Free Script Library: 2026!
It’s true what they say. Those that do not read, cannot write.
You can watch every single film ever made, consume every episode of TV ever broadcast, and witness every play ever performed, but they will not make you a great writer. They’ll make you a great storyteller, to be sure, but not a great writer. Also, tired. Consuming that much is going to make you very tired.
The only way to truly become a better writer is to read. Especially for scriptwriters and playwrights, which all of us here are.
Unfortunately for us, though, getting our hands on those all-important texts is no easy prospect. It’s also, more importantly, not cheap. Especially for screenwriters.
Novelists, those smug pricks, can walk into any bookshop anywhere in the world and walk out with arms full of prose for under £20 on a good day. But us poor screenwriters must fork out over £20 every time we want to immerse ourselves in our literary field.
Well, I say that’s not fair at all.
And, thankfully, so do several others.
Unlike novelists (those suckers) there are several amazing libraries online where we can dine out on free screenplays from the best of the best in the industry! While we should all still support small publishers that produce physical copies of screenplays, there’s no denying that we’re all going to read more when it’s free to do so.
Where to Read Scripts for FREE in 2026!
To access libraries, click headers!
BBC WRITERS
The BBC is one of the longest-running, highest quality producers of scripted radio, TV, and film of all time. The fact they’ve released (and are constantly releasing more) scripts of their best productions for free is just one of a million reasons we should all pay our license fee.
STUDIOBINDER
Like most free script libraries, this skews American. That’s fine, Hollywood is (for now) a behemoth producer. This library has a whole roster of film scripts for you to peruse at your leisure. They are in alphabetical order, though… which would be fine if the text wasn’t so huge!
GO INTO THE STORY
I almost didn’t include this… once upon a time this list was an absolute gold mine. Again skewing American, the Go Into the Story library was a fluctuating gold mine. Now it’s a cash grab to see anything past “D” on the alphabetised list.
SHORESCRIPTS
This is a library I’ve neglected for too long. Returning to it while writing this article reminded me that I’m a damn idiot. Releasing the scripts as they do in thematically consistent batches is a great way to help readers find exactly what we’re looking for. I, for example, now know where to find short film scripts when I need them!
SCRIPT HIVE
Every other item on this list is going to give you one thing and one thing only: polished. Script Hive is amazing because it has everything. I don’t know how, but there’s treatments for the original Star Wars, there’s pitch documents for Adventure Time, and there’s early drafts for huge blockbusters. It’s an absolute goldmine of a resource for emerging writers. Don’t just read the end product, find out how they got there.
For Writers With Shelf Space
If you (like me) like to keep a visual record of what you’ve been reading by adding it to a slightly snobbishly organised bookshelf, there are ways to buy scripts that support the writer without further lining the pocket of Big Bezos:
Plays
Screenplays
If you know any other free script libraries that I haven’t included, let me know! I want to make sure we all have access to the best of the best. Gatekeeping makes you a horrible meanie and we don’t want those around us.
