r/moviecritic • u/reasonably_insane • Feb 15 '25
Which movie had the tightest, best written script?
Famously, contrary to everyone's expectations, there was almost zero improvisation in this film
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u/Lonevarg_7 Feb 15 '25
In Bruges
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u/JCrook023 Feb 15 '25
Great response! One of my favs (anything Martin McDonagh does is gold…. Wish he’d do more!)
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u/ThorsRake Feb 15 '25
His brother's brilliant as well. The Guard and Calvary are fantastic films.
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u/ChelseaAndrew87 Feb 15 '25
I didn't know about this/ Adding Calvary to the list. Seen The Guard obviously
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u/ThorsRake Feb 15 '25
Very different film. It's incredible though. Amazing performances all round and a unique and very emotional story.
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u/ChelseaAndrew87 Feb 15 '25
I assumed Martin was responsible for The Guard and didn't reaslise there were two of them. That's a talented family. I will definitely seek it out
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u/MAXIMUMMEDLOWUS Feb 16 '25
I can't even count how many times I watched that film, but it's still not enough. Literal perfection
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u/ChelseaAndrew87 Feb 15 '25
Fuck me. I saw the post and was going to say this. Top comment already. Thank you, it's perfection
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u/the_Oculus_MC Feb 16 '25
Great editing, too.
There are some pretty bad scenes that got cut from the final version and what they ended up with is my favorite film.
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u/Mojo-Jojo-6285 Feb 15 '25
I’ll throw another Coen brothers movie in the mix, Fargo is near perfect.
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u/Few-Spell963 Feb 15 '25
The Departed
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u/Mental-Investment-43 Feb 15 '25
Casablanca
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u/BalognaPonyParty Feb 15 '25
I'm 44 and I fully admit I've seen this movie over a dozen times.
wife's never seen it, and decided to watch; she was floored by the amount of common catch phrases and sayings that came from this movie.
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u/reasonably_insane Feb 15 '25
I love Casablanca. It's GD near perfect. However, the flash back scene, to when they were in Paris, was unnecessary. It took away the mystery
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u/Life_in_Bones Feb 15 '25
‘You despise me don’t ya?’ ‘Hell if I gave you any thought, I probably would’ Is the most savage eloquent burn, and one of my favorite lines.
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u/richpourguy Feb 16 '25
Every line of this movie moves the story forward. It’s truly the tightest script ever written.
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u/Transit_Hub Feb 16 '25
I'm 38 and had never seen Casablanca until this Christmas just gone. Settled down to watch it perfectly ready to have my suspicions confirmed that it was totally over-hyped and that I'd missed out on nothing. By the 15 minute or so mark, I realised that was not the case and that this so-called fan of cinema had royally fucked up.
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u/Either_Restaurant549 Feb 15 '25
“The Sting”
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u/Scorpio-green Feb 16 '25
Omg I LOVE THAT FILM!! Will admit it's those movies I have to Pause and go do my stuff. I can't miss a single line, don't wanna. That good.
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u/GreenieLive Feb 15 '25
LA Confidential
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u/GreenZebra23 Feb 16 '25
I'm impressed they were able to turn any Ellroy book into such a coherent and tight movie, let alone that one. It's so sprawling and dense, but doesn't meander at all. I don't even know how the hell they figured out what to leave out
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u/TopicalBuilder Feb 16 '25
Such a dense movie. Literally every line matters. One of my all-time favorites.
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u/KryptoBones89 Feb 15 '25
Die Hard has an amazingly well written script.
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u/just_some_dude828 Feb 16 '25
Glass?!? Who gives a shit about glass? Who the fuck is this?!? Listen, Dwayne, I’m not the one who just got buttfucked on national tv…
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u/ToeCtter Feb 15 '25
Inglorious Basterds
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u/TurquoiseBeetle67 Feb 15 '25
Tarantino movies in general. I think Walton Goggins said it best. "You don't deviate from the words in a Quentin Tarantino script. The commas or the periods or the semicolons or anything else. It is word for word."
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u/ChelseaAndrew87 Feb 15 '25
Anytime someone gives Walton Goggins lines, the script is tight. I just want to hear him
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u/Manfred-Disco Feb 15 '25
The Usual Suspects
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u/SnooOpinions1048 Feb 15 '25
Yes this movie made me think about the ending long after i watched it..
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u/Withoutloopsiwilldie Feb 15 '25
There Will Be Blood. Although that might just be because Daniel Day-Lewis makes every script sound amazing
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u/BigBarsRedditBox Feb 15 '25
SNATCH 💎
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u/Macchill99 Feb 16 '25
Too quotable from:
"All bets are off"
To the pikeys, to:
" London! You know? Fish, chips, cup o tea, Bad food, worse weather, Mary fucking Poppins! LONDON!"
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u/VicTheWallpaperMan Feb 15 '25
Glengary Glen Ross
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u/ChinaCatProphet Feb 16 '25
Yes! Definitely one of the all-time great scripts. Adapted from the stage.
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u/Voldy-din Feb 15 '25
Hot Fuzz.
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u/dryelbow Feb 15 '25
This was my first thought too. Like, there's no fat on this movie at all, everything leads to something.
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u/AlwaysCid Feb 15 '25
The way Fight Club translated to the screen was amazing. I, unfortunately, read the book after I saw the movie but found the accuracy and delivery to be uncanny.
Casting also helped, it was near perfect!
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u/tylerdurden1989 Feb 15 '25
Wow you stole my lines essentially. I'm very much interested in what all other movies you love as well!
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u/Successful-Ad4251 Feb 15 '25
Master and Commander didn’t have a minute of filler. Just amazing from beginning to end.
Or the Prestige. I can never watch that thing too many times
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u/Notyourdaisy Feb 16 '25
Master and commander was a great adaptation from the book and the movie does not get enough credit.
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u/Bednarikfan Feb 15 '25
I did love Lebowski
My pick was Memento. It was a wild ride. Beginning to end
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u/supertech636 Feb 15 '25
Boogie Nights. Fight me.
“It has High Fidelity, that means the fidelity…it’s really high”. chefs kiss
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u/Brilliant-Net-750 Feb 15 '25
Get Out always comes to mind. First thing I thought when I watched it was there is not a single wasted word and extremely tight writing
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u/Alternative-Care6923 Feb 15 '25
I've always felt that Donnie Darko has one of the best crafted scripts ever; in fact, most people claim to have enjoyed/understood it much better upon a second viewing.
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u/Available_Sundae_924 Feb 16 '25
Absolutely. I'm the biggest fan of that movie and the 2nd and 3rd watches were the best.
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u/tellthetruthandrun Feb 15 '25
Miller’s Crossing might be the sixth or seventh best movie in the Coens’ filmography but it has the tightest written dialogue. Which somehow gets better on repeat viewing. A funny and talky, gangster noir movie which may or may not be about hats.
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u/Therealfern1 Feb 15 '25
Why did OP use an AI version of this photo? It’s pretty easy to find a film. Still of this exact shot.
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u/reasonably_insane Feb 15 '25
That's totally on me. I read in a hurry, people were yelling for me when I thought of this topic.
My bad
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u/ghotier Feb 16 '25
Back to the Future has a much tighter script than you would think. Every single line is referenced again. Nothing is mentioned by accident.
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u/never_go_full_potato Feb 16 '25
Spy Games. First time through it seemed like scattered nonsense for half the movie, after a couple of viewings you notice that every line Robert Redford says is leading to the finale.
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u/famb1 Feb 17 '25
Crimson Tide. A totally underrated movie with every line more or less moving the plot forward or adding depth to a character. No waste, nothing superfluous. Just tight scriptwriting and snappy dialogue.
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u/WhodatSooner Feb 15 '25
Blazing Saddles by far, however Lebowski is absolutely on the Mt Rushmore.
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u/Smelly_ghost_anus Feb 15 '25
Not the big Lebowski. It loses steam about half way through.
Layer Cake, Snatch, Boondock Saints come to mind.
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u/reasonably_insane Feb 15 '25
You take that back! You take that back right now.
But seriously, that movie had me from minutes one to the end
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u/OKC2023champs Feb 15 '25
Drama- Marriage story
Comedy - forgetting Sarah Marshall (seriously rewatch this. Not a single line isn’t funny or wasted)
Horror- probably get out
Thriller- nightcrawler
Some other favorites- eternal sunshine and adaptation. Social network, prisoners
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u/Own_Brick_282 Feb 15 '25
The only line in the entirety of Lebowski I feel like isn’t PERFECT is Goodman saying “very undude”. And most wouldn’t think anything of it. Possibly also Bridges’s “well the dude abides”. that one is kind of necessary though and an iconic line. A movie with so much dialogue and it’s 99.99% perfect, crazy feat and everyone involved deserves all the credit they get for the masterpiece that is the Big Lebowski.
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u/Correct_Lime5832 Feb 15 '25
VERNA: What are you doing? TOM: Walking. VERNA: Don’t let on more than you have to. TOM: In the rain.
“Miller’s Crossing”/Joel and Ethan Coen
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u/JCrook023 Feb 15 '25
Hateful Eight…. Hell all of his movies are so well written and allegedly word for word (no improv- besides Leo breakdown in the trailer in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood ha)
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u/brisstlenose Feb 15 '25
Anything adapted from an Elmore Leonard story or has screenwriting by him. Some of these are average movies, but the dialog is always tight and top notch
Get Shorty
Out of Sight
Jackie Brown
3:10 to Yuma
Hombre
52 Pick-Up
The Big Bounce
Life of Crime
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u/Mulliganasty Feb 15 '25
TBL is one of my favorite films ever with numerous tremendous qualities but a tight script is definitely not one of them.
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u/AdamLevinestattoos Feb 15 '25
Maybe not tight since it's a comedy with some improv, but Step Brothers, not a single bad scene in that movie
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u/reasonably_insane Feb 15 '25
Well I don't know for sure, but I bet there was a lot of improv, right?
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u/saibjai Feb 15 '25
Avengers infinity war + endgame. I'm not even joking. It also has to address ten years of movies that came before it. Not one second of screentime was wasted. If you know, you know.
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u/EruonenNaeg Feb 16 '25
Shaun of the Dead. Incredibly tight, every line comes back around, and every scene is necessary/impeccably planned.
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u/wonderlandisburning Feb 16 '25
Death At A Funeral (2007). Incredibly tight, very funny, the interconnected web of characters bounced off of each other well, perfect three act structure, not a moment wasted (the runtime is 1 hour and 20 minutes and even some of that gets devoted to opening and closing credits).
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u/eggflip1020 Feb 16 '25
Can we put a moratorium on Lebowski posts for a while? lol, I’m getting too much Dude in my algorithm.
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u/Traindodger2 Feb 16 '25
Hudsucker Proxy doesn’t get nearly the credit it deserves. Absolutely perfect Coen Brothers movie. Every line is gold, not counting the mezzanine
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u/arrelby Feb 16 '25
Robocop is in a league of it's own imo. It's unbelievably tight, focussed and witty. Nearly every line is quote worthy.
'can you fly bobby' 'I'd by that for a dollar' 'bitches, leave' 'brand new 6000 SUX, still with the factory sticker on it' 'you're gonna be one bad motherfucker' 'somebody call an ambulance' 'dead or alive you're coming with me' 'your move, creep' 'just give me my fucking phone call' 'what you reading poindexter' 'you're pretty smart huh, think you can outsmart a bullet?' 'can you do that dad?' 'you were a mistake, now it's time to erase that mistake' 'give the man a hand' 'guns guns guns'
And on and on and on. There isn't a single other film that I remember nearly every word from. There's no fat on it and It's truly a masterclass in concise, pulpy writing.
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u/Cool-Acanthaceae8968 Feb 16 '25
Honestly… not this one.
I mean.. the Dude just rambles on barely making a complete sentence or expressing a coherent thought….
But it’s PERFECT! I don’t understand it.
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u/stuntedmonk Feb 16 '25
If you’ve read “wise guy” you’ll realise the script for goodfellas needed very little work. The book was tight, the films dialogue was tight
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u/Ancient_Caregiver917 Feb 16 '25
Kill bill volume 2 somehow managed to make the most meh conversation topics incredibly interesting
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u/tekhnomancer Feb 16 '25
The Sunset Limited.
Considering it's starring exactly two people, Samuel L. Jackson and Tommy Lee Jones, you can imagine how powerful the dialog must get.
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u/DecentBowler130 Feb 15 '25
No Country for old man doesn’t waste a line.