What is the ideal length for a screenplay and how important is it not to go over?

And if you’re running long, what’s the best approach to cutting script pages?

It’s easy to find answers to that first question. Scripts usually run “one minute per page,” so that means 120 pages for a two-hour movie (but see more on this below).

Or about 60-ish or 30-ish for a one-hour or half-hour episodic (“TV”) script.

The second question is the trickier one. Writers often come to me wanting suggestions for what to cut because their script is too long.

We’ve all been there.

And I have one almost universal reaction to this “problem,” before I’ve read a page. Whether it’s my own script or someone else’s…

I’ve virtually never seen a script that was firing on all cylinders in terms of the elements I look for, and what makes a viable story – with the only problem being that it’s “too long.”

A script that’s too long almost always has other endemic problems the writer isn’t seeing. The length isn’t helping, but it’s not the main problem.

The main issue is something else about their underlying story and approach to it. And my notes when I read the script are mostly about that, not the length.

Fixing those things usually end up making the length a non-issue (in that the “fixed version” will be a more appropriate length).

What is the right length?

For a feature-length script, people used to say 120 pages, going back to Syd Field’s book Screenplay. Then Save the Cat used 110 pages in its “beat sheet.”

Is there a hard and fast rule about this? What’s too long, and what’s too short?

There is no universal rule, but there’s a universal principle. And that is this:

The people you hope will like your script don’t want to read it.

And they aren’t expecting much from it.

They’re even looking for reasons to avoid reading it or to conclude that it’s not professional quality.

Now if you’re paying them to read it, they’ll read all of it. Or if it’s their job to at least read some of it and pass judgment, they will. But they’ll read as little as possible.

And if they have the option of not reading it at all — and may other scripts vying for their consideration — length is one reason why they might choose not to read it.

It’s “work” to read a script, and it takes time. And the less professional-level it is, the more work it is. And the longer it is, the more time it takes.

And longer also usually (not always) signals a lack of professional quality.

If a script is exactly 120 pages, even that seems long, in today’s world. And it looks like the writer was trying to use every possible page they could without going over, as opposed to writing the best script they could write and giving the reader the best possible experience.

Can a script be too short?

I would say 110 is a better maximum than 120, but nobody’s going to be mad at you if it’s only 100. Or even 90. The shorter it is, the easier and quicker it will be to read, after all. And that’s actually a big part of what’s motivating potential readers to start it and continue with it. How easy and pleasurable you’re making it for them.

Below 90 for a feature is probably too short. And I’m not saying shoot for 90 or 100 if the script will be better at 110. I’m just explaining how the people think who you hope will like your script.

Inevitably they have many scripts to read and don’t like most of them. They expect yours to be another “miss.” And they want to know that and dismiss it ASAP.

That doesn’t mean they don’t hope it will be great. Of course they do. But experience has told them that happens less than 1% of the time. And if the script is over 120 pages or exactly 120, that percentage is even lower.

The best approach to cutting script pages

First drafts are often overly long, and there’s nothing inherently wrong with that. If you’re the kind of writer who likes to do some sort of “vomit draft” just to get something on the page and explore the possibilities, that’s even more likely.

Maybe you’re not a big outliner, and are more of a “pantser,” who didn’t start with a detailed scene-by-scene plan, or a lengthy treatment or “scriptment.” Or maybe you just had to write out all your different storylines as fully as you could imagine before seeing what could be pared down.

No worries. The question is what to do with your too-long script.

Whether it’s for film or TV, I see three main approaches to cutting script pages.

You might need one, two or all three:

Option 1: Cutting Storylines

I’m pretty strict with my definition of what a “story” is.

To me, a story is about a particular main character trying to solve a specific high-stakes external problem and/or reach a goal that will be their primary focus in every scene, all the way until the end. Which the audience hopefully cares about, roots for, and is entertained by.

Because they are active in trying to do this from scene to scene, and the problem needs to build and complicate in the middle, until “all is lost,” that means the forces of opposition (whether there is one antagonist or not) need to be “punching back” in a way that keeps changing the game and causing new actions for the main character to take.

Are you with me so far? If your main story doesn’t work that way, chances are that’s a bigger issue than the script being too long. It also might be a reason why it’s too long: it doesn’t have this sort of tight focus but kind of wanders around to various things and various characters.

Most movies have a single main character with an “A Story” and a “B Story,” and that’s it. Meaning that both “stories” and every scene in each story is about a problem for them, and is typically dramatized from their point-of-view. So they are in every scene and every scene is about what they’re doing and how they’re dealing with the latest evolution in the status of the A Story and/or B Story problem/goal.

Can you have more than one story in a movie, and have different main characters of those different stories? Yes. Some movies do this, and most TV episodes and series work this way.

But each one of the stories should follow the above guidelines, as they intertwine with each other. And if they don’t, you probably have work to do that is not about length, but about your approach to what your stories are.

You might also be depicting scenes from other characters’ points of view who don’t have their own story, which leads to the next option…

Option 2: Cutting Scenes

There’s usually not a great reason to depict other characters who don’t have their own stories, separate from the main character. Unless perhaps it’s a quick “cut to the villain” scene as in Die Hard or Star Wars that helps you to dramatize the punch-counterpunch plotting.

Or if it’s a romantic comedy and you’re telling a story from each of the two characters’ perspective. But that means you really have two compelling stories intertwining.

What you want to avoid (or cut) are scenes depicting other people who don’t have their own story, with the main character not in the scene, or not driving the scene with their wants and actions in pursuit of their overall story objective.

If you subject all your scenes to these criteria, you might find you only have a handful of scenes that really meet them. And if you cut all the scenes that don’t, you’ll end up with too short of a script. Which means you don’t have enough story.

Believe it or not, this is much more common than “too much story.” You almost can’t have too much story, if it meets the above criteria. Where it’s all about conflict around one central objective. But many scripts don’t quite have that.

Another kind of scene that can be “cuttable” is one that does focus on the main character pursuing their goal, and encountering conflict, where what they’re trying doesn’t really work. That sounds good so far. But if, at the end of othe scene, they’re right back where they were before the scene happened, and nothing has changed, then it’s a “stutter step.” You could cut this scene and nobody would miss it.

Ideally every scene creates some ongoing new change in the game of what’s going on, and can’t be cut. It’s necessary. And it advances the plot – it doesn’t just represent a roadblock that requires a “start over.” Instead, the main character experiences something in the scene that leads to new scenes — new actions, new conflicts.

Another kind of scene that can be cut (or shortened) are scenes that are low in conflict. People getting along or bonding tends to be boring for audiences. So does watching people “exchange information” or talk about the past. If you have scenes that do that — as opposed to dramatizing a main character trying to solve problems and deal with conflicts in the present — those might be cuttable. They might also be an example of you “telling instead of showing.”

Option 3: Writing Shorter Scenes

Most of the time, scripts that are significantly “too long” have an average scene length that is also too long. The scenes meander and aren’t focused as described above. Often they’re “talky” as opposed to truly dramatic in terms of story development.

They also tend to “start early and end late” instead of “start late and end early.”

What does that mean?

When you identify the central point of a scene, it should be something like this: the main character of this story is trying “action x” in pursuit of their overall goal and they encounter unexpected “conflict y” which requires them to improvise with “action z.” At the end of the scene, something resolves in a certain direction that opens up the need for more future scenes that prior to this scene weren’t anticipated.

So anything that comes before “action x” is potentially cuttable. You typically want to get right to them doing whatever it is they’re trying to do in that scene and encountering conflict fairly quickly.

Also, once “action z” is over with and the scene has resolved with a certain outcome, it’s time to get out, and move onto the next scene.

Should scenes have a particular average length?

That’s a bit of a tricky question.

If you look at Save the Cat’s “40 cards on a board” approach, it indicates 40 “scenes” in a 110-page screenplay. That means an average length of 2.75 pages per scenes.

That’s not a bad guideline, if you think of a scene as a “complete dramatic unit” that advances the story.

That doesn’t mean you’d only have 40 “scene headings” or “sluglines” in your script, however. (In other words: INT. ERIK’S OFFICE – DAY.) You might have as many as one of these per page, or even more. And if you call each of these a “scene” (which they are, technically), that means your scenes might “average” only one page, or less.

We’re talking about two different things here. It can take several locations or scene headings for one “complete dramatic unit” averaging 2.75 pages to play out.

Also some new locations or scene headings are for brief interstitial moments or lower-conflict “in between” moments that aren’t quite a part of a true scene, of the type that Save the Cat recommends 40 in a script.

At the end of the day, none of this is an exact science, and there’s not one easy answer to achieving the ideal page count. But in my view, following the guidelines above is the best path to not only ending up with scripts of an appropriate length, but more importantly, scripts that really work for readers from scene to scene.