The scenes of her sobbing as she types are hysterical and relatable.
Paris When It Sizzles (1964), comedy written by George Axelrod. Honestly, it’s a mediocre movie. The fun is watching secretary Audrey Hepburn act out each of screenwriter William Holden’s scenarios as he tries to figure out what kind of movie to write.
Bonus: The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985), romance written by Woody Allen. It isn’t about writing but about the fantasy of living inside your favorite movie. Downtrodden Depression-era waitress Mia Farrow’s life is turned upside down when the romantic lead of her favorite film steps off the screen.
So, TKZers: what does it say about the writing life that nearly all of these are comedies? And where are the great thrillers about writers? Tell me in the comments which writing movie I left off the list.
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Great list, I’ve seen some but not all. Thanks for the titles. One of my favourites was ‘Smoke’, not so much a movie all about writing, but William Hurt gave an amazing performance as a writer trying to bounce back after losing his wife. The screenplay was also written by Paul Auster.
Smoke is a great movie with killer direction!
Great list, Lindsey. Some real gems here. I still need to see “Adaption.”
My personal favorite movie about writing didn’t make your list, the 1987 Billy Crystal and Danny DeVito comedy, “Throw Momma From the Train,” which brilliant captures the frustrations of a blocked writer while also being a sendup of “Strangers on a Train.”
The opening alone is so memorable—Billy Crystal sitting in his writing office, typing “The night was…moist”, crumbling up the paper and trying again. And again 🙂
Another great addition to the list. I have to admit, that is not one of my favorite movies. Mama is so mean. I don’t enjoy it.
Old Acquaintance (1943) starring Bette Davis and Miriam Hopkins. Bette is a literary novelist, greatly respected by the critics, who doesn’t sell. Hopkins is a selfish, manipulative “friend” who writes pulp and makes ton of money. Acting clinic by Bette.
That’s a great one! I think of it as more of a female friendship movie, but yes, it definitely explores the writer’s life too, and art versus commerce, something we all struggle with.
THE MAN WHO INVENTED CHRISTMAS. Charles Dickens wanders through London where he sees characters in other people, his children’s nanny tells ghost stories, and his financial and family life is imploding while he struggles to write A CHRISTMAS CAROL. In the end, he must look into his own mirror to discover Scrooge. It’s a lot more interesting than my description, and it really nails how writers find inspiration in their environment. The visuals of Victorian London are also awesome.
ROMANCING THE STONE. Only the first bit of the movie is about writing, but it really gets the “glamorous” life of the writer sitting at a typewriter in stinky sweats while the cat runs out of food. The rest of the movie has the homebound romance writer actually getting out and becoming part of an adventure instead of writing it. For me, the funniest part is that everyone she runs into, particularly the cartel guys, is a fan of her romances.
Romancing the Stone one of my favorite movies! The prologue, where we’re inside the romance novel, is one of the best movie openings of all time.
I’m going to watch The Man Who Invented Christmas. That sounds amazing! I’m a huge Christmas Carol and Dickens fan. Thanks for the recommendation.
One of my favorites:
Stephen King’s “Misery”.
Definitely not a comedy…
Haha! I never would have thought of that one! I’m a wimp and I never read or watch horror.
Good list, Lindsey. “The Muse” is my favorite. I like “All the President’s Men,” possibly because I’m a recovering newspaper reporter. Except reporters rarely look like Robert Redford.
I positively LOVED ‘Sweet Liberty’ – there are echoes of it all through the ‘filming’ of the movie ‘Incident at Bunker Hill,’ which is the movie background to the whole first volume of my mainstream trilogy, Pride’s Children: PURGATORY.
Especially in the filming of the major battle in my movie. A character in SL says moviegoers want to see three things in a movie:
• Defy authority
• Destroy property
• Take people’s clothes off
I only managed the first two in my movie battle scene, but I’ve remembered that quote since I saw that movie the first time, in 1986. And so many of the details of the filming of ‘Sweet Liberty.’ Also love Alan Alda and Michelle Pfeiffer in it, along with Michael Caine.
I will have to get your book – and see if it is even possible to turn my mainstream trilogy into a movie. Just signed up to your launch list. Best of luck with the book!
Great list, Lindsey. I’ve seen a few of these, but need to get back on the treadmill and start watching the others.
A movie I thought was creative and thought-provoking was “American Fiction.”
Also notable: As Good As It Gets. Nicholson nails the ‘much worse than merely neurotic’ romance novelist in this fantastic ensemble piece. Every actor is great, and the script is phenomenal.
I love Stranger Than Fiction. Another good one is Shadows in the Sun. Here’s the blurb from Google — Harvey Keitel stars as an irascible, reclusive literary titan suffering from writer’s block in rural Italy, whom an aspiring young writer (played by Joshua Jackson) tracks down. A great quote from the movie is, “Writing’s not supposed to be easy. It’s supposed to be hard.”
Genius (2016). Jude Law is Thomas Wolfe and Colin Firth is his editor, Maxwell Perkins, who crafts books out of Wolfe’s manic creativity.
Also,
Tolkein (2019), with Nicholas Hoult as J.R.R. Tolkien and Lily Collins as Edith Bratt. Such a compelling life story of one of the very greatest modern storytellers.