Best Writer Movies
Ranked by how strongly each film carries the visual signature of writer cinema — measured across 2,727 indexed frames from 39 films, against a 404,689-frame catalogue baseline. Not by box office, and not by vote.
Writer films over-index on wine glass, bookshelf and earrings — the objects that make the genre recognisable before a line is spoken.
- 1
Going the Distance (2010)
Nanette BursteinDP Eric SteelbergIMDb 6.3TMDB 6.1See in full on FrameThrower →
Erin has just six more weeks as an intern at the New York Sentinel before she returns to San Francisco. That's fine with Garrett since he just got out of a relationship. But their relationship blossoms and it quickly becomes something that they can't just drop in six weeks. They admit to wanting to be boyfriend/girlfriend just on opposite coasts. The distance wears on them, as with their nay-saying friends and sister, and soon they are forced to either break up or come up with a solution that has them living in the same city.
- 2
The Seven Year Itch (1955)
Billy WilderDP Milton KrasnerIMDb 7.0TMDB 7.1See in full on FrameThrower →
With his family away for their annual summer holiday, New Yorker Richard Sherman decides he has the opportunity to live a bachelor's life - to eat and drink what he wants and basically to enjoy life without wife and son. The beautiful but ditsy blond from the apartment above his catches his eye and they soon start spending time together. It's all innocent though there is little doubt that Sherman is attracted to her. Any lust he may be feeling is played out in his own imagination however.
- 3
Caché (Hidden) (2005)
Michael HanekeDP Christian BergerIMDb 7.3TMDB 7.0See in full on FrameThrower →
Set in France, Georges is a TV Literary Reviewer and lives in a small yet modern town house with his wife Ann, a publisher and his young son Pierrot. They begin to receive video tapes through the post of their house and family, along side obscure child-like drawings. They visit the police with hope of aid to find the stalker, but as there is no direct threat, they refuse to help. As the tapes become more personal, Georges takes it upon himself to figure out who is putting through his family through such horror. A true Michael Haneke Classic.
- 4
mother! (2017)
Darren AronofskyDP Matthew LibatiqueIMDb 6.6TMDB 7.0See in full on FrameThrower →
Amidst a wild flat meadow encircled by an Edenic lush forest, a couple have cocooned themselves in a secluded mansion that was not so long ago burned to the ground, devotedly restored by the supportive wife. Within this safe environment, the once famous middle-aged poet husband is desirous of creating his magnum opus; however, he seems unable to break out of the persistent creative rut that haunts him. Then, unexpectedly, a knock at the door, the sudden arrival of a cryptic late-night visitor and his intrusive wife will stimulate the writer's stagnant imagination. Little by little, much to the perplexed wife's surprise, the more chaos he lets in their haven, the better for his punctured male ego. In the end, will this incremental mess blemish, irreparably, the couple's inviolable sanctuary?
- 5
Limitless (2011)
Neil BurgerDP Jo WillemsIMDb 7.4TMDB 7.2See in full on FrameThrower →
An action-thriller about a writer who takes an experimental drug that allows him to use 100% of his mind. As one man evolves into the perfect version of himself, forces more corrupt than he can imagine mark him for assassination. Out-of-work writer Eddie Morra's (Cooper) rejection by girlfriend Lindy (Abbie Cornish) confirms his belief that he has zero future. That all vanishes the day an old friend introduces Eddie to NZT, a designer pharmaceutical that makes him laser-focused and more confident than any man alive. Now on an NZT-fueled odyssey, everything Eddie's read, heard or seen is instantly organized and available to him. As the former nobody rises to the top of the financial world, he draws the attention of business mogul Carl Van Loon (De Niro), who sees this enhanced version of Eddie as the tool to make billions, but brutal side effects jeopardize his meteoric ascent. With a dwindling stash and hit men who will eliminate him to get the NZT, Eddie must stay wired long enough to elude capture and fulfill his destiny. If he can't, he will become just another victim who thought he'd found invincibility in a bottle.
- 6
The Squid and the Whale (2005)
Noah BaumbachDP Robert D. YeomanIMDb 7.3TMDB 6.9See in full on FrameThrower →
In 1986, In Brooklyn, New York, the dysfunctional family of pseudo intellectuals composed by the university professor Bernard and the prominent writer Joan split. Bernard is a selfish, cheap and jealous decadent writer that rationalizes every attitude in his family and life and does not accept "philistines" - people that do not read books or watch movies, while the unfaithful Joan is growing as a writer and has no problems with "philistines". Their sons, the teenager Walt and the boy Frank, feel the separation and take side: Walt stays with Bernard, and Frank with Joan, and both are affected with abnormal behaviors. Frank drinks booze and smears with sperm the books in the library and a locker in the dress room of his school. The messed-up and insecure Walt uses Roger Water's song "Hey You" in a festival as if it was of his own, and breaks up with his girlfriend Sophie. Meanwhile Joan has an affair with Frank's tennis teacher Ivan and Bernard with his student Lili.
- 7
Manhattan (1979)
Woody AllenDP Gordon WillisIMDb 7.8TMDB 7.7See in full on FrameThrower →
Forty-two year old Isaac Davis has a romanticized view of his hometown, New York City, most specifically Manhattan, as channeled through the lead character in the first book he is writing, despite his own Manhattan-based life being more of a tragicomedy. He has just quit his job as a hack writer for a bad television comedy, he, beyond the ten second rush of endorphins during the actual act of quitting, now regretting the decision, especially as he isn't sure he can live off his book writing career. He is paying two alimonies, his second ex-wife, Jill Davis, a lesbian, who is writing her own tell-all book of their acrimonious split. The one somewhat positive aspect of his life is that he is dating a young woman named Tracy, although she is only seventeen and still in high school. Largely because of their differences a big part of which is due to their ages, he does not see a long term future with her. His life has the potential to be even more tragicomical when he meets journalist Mary Wilkie, the mistress of his best friend, college professor Yale Pollack. Although Isaac's first impression of Mary is that she is a pretentious intellectual, he falls for her. They do become friends with the potential of becoming more than just friends as she knows that being the "other woman" in Yale's life is not a long term role that she wants. An Isaac/Mary coupling may complicate matters even more with Yale being mutually in their lives. Regardless, Isaac may be able to rationalize events after they happen, no matter what those events are.
- 8
Before Midnight (2013)
Richard LinklaterDP Christos VoudourisIMDb 7.9TMDB 7.5See in full on FrameThrower →
It has been nine years since we last met Jesse and Celine, the French-American couple who once met on a train in Vienna. They now live in Paris with twin daughters, but have spent a summer in Greece on the invitation of an author colleague of Jesse's. When the vacation is over and Jesse must send his teenage son off to the States, he begins to question his life decisions, and his relationship with Celine is at risk.
- 9
Swimming Pool (2003)
François OzonDP Yorick Le SauxIMDb 6.7TMDB 6.5See in full on FrameThrower →
Sarah Morton is a famous British mystery author. Tired of London and seeking inspiration for her new novel, she accepts an offer from her publisher John Bosload to stay at his home in Luberon, in the South of France. It is the off-season, and Sarah finds that the beautiful country locale and unhurried pace is just the tonic for her--until late one night, when John's indolent and insouciant French daughter Julie unexpectedly arrives. Sarah's prim and steely English reserve is jarred by Julie's reckless, sexually charged lifestyle. Their interactions set off an increasingly unsettling series of events, as Sarah's creative process and a possible real-life murder begin to blend dangerously together.
- 10
Adaptation (2002)
Spike JonzeDP Lance AcordIMDb 7.7TMDB 7.3See in full on FrameThrower →
Nicolas Cageas Charlie Kaufman / Donald Kaufman
Meryl Streepas Susan Orlean
Chris Cooperas John Laroche
While his latest movie Being John Malkovich (1999) is in production, screenwriter Charlie Kaufman is hired by Valerie Thomas to adapt Susan Orlean's non-fiction book "The Orchid Thief" for the screen. Thomas bought the movie rights before Orlean wrote the book, when it was only an article in The New Yorker. The book details the story of rare orchid hunter John Laroche, whose passion for orchids and horticulture made Orlean discover passion and beauty for the first time in her life. Charlie wants to be faithful to the book in his adaptation, but despite Laroche himself being an interesting character in his own right, Charlie is having difficulty finding enough material in Laroche to fill a movie, while equally not having enough to say cinematically about the beauty of orchids. At the same time, Charlie is going through other issues in his life. His insecurity as a person doesn't allow him to act upon his feelings for Amelia Kavan, who is interested in him as a man. And Charlie's twin brother, pretentious Donald, has moved into his house with a goal of also becoming a screenwriter. Despite not admiring Donald as a screenwriter, Charlie asks for his advice. Together, they feel that there is some interesting subtext in the book on which Orlean herself can only elaborate, if only Charlie has the nerve to talk to her. If she can't or won't elaborate, they may have to find out the meaning of that subtext on their own.
What writer films are made of
How much more often each element appears in a writer frame than in an average frame from the catalogue. A ratio, not a share — wine glass is not in most frames, it is simply far more common here than anywhere else.
- wine glass2.6×
- bookshelf2.6×
- earrings1.9×
- table lamp1.8×
- glass1.8×
- lamp1.7×
- sofa1.7×
- plaid shirt1.6×
How writer films are shot
Weaker signals than the objects above, and worth saying so: most dramatic genres skew dark and night-heavy, so these numbers separate writer from the catalogue far more than they separate it from its neighbours.
- 87%eye levelvs 69% baseline
What breaks the pattern
Stalker (1979) is the least typical film here — it carries the least of what the rest of this list is made of. Which is either a failure of the genre label, or the most interesting film on the page.
Method
Every frame in the FrameThrower catalogue is tagged for shot size, lighting, time of day, camera angle, colour and the objects visible in it. This page aggregates those tags across 2,727 frames from 39 films carrying the writer label, and compares each figure to the same measurement across the whole catalogue (404,689 frames). Films are ranked by how closely they match the theme’s over-indexed elements, weighted by how distinctive each element is; one film per series. Only films with at least 20 indexed frames and 500 TMDB votes are listed.
Machine-readable: /api/list/writer
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