Research Guides: Radio, Television, Film: Find Screenplays and Scripts

Published Screenplays through the Library

Primary Sources Collection (Proquest) This link opens in a new window
The Film Scripts Online Series contains over 1,100 scripts and makes available, for the first time, accurate and authorized versions of copyrighted screenplays. To navigate to Film Scripts Online, click the above link to Proquest Primary Sources, click on the Arts Tab, and select Film Scripts Online. Once in the database, search for your film title.
Performing Arts Periodicals Database (1864-current) This link opens in a new window
Sometimes full or partial screenplays were published in trade journals like Creative Screenwriting, PAJ, Scenario, and Written By. Performing Arts Database often classifies these document types as "Fiction," so that can be a useful way to locate screenplays. Click the Get It! button to have the screenplay delivered through Interlibrary Loan.
Provides indexing, detailed abstracts, and full text for articles covering a wide range of subjects in the performing arts, including dance, film, drama, opera, stagecraft, comedy, pantomime, puppetry, magic, and television, from 1864 to the present.

Film Scripts in Campbell Library and in e-Book Collections
In library terms, film scripts are called either "screenplays" or "motion picture plays," and their formats are "books," so consider using these terms when searching for film scripts in our collections. If you are looking for a specific title and get too many hits, also search by the name of the screenwriter or author (NOT the director). This often helps narrow down hits quickly.

Warning

Many of the links to screenplays below have not been vetted for the validity of their right to post them under U.S. Copyright Law. Use caution when using these sites and when utilizing copyrighted materials. In addition, many of the scripts posted may be drafts or inaccurate transcriptions, and are probably not the shooting scripts.

Radio, Television, Film

Published Screenplays through the Library

Warning

Screenplays and Scripts on the Open Web