Get ready for Big Break 2025!

Is this your big screenwriting career break? The Final Draft Big Break Screenwriting Contest opens March 10, 2025. Don’t miss out on the chance to share over $80,000 in cash and prizes, and kickstart your screenwriting career with meetings with executives, producers and managers.

Big Break winners and finalists alike have had their screenplays optioned and produced and have secured high-profile representation as well as lucrative writing deals.

The Mul Brothers (pictured) won the Best Feature Drama category in 2021 for their script Faster Than Horses, which is now in pre-production with director James Erskine (Shooting for Socrates), producer Bear Grylls (Running Wild with Bear Grylls) and starring Ansel Elgort (Baby Driver). 

“Winning the Final Draft Big Break screenplay contest was an eye opener for us. Not only in the potential opportunities it affords, but the fabulous network of peers we have been able to engage with since.”

– The Mul Brothers

This year’s deadlines/prices:

• Early Bird Deadline is Monday, April 21, 2025
  Shorts: $35.00
  Feature & Television: $45.00
  Diversity Feature & Television Entry: $45.00
  Shorts Entry + Feedback: $75.00
  Feature & Television + Feedback: $110.00
  Diversity Feature & Television + Feedback: $110.00
  
  
• Regular Deadline is Monday, May 19, 2025
  Shorts: $45.00
  Feature & Television: $65.00
  Diversity Feature & Television Entry: $65.00
  Shorts Entry + Feedback: $85.00
  Feature & Television + Feedback: $130.00
  Diversity Feature & Television + Feedback: $130.00
  
  
• Final Deadline is Monday, June 9, 2025
  Shorts: $55.00
  Feature & Television: $75.00
  Diversity Feature & Television Entry: $75.00
  Shorts Entry + Feedback: $95.00
  Feature & Television + Feedback: $140.00
  Diversity Feature & Television + Feedback: $140.00
  
  
• Extended Deadline is Monday, June 30, 2025
  Shorts: $65.00
  Feature & Television: $85.00
  Diversity Feature & Television Entry: $85.00
  Shorts Entry + Feedback: $105.00
  Feature & Television + Feedback: $150.00
  Diversity Feature & Television + Feedback: $150.00
  

Dates reflect deadlines for electronic submission of scripts. All entries must be electronically submitted by midnight (Pacific Time) on their respective deadlines.

The Contest That Means Career Success

Laura Kroeger

Signed with Fourth Wall Management

2024 Grand Prize Feature Winner

2023 Grand Prize Feature Winner

"The coordinators of the contest proactively reach out to industry professionals and introduce them to the writers and the work of the writers who place and/or win the competition. It exposes a writer’s work to industry professionals, including but not limited to, agents, managers, producers and studio/streamer executives, who vet and judge the scripts throughout the process, and exposure is the name of the game when you are starting out"

– Jeff Portnoy, Bellevue Productions, 2025 Big Break Contest judge

Learn about more of our success stories!

Benefits & Prizes

2 Grand Prize Award Winners: One Feature Grand Prize and one TV Grand Prize winner will be selected from the 11 Feature Genre and TV Format award winners.

Each Grand Prize Award Winner:
Winners receive the prizes below plus the prizes listed under the Category Winners section. 

• $10,000 Cash
• Apple iPad
• Dell XPS Laptop
• Roundtrip airfare to Los Angeles plus 3 night hotel accommodation
• UCLAex Masterclass
• 1-year subscription to ScriptHop
• 60-90 minute career/meeting prep session from screenwriting career coach Lee Jessup
• Copy of Save the Cat! Story Structure Software and book
• Query Letter or One-Sheet analysis and a personalized, signed copy of The Screenwriter’s Bible by Dave Trottier
• Final Draft Go™ App for iPhone and iPad.

Additional prizes for TV Grand Prize winner:

• Script Consultation from Jen Grisanti Inc.
• One-hour career coaching session with Carole Kirschner to create a personalized game plan for leveraging the contest win.

Each Feature and TV Winner Receives:

• $1,000 Cash
• Final Draft 13
• The New York Film Academy - Attend multi-week online immersive program in both film & television writing
• 5 Career coaching sessions with screenwriting coach Lee Jessup
• 60-minute webinar with screenwriting career coach Lee Jessup on how to capitalize on your Big Break win
• Participation in a 6-Week Teleseminar from Jen Grisanti Inc.
• One year subscription of MasterWriter software
• Free Big Break Contest entry for 2026
• Script coverage from Big Break readers
• A Copy of Save The Cat! Strikes Back by screenwriter Blake Snyder.
• 6 month subscription to ScriptHop

Diversity Feature & TV Category Winners Receive:

• One-on-one consultation with Erika Alexander of Color Farm Media on development and producing

Short Script Winner Receives:

• $1,000 Cash
• Final Draft 13
• Feedback on a verbal pitch or pitch deck, plus a 1-hour feedback session with Seed & Spark
• Free Big Break Contest entry for 2026
• 6 month subscription to ScriptHop
• One year subscription of MasterWriter software