Screenplay examples: openings, action and dialogue
Choose an example for the writing question you want to explore. Read the scene before judging it, then point to the action or exchange that supports your answer. The links open scenes from our collection, without an account.
Opening and action: Tenet’s opera siege
The opening siege runs across scenes 1–16 in this collection, moving through the concert hall and the plaza. A remembered film sequence can contain several screenplay scene headings.
Track the Protagonist’s immediate task, the resistance he meets and what he does next. Which details let you follow the action before you understand the larger story? Keep questions that the opening has not answered open.
Dialogue: The Social Network’s opening conversation
Read Mark and Erica’s opening conversation. Follow the subjects they introduce, where their responses fail to meet and how the relationship changes during the exchange.
Choose three consecutive responses. For each, describe what the speaker is trying to do to the listener. Then check your reading against the next response. Study the exchange as behavior as well as words.
Exposition: Tenet’s Oslo rooftop briefing
In scene 64, the Protagonist briefs Neil on the freeport. This Oslo Opera House location is separate from the opening siege. The scene’s action and participants identify which moment you are reading.
List the practical information exchanged. What upcoming action needs it? Look for a question, response or physical detail that gives the information a reason to arrive here.
Take a craft question into your own writing
Keep the scene’s problem separate from its particular solution. Ask how your own characters, setting and pressure could create a similar need for clear action or a consequential exchange. Write new behavior rather than reproducing the example’s expression.