• 100 story ideas
  • Checked October 2026

Story Ideas for a Screenplay

Premises a small crew could shoot, each with what it needs and the picture it opens on.

Story Ideas for a Screenplay

Show all 100
  1. A girl takes the wrong lunch box to school and spends the day living on another family's lunch.Needs: two young actors, a schoolyard, two kitchens. Opening image: a lid lifted on the wrong sandwich.
  2. A father teaches his daughter to drive in an empty parking lot the week before she moves away.Needs: two actors, a car, a lot. Opening image: white lines from above, one car crooked across them.
  3. A brother and sister clear out a garden shed and find the go-kart they were forbidden to finish.Needs: two actors, a shed. Opening image: a padlock opened with a key from a jam jar.

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All 100 story ideas

One actor, one location 20

  • A boy left home alone for the first time follows every rule on the list, and the list did not cover the bat. Needs: one young actor, a house. Opening image: a handwritten list on a refrigerator door.
  • A girl home sick builds a city across her bedroom floor and must take it down by five. Needs: one young actor, a bedroom. Opening image: a shoebox tower seen from carpet level.
  • A house sitter answers a phone that keeps ringing, and every call is for someone who has never lived there. Needs: one actor, one house, voices. Opening image: a phone on a bare floor, mid-ring.
  • A locksmith's apprentice practices on her own front door and locks herself out with the kettle on. Needs: one actor, a door, a window. Opening image: steam rising in a kitchen seen through glass.
  • A man hangs one picture and spends the whole day chasing level. Needs: one actor, a wall, a hammer. Opening image: a bubble sliding in a level's glass.
  • A man rehearses a best man's speech to the bathroom mirror, and each version tells more of the truth. Needs: one actor, a mirror. Opening image: a fogged mirror wiped clear by a sleeve.
  • A man tries to leave an apology on an answering machine and records it forty times. Needs: one actor, one phone. Opening image: a thumb hovering over a red button.
  • A man waits at a bus stop from dawn to dusk for someone who told him only the place. Needs: one actor, a bench. Opening image: a long shadow that will shorten, then lengthen.
  • A night baker works to a radio call-in show and slowly realizes that the caller is talking about him. Needs: one actor, a bakery, a radio voice. Opening image: one set of footprints in spilled flour.
  • A night security guard watches a wall of monitors and sees himself walk through the lobby. Needs: one actor, a desk, some screens. Opening image: a sandwich being unwrapped under blue light.
  • A parking attendant in a booth watches the same car circle the lot all night. Needs: one actor, a booth, a car. Opening image: headlights sweeping across a face, again.
  • A piano tuner alone in a concert hall plays the one piece he never performed. Needs: one actor, a piano, an empty hall. Opening image: a tuning fork struck against a knee.
  • A projectionist screens a film to an empty theater on its closing night. Needs: one actor, a projection booth. Opening image: dust turning in a beam of light.
  • A student has one night to write an essay and does everything else. Needs: one actor, a desk. Opening image: a cursor blinking on a blank page.
  • A translator working alone at night finds a sentence in the document that is addressed to her. Needs: one actor, a desk lamp, paper. Opening image: a pencil stopping in the middle of a word.
  • A watch repairer opens a watch and finds a note folded under the movement. Needs: one actor, a workbench, a loupe. Opening image: an eye, huge, through a lens.
  • A widower cooks his wife's recipe from a card with one line burned away. Needs: one actor, a kitchen. Opening image: a scorched recipe card held up to a window.
  • A woman clearing her late mother's apartment keeps finding the same photograph in different rooms. Needs: one actor, an apartment, a photograph. Opening image: a key turning in a stiff lock.
  • A woman practices parallel parking outside her own house for an entire Sunday. Needs: one actor, a car, a street. Opening image: a curb creeping closer in a side mirror.
  • An old man repairs a rowboat in his garage through four seasons and never launches it. Needs: one actor, a garage, a boat. Opening image: a hand brushing sawdust off a hull.

Two actors, one location 20

  • A barber gives a last haircut to the customer who was his first. Needs: two actors, a barber's chair. Opening image: a striped pole that has stopped turning.
  • A brother and sister clear out a garden shed and find the go-kart they were forbidden to finish. Needs: two actors, a shed. Opening image: a padlock opened with a key from a jam jar.
  • A delivery rider and a customer talk through an intercom that will not release the door. Needs: two actors, a doorway, a buzzer. Opening image: a finger holding down a button.
  • A driving examiner and a learner are each having the worst day of their year. Needs: two actors, a car. Opening image: a clipboard beside two hands tight on a wheel.
  • A father teaches his daughter to drive in an empty parking lot the week before she moves away. Needs: two actors, a car, a lot. Opening image: white lines from above, one car crooked across them.
  • A grandmother and her grandson repaint a kitchen and uncover four older colors. Needs: two actors, a kitchen, paint. Opening image: a scraper lifting a curl of yellow off green.
  • A hitchhiker and a driver each begin to suspect that the other is the person on the radio news. Needs: two actors, a car, a radio. Opening image: a raised thumb in a brake light's glow.
  • A hotel night clerk and a guest who cannot sleep play a board game with half the pieces missing. Needs: two actors, a lobby. Opening image: a bottle cap standing in for a pawn.
  • A locksmith is called out at three in the morning by a woman who may not live in the house. Needs: two actors, a front door. Opening image: a porch light with moths.
  • A piano teacher and an adult beginner prepare for a recital of one song. Needs: two actors, an upright piano. Opening image: two hands on the keys, one sure and one not.
  • A portrait photographer has ten minutes with a sitter who will not look at the lens. Needs: two actors, a backdrop, a camera. Opening image: a face upside down in a viewfinder.
  • A stand-up comedian tries new jokes on the only person in the audience, who does not laugh. Needs: two actors, a small stage, a microphone. Opening image: a spotlight on an empty stool.
  • A tenant and a landlord inspect an apartment and disagree about every mark on the wall. Needs: two actors, an empty apartment. Opening image: a row of nail holes at picture height.
  • A woman selling her car and the buyer take it for a test drive that neither wants to end. Needs: two actors, a car. Opening image: a hand-lettered FOR SALE sign under a wiper.
  • One night in a laundromat: a man washing everything he owns and a woman washing one shirt. Needs: two actors, a laundromat. Opening image: a single shirt turning in a drum.
  • Two lifeguards watch an empty pool on the last day of the season. Needs: two actors, a pool. Opening image: a whistle swinging on its cord over still water.
  • Two men in one small fishing boat have caught nothing, and said nothing, since the argument. Needs: two actors, a boat, a lake. Opening image: two lines in flat water, far apart.
  • Two movers carry a sofa up six flights and learn each other's whole lives on the landings. Needs: two actors, a stairwell, a sofa. Opening image: a sofa wedged at an impossible angle.
  • Two people share a car from a wedding to the airport, and one of them objected at the ceremony. Needs: two actors, a car. Opening image: a wilting buttonhole flower on a dashboard.
  • Two rival food truck owners are the only ones parked at a fair that has been rained out. Needs: two actors, two trucks. Opening image: rain running off two awnings into one puddle.

Three to five actors, one location 20

  • A band of four rehearses in a garage for a show that one of them has secretly canceled. Needs: four actors, a garage, instruments. Opening image: the red light of an amplifier coming on.
  • A driving school puts its four worst students in one car. Needs: five actors, a car. Opening image: a student driver sign hanging by one corner.
  • A family of four moves house with everything in one van and one seat too few. Needs: four actors, a van. Opening image: a houseplant riding in the front seat.
  • A family takes its yearly photograph, and this year nobody will stand where they stood. Needs: five actors, a staircase, a tripod. Opening image: last year's photo held up against the stairs.
  • A film crew of four waits in a field for a sunrise shot through seven cloudy mornings. Needs: four actors, a field, a camera. Opening image: a lens cap coming off in the dark.
  • A grandfather, a father and a son build a treehouse to three different plans. Needs: three actors, a tree, lumber. Opening image: three pencil drawings pinned to bark.
  • A ninetieth birthday party is held for a woman who would like everyone to go home. Needs: five actors, a living room. Opening image: ninety candles and a face lit from below.
  • A support group for people who talk too much meets for the first time. Needs: five actors, a circle of chairs. Opening image: a clock over a door, already ten past.
  • A village quiz team of five loses the only member who knows any answers. Needs: five actors, a corner table. Opening image: a pencil tapping an empty answer sheet.
  • A wedding band of four plays to an empty dance floor while the guests are outside watching the argument. Needs: four actors, a function room. Opening image: a mirror ball turning over nobody.
  • A weekly card game among four neighbors carries on by candle through a power cut. Needs: four actors, a table, candles. Opening image: a match struck in the dark.
  • Five members of an office lottery pool meet to check a ticket that one of them forgot to buy. Needs: five actors, a break room. Opening image: a ticket-sized gap on a bulletin board.
  • Five strangers at a bus stop learn that the route was withdrawn a year ago. Needs: five actors, a shelter. Opening image: a timetable behind cracked plastic.
  • Four friends at a diner split a check and, with it, ten years of small debts. Needs: four actors, a booth. Opening image: a receipt curling on a wet table.
  • Four mechanics at a garage bet on what is making the noise in a customer's car. Needs: four actors, a workshop, a car. Opening image: four heads under one hood.
  • Three coworkers share the last hour of a night shift at a gas station where nobody stops. Needs: three actors, a gas station. Opening image: a price sign with one number flickering.
  • Three generations sit in a parked car outside a house that none of them wants to enter first. Needs: three actors, a car. Opening image: three faces in a rearview mirror.
  • Three hotel housekeepers piece together a guest's whole week from what room 12 left behind. Needs: three actors, a hotel room. Opening image: a tray with two cups, one untouched.
  • Three siblings wash the dishes after the last family dinner in the old house. Needs: three actors, a kitchen sink. Opening image: three pairs of hands and one dish towel.
  • Three street musicians compete for the one good corner. Needs: three actors, a street corner. Opening image: three open instrument cases in a row.

Two or three locations 20

  • A boy cycles across town to return a library book that is one day overdue. Needs: one young actor, a bicycle, a library. Opening image: a date stamp, seen close.
  • A boy sent to buy bread comes home at dusk with everything but. Needs: one young actor, a kitchen, a shop, a street. Opening image: coins counted into a palm.
  • A brother drives his sister's forgotten wedding shoes to the venue and arrives at the wrong hall. Needs: two actors, a car, two halls. Opening image: white shoes sliding on a dashboard.
  • A child's balloon escapes at a fair and is found, three scenes later, by the person who needs it most. Needs: three actors, a fairground, a rooftop. Opening image: a string slipping through small fingers.
  • A girl takes the wrong lunch box to school and spends the day living on another family's lunch. Needs: two young actors, a schoolyard, two kitchens. Opening image: a lid lifted on the wrong sandwich.
  • A house key is passed along a street of neighbors, each told to hand it to the next. Needs: three actors, three doorsteps. Opening image: a key on a red ribbon changing hands.
  • A mail carrier on her last day delivers the one parcel she has carried, undeliverable, for a year. Needs: two actors, a sorting room, a porch. Opening image: a parcel with five crossed-out addresses.
  • A man of fifty teaches himself to swim in the slow lane over one winter. Needs: one actor, a pool, a locker room. Opening image: a toe testing the water.
  • A man sells his late father's car in the morning and buys it back the same afternoon. Needs: two actors, a driveway, a dealer's lot. Opening image: a glove compartment falling open.
  • A man walks home from his own retirement party carrying the clock. Needs: one actor, an office, a long street. Opening image: a mantel clock under an arm, ticking.
  • A moving day is told through two doorways, the old apartment's and the new one's. Needs: two actors, two doorways. Opening image: a tape measure across an empty frame.
  • A phone left in a taxi keeps ringing, and the driver starts answering it. Needs: two actors, a taxi, a doorstep. Opening image: a lit screen sliding along a back seat.
  • A pianist plays in a station concourse, and a commuter misses three trains. Needs: two actors, a station piano, a platform. Opening image: a departure board flipping over.
  • A street sweeper and a baker have passed each other at five every morning for years, and today one of them stops. Needs: two actors, a street, a bakery door. Opening image: a broom and a bread tray crossing.
  • A waitress chases a customer three blocks to return a tip that was far too large. Needs: two actors, a diner, a street. Opening image: a folded bill under a saucer.
  • A woman follows her own lost-dog posters across town and finds that someone has been writing on them. Needs: two actors, a street, a park. Opening image: a staple gun against a lamppost.
  • A woman rides the same commuter route on her first day of work and her last, cut together. Needs: one actor, a train seat, a platform. Opening image: one window, forty years apart.
  • A woman takes a wrongly delivered parcel to the address on it and finds her own name on the door. Needs: one actor, two doorsteps. Opening image: a label, half peeled.
  • Two coworkers on opposite shifts share one desk and know each other only by what is left on it. Needs: two actors, a desk, a doorway. Opening image: a mug ring beside another mug ring.
  • Two neighbors conduct a feud entirely through their front garden displays. Needs: two actors, two front gardens. Opening image: a garden gnome turned to face next door.

Outdoors, no set to build 20

  • A boy and a dog that is not his walk the length of a beach, and at the far end he must decide. Needs: one young actor, a dog, a beach. Opening image: two sets of prints, one with four feet.
  • A camper pitches her tent in the dark and wakes to find out where she is. Needs: one actor, a tent. Opening image: a zipper opening on something we do not yet see.
  • A farmer and a surveyor walk a boundary that the map and the hedge disagree about. Needs: two actors, a hedge. Opening image: a measuring tape pulled tight through nettles.
  • A grandfather learns to skateboard in secret, at dawn, at the town's skate park. Needs: one actor, a skate park. Opening image: knee pads over corduroy.
  • A hiker finds a camera on a trail and walks on, looking for each view on its roll. Needs: one actor, a wood. Opening image: a camera strap hanging from a branch.
  • A mail carrier on a bicycle delivers to a valley's five farms in the first snow. Needs: one actor, a bicycle, five gates. Opening image: a tire track, the first mark on a white lane.
  • A man flies his late brother's kite on an empty beach. Needs: one actor, a beach, a kite. Opening image: a spool of line unwinding.
  • A marathon's last runner meets the volunteer who is taking down the finish line. Needs: two actors, a street, a banner. Opening image: a finish banner half folded.
  • A road painter repaints the center line of a mountain road and meets everyone who uses it. Needs: one lead, a road, passersby. Opening image: wet yellow paint and a boot beside it.
  • A shepherd and a hiker wait out fog on a hill with no language in common. Needs: two actors, a hillside. Opening image: a figure coming out of white.
  • A stranger walks into a village carrying a chair, sets it down in the square and sits. Needs: one lead, a square, onlookers. Opening image: four chair legs settling on cobbles.
  • A teenager teaches herself to juggle on a rooftop over one summer. Needs: one actor, a roof. Opening image: three oranges on a ledge.
  • A wedding photographer loses the couple in a cornfield. Needs: three actors, a field. Opening image: a veil caught on a stalk.
  • An old woman swims in the sea every morning of the year, and the film shows twelve of them. Needs: one actor, a shore. Opening image: a folded towel on a rock.
  • One park bench, one day: nine people sit on it, and each leaves something behind. Needs: a bench and nine short parts. Opening image: dew on the slats.
  • Three children run a lemonade stand on a road with no traffic. Needs: three young actors, a table, a road. Opening image: a hand-painted sign and a long empty view.
  • Two brothers race toy boats down a stream they have raced on for sixty years. Needs: two actors, a stream. Opening image: a paper sail between reeds.
  • Two children dig a hole on a beach all day with a seriousness no adult dares interrupt. Needs: two young actors, a beach, two spades. Opening image: the first spadeful.
  • Two metal detectorists work the same field from opposite ends and meet over one signal. Needs: two actors, a field. Opening image: a search coil sweeping over wet grass.
  • Two strangers push a broken-down car along a coast road, and neither of them owns it. Needs: two actors, a car that does not go. Opening image: four hands on a dusty trunk.

How it works

These 100 story ideas for a screenplay are told in pictures and small enough to film: two people and a car, one night in a laundromat, a kite on an empty beach.

Read the full guide

Screenplay story ideas, sorted by what they need

The groups count actors and places, from one actor in one room to a story shot outdoors with no set to build. A script that asks for a barber's chair and two people is one a small crew can start on.

Story script ideas that open on a picture

A script is read before it is seen, so each premise comes with its first image: a bottle cap standing in for a pawn, a string slipping through small fingers. If the image already says who wants what, the first page is half written.

  • Write the scene with the sound off first. Add only the lines it cannot do without.
  • Count the locations before you fall for an idea.

Questions and answers

What makes a good story idea for a screenplay?

Something a camera can see. A woman practices parallel parking outside her own house for an entire Sunday. A man walks home from his retirement party carrying the clock. Neither needs a line of dialogue to be understood.

Can a screenplay have only one actor?

Yes. Twenty premises here need one actor and one place: a night guard who sees himself on the monitors, a projectionist on a theater's closing night, a house sitter whose phone keeps ringing for people who never lived there.

How is a screenplay idea different from a play idea?

A play keeps its people in a room and lets them talk. A screenplay can cut: to a doorstep, a year later, a face. For plots built on one room and a deadline, see the story ideas for plays.

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