For episode 9 we each built a top five of our favorite screenplays, original or adapted, with one rule: it had to have actually picked up an Oscar nomination for the writing. See the full countdown. We didn't compare notes beforehand, and outside of one strange coincidence, our lists barely crossed paths.
A #1 that was the other's #4
The coincidence was this: Jeff's #1, Good Will Hunting, landed at #4 on Matt's list. Matt's #1, The Social Network, landed at #4 on Jeff's. Neither of us planned it that way.
Jeff's case for Good Will Hunting came down to specific scenes: the bar showdown where Will humiliates the pretentious Harvard grad student, capped by the "how do you like them apples" line, and Robin Williams' therapist telling the story of leaving a World Series game to "see about a girl," a line Will throws back at him near the end. Matt had already made his own case for the film one slot earlier, pointing to Matt Damon and Ben Affleck's years of rewrites and the help they got refining it, and calling it some of the best dialogue and character work he's seen in any movie.
Matt's case for The Social Network centered on Aaron Sorkin's script and the Eduardo-confronts-Zuckerberg scene near the end, the keyboard slam, the share dilution, dialogue he called sharp and witty scene after scene. Jeff's version of that same praise, one slot down, was almost identical: rapid-fire dialogue that told the Facebook story in a compelling, if not entirely realistic, way.
Where they didn't overlap at all
Everywhere else, the lists split completely. At #5, Matt went with Pulp Fiction, crediting Quentin Tarantino for writing it and then directing it himself, while Jeff picked Inception, an original idea from Christopher Nolan he said doesn't come along often. At #3, Matt chose Million Dollar Baby, drawn to the story of Paul Haggis selling Clint Eastwood the script essentially as written, while Jeff went with Dead Poets Society and Robin Williams' Carpe Diem speeches. At #2, Matt had The Shawshank Redemption, Frank Darabont's adaptation of the Stephen King novella, and Jeff had Inglourious Basterds, singling out the farmhouse opening and the basement tavern scene.
The process behind the picks
Matt spent some time on how differently these scripts actually made it to screen, some, like The Godfather, got rewritten constantly through production, while others, like Million Dollar Baby, were shot close to the draft the writer handed over. That distinction didn't become a scoring rule, just something he noticed working through the list. Jeff's running theme was original ideas he wishes came along more often, which is part of why he's hoping Christopher Nolan returns to one after Tenet, Oppenheimer, and The Odyssey.
Hear the full breakdown, along with our reviews of Obsession and 12 Angry Men, on episode 9.
