'Moonlight', '20th Century Women' & More Oscar-Hopeful Screenplays for Free Download

As the awards season shifts from critics' awards to nominations from industry groups, more screenplays are coming online for free download. A24 has just released the screenplays for two of its Oscar-hopeful films, the much-acclaimed Moonlight and the highly anticipated 20th Century Women. In addition, CBS Films has made the screenplay for Hell or High Water available for download, and Sony Pictures Classics has released screenplays for the rest of their award contenders, including Toni Erdmann, The Comedian, and more.

Before we get to the screenplay links, let's look at some of these films' trailers. Here at NFS, we've shared why making Moonlight nearly killed its writer/director Barry Jenkins as well as Jenkins' FSU student film showing his promise as an emerging artist. This film doesn't need to be discussed any more. It simply needs to be seen. So if you haven't seen it, stop reading this, go see it, then come back and read the screenplay. Here's the trailer.

Writer/director Mike Mills (Beginners) returns with 20th Century Women, a funny and emotional story about a single mother in her 50s who handpicks two young women, one in her 20s, the other a teenager, to help her teach her teenage son about manhood in the summer of 1979. Annette Bening has been getting rave reviews for her performance, surrounded by a stellar cast that includes Greta Gerwig, Elle Fanning, Billy Crudup and Lucas Jade Zumann as her son. Check out the trailer.

Hell or High Water is a tightly crafted story about two brothers, an earnest divorced father and a wild ex-con, as they set off on a series of bank robberies in West Texas. As a wisecracking yet determined Texas Ranger nearing retirement and his partner hunt down the brothers, the story reveals that these bank robberies aren't the only thefts in this story that are due for a reckoning.

When a father surprises his career-obsessed daughter with a visit, but can't break through to her, he creates a crazy alter ego with a wig and false front teeth, the eponymous Toni Erdmann, and claims to be her boss' coach to insert himself into her life.

Robert DeNiro plays The Comedian, an insult comic and former TV superstar who finds himself doing community service after clocking a guy for recording one of his sets on a smartphone. While at the soup kitchen, he befriends a younger woman (Leslie Mann) also "serving time", and invites her into his comedy world and family life. Here's the trailer.

Thanks to A24, CBS Films, and Sony Pictures Classics for making these screenplays available for free download. Be sure to download them soon because we never know when the studios will take them offline.

• Moonlight, screenplay by Barry Jenkins, based on the play In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue by Tarell Alvin McCraney
• 20th Century Women, written by Mike Mills
• Hell or High Water, written by Taylor Sheridan
• Toni Erdmann, written by Maren Ade
• The Comedian, screenplay by Art Linson & Jeff Ross and Richard LaGravenese and Lewis Friedman, story by Art Linson
• Equity, screenplay by Amy Fox, story by Sarah Megan Thomas & Alysia Reiner and Amy Fox
• Land of Mine, written by Martin Zandvliet
• The Red Turtle, written by Michael Dudok De Wit

In case you missed them, we've recently posted over 30 more Oscar-hopeful screenplays to download including Loving and Manchester by the Sea, Jackie and The Birth of a Nation, Arrival and Fences, and Lion and Sing Street among others.

Sources: A24 For Your Consideration, CBS Films Screenings, Sony Pictures Classics Awards