The Scripts That Shaped American Film History
The history of cinema is in many ways the history of the people who shaped its stories. Behind every era-defining film, there is a screenwriter—or often a team of them—whose vision, technique, and persistence made the work possible. Looking at the most influential screenwriters and movements in American film history offers a window into the changing tastes, technologies, and cultural attitudes of their times, as well as providing a roadmap for contemporary writers looking to refine their craft. And for emerging talent, engaging with a screenwriting mentorship program can be one of the most effective ways to learn directly from those who have navigated the shifting landscape of the industry.
In the 1970s, American cinema experienced what has often been called the New Hollywood era, a period when younger filmmakers—many influenced by European art cinema—brought a rawer, more character-driven sensibility to the screen. Screenwriters such as Robert Towne, William Goldman, and Paul Schrader became emblematic of this period. Towne’s work on Chinatown (1974) demonstrated mastery of the screenplay form, combining tightly wound plotting with a deeply layered exploration of corruption and moral decay. Goldman’s All the President’s Men (1976) showcased his ability to adapt real-life events into drama without sacrificing journalistic rigor. Schrader, with scripts like Taxi Driver (1976), brought the alienated antihero into the mainstream. These figures set new standards in Hollywood filmmaking.
For an emerging screenwriter today, studying the scripts of this era can be invaluable. These works illustrate how to balance individual artistic vision with the demands of the marketplace—a skill that can be honed more quickly when guided by a mentor who has worked under similar pressures. Mentorship programs often use these scripts as teaching tools, walking mentees through the ways these screenwriters developed unique structures and characters, and encouraging them to apply these principles to their own projects without simply imitating the past.
The 1990s saw another major shift with the rise of the spec script market, when studios and producers were willing to pay enormous sums for original screenplays that generated excitement before a single frame had been shot. Shane Black’s The Last Boy Scout and Joe Eszterhas’s Basic Instinct became symbols of this high-stakes environment. Quentin Tarantino, arriving on the scene with Reservoir Dogs (1992) and Pulp Fiction (1994), proved that a distinctive voice, nonlinear structure, and genre-blending flair could make a screenwriter as much of a brand as any actor or director. This period also elevated writers like Callie Khouri, whose Thelma & Louise (1991) showed how a fresh perspective could challenge entrenched gender tropes while still delivering commercial success.
For many aspiring writers, the 1990s serve as a reminder that originality can be rewarded—sometimes spectacularly—if it’s backed by craft. A mentorship relationship can help a new writer identify what makes their own voice distinctive and then refine it to meet industry expectations. A good mentor can provide the kind of industry context that turns an interesting idea into a marketable, structurally sound script, much like producers and seasoned writers helped guide promising voices during the 1990s boom.
More recently, the streaming era has shifted the landscape again. The appetite for long-form stories in limited and ongoing series has given screenwriters unprecedented opportunities to develop extended character arcs. Writers like Phoebe Waller-Bridge (Fleabag), Jesse Armstrong (Succession), and Michaela Coel (I May Destroy You) have demonstrated how television writing can achieve the narrative sophistication once reserved for feature films. These figures often blur the lines between showrunner, writer, and performer, underscoring how modern screenwriters can inhabit multiple creative roles at once.
Mentorship programs in today’s market frequently address these evolving formats, helping writers adapt to writing “for the binge” while maintaining episode-by-episode structure and momentum. Through guided feedback, emerging writers can learn how to design season arcs, seed thematic elements early for payoff later, and collaborate effectively in a writers’ room—skills that are difficult to acquire without firsthand guidance.
Mentorship can help emerging genre writers understand how to respect—and sometimes subvert—the conventions that make their chosen form work. By reviewing genre exemplars with a mentor, a writer can identify the “load-bearing” elements of a story’s structure and experiment with ways to twist them without losing coherence.
It’s important to remember that these movements and figures did not exist in a vacuum. They were shaped by, and in turn shaped, the broader ecosystem of collaborators, producers, and cultural forces around them. Learning from the past means understanding the conditions that allowed these scripts to come to life. Experienced industry professionals can mentor upcoming screenwriters by providing context for why a particular approach worked in its time and how to adapt it for the present moment.
By engaging with the history of screenwriting and the figures who shaped it, writers can better understand where they fit into the larger story of cinema. And by seeking mentorship, they can translate that understanding into actionable growth, gaining the confidence and skills to write the scripts that might someday define a new era themselves.
