Screenwriting Contests 2026: Which Are Still Worth Entering

Published by StoryNotes. We sell script coverage, not contest entries, and we don't run or partner with any contest listed here. Fees, deadlines and prizes were checked against each contest's own site on October 1, 2026.

In 2025, the companies that ran a large share of screenwriting contests, and the site that ranked their placements, closed inside eight months. The contests that survived got more crowded. The most prestigious one changed how it accepts scripts. And the job Coverfly used to do, sorting credible contests from fee mills, now falls to the writer.

This guide covers the contests and fellowships that are still worth an entry fee, what the 2026 cycle showed about each one, and what opens between now and summer 2027.

TL;DR: The Nicholl now takes scripts only through partners and two capped portals, which ran in June and July in 2026. Austin filled every category before its late deadline in 2026, so enter early. Script Pipeline is open now, PAGE opens December 1, and Austin is expected to open in December. Pick three or four contests whose top tier gives you something specific, and check any unfamiliar contest against the five questions below before you pay.

The layer between writers and contests disappeared. WeScreenplay closed on January 31, 2025. ScreenCraft and The Script Lab followed on February 28 (No Film School). Coverfly, which aggregated contest results into a single ranking and fed the top of it to industry readers through the Red List, shut on August 1, 2025 (No Film School).

All four of the first group sat under one parent, which in turn sat under Cast & Crew. Cast & Crew kept the pieces writers pay for directly: Final Draft, the Big Break contest, and FilmFreeway, the platform many contests use to take entries. Our Coverfly alternatives guide covers where its other services went, and our ownership map of screenwriting tools covers how that happened.

Two things follow for anyone entering contests now. First, a placement no longer travels on its own. A quarterfinal at a mid-tier contest used to add points to a Coverfly score that managers could search. Now it's a line on your query letter, and it's only worth what the contest's name is worth. Second, there's no shared index to tell you which contests that is. Stage 32 launched a Global Screenwriting Contest Hub in July 2025 that lists contests in one place, but a list isn't a vetting process. What Happened to Coverfly goes further into what writers lost.

The seven screenwriting contests below all ran 2026 editions with published prizes, published fees, and a record you can check. Most 2026 deadlines have closed, so the table shows the 2026 window as a guide to when the next cycle opens. Confirm dates on each contest's site before you plan around them.

Academy Nicholl Fellowships

The Nicholl is still the contest with the most weight, and it's no longer an open contest. Since 2025, the Academy takes scripts only from partner organizations, 55 of them for the 2026–27 cycle, including USC, NYU, Columbia, Austin, TIFF and the Sundance Institute (Academy). If you're not in one of those programs, there are two public doors:

• The Black List portal ran June 8 to July 6, 2026 and capped at 2,500 entries. Entry requires hosting the script and buying at least one evaluation, $30 plus $100, or about $130 a project. The Black List forwards its top 1%, up to 25 scripts (No Film School). Our Black List pricing guide covers what the hosting and evaluation buy you beyond the Nicholl.
• The Writers Guild Foundation portal ran June 22 to July 20, 2026, capped at 2,000 entries, at $100 for the first 750 and $120 after. You must have earned $25,000 or less from film and TV writing. The WGF recommends up to 20 scripts (WGF).

The odds were always long and now they're long in a different place. In 2024, the last open-entry year, 5,500 scripts produced five fellows, about 0.09% (Academy). In 2025–26, partners sent 101 scripts, which produced 10 finalists and five fellows (Academy). The 25 Black List scripts in that pool accounted for half the finalists (No Film School). The hard part is now the first gate. Of up to 4,500 public entries, about 45 reach the Academy's readers. Fellows received $35,000 each in 2024; the current releases don't restate the amount.

The catch: the portal windows are short and capped. If the next cycle follows 2026's timing, have the draft finished by late May.

Austin Film Festival Script Competition

Austin is the contest people enter for the room, not the check. Drama and Comedy feature winners get $5,000, Horror and Sci-Fi $2,500, and winners get up to $500 each for airfare and hotel (AFF). The real value is the festival and conference, where placing writers meet working writers and reps.

In 2026, every category hit its entry cap before the late deadline, according to AFF's competition page. Feature fees ran $60, $70 and $90 across three deadlines. With fewer contests left after 2025, caps may fill early again, so treat the early deadline as the only one. The 2027 competition is expected to open in December.

The catch: the cash is modest, and attending to make use of a placement costs money.

Script Pipeline

Script Pipeline is the one to enter in October 2026. The 2027 cycle is open now, with fees rising from $50 at the December 30 deadline to $75 by May 31, 2027. The winner gets $20,000 and each finalist $1,000, with the winner named August 12, 2027 (Script Pipeline). It also runs a pitch contest and a First Look Project with October deadlines.

The catch: its track record, "over $8 million in sales" since 1999, is self-reported. Look up the alumni it names before treating that figure as a forecast.

PAGE International Screenwriting Awards

PAGE runs one of the larger prize pools, "over $50,000 in cash and prizes" by its own count, across genre categories, with 2026 winners announced October 15 (PAGE). The 2026 fee ladder ran from $49 in January to $89 in May. The 2027 contest opens December 1.

The catch: the fee doubles from earliest to latest deadline. Enter in January or not at all.

Final Draft Big Break

Big Break is the flagship contest under Cast & Crew, run through the Final Draft brand. In 2026 it awarded two $10,000 grand prizes with an LA trip, plus $1,000 to each of 11 category winners (Final Draft). Fees ranged from $45 to $155 depending on category and deadline, across four deadlines from April to late June. Results roll out from late August through the grand prize in December.

The catch: fees climb steeply at later deadlines, and Final Draft's published outcomes are general ("signed with managers") rather than named.

Slamdance Screenplay Competition

Slamdance is the most useful entry for writers who want something back regardless of result: every entrant gets short written feedback from a reader (Slamdance). Feature fees ran $65 to $95 in 2026, with winners announced October 31. Writers earning more than $50,000 a year from screenwriting can't enter.

The catch: cash prizes aren't published, so you're paying for the feedback and the Slamdance name.

CineStory

CineStory's feature fellowship pays $10,000 plus a 12-month mentorship and a place at its retreat (CineStory). Fees ran $50 to $95 for 2026. Its TV fellowship runs a separate cycle that closes in mid-December 2026.

The catch: it's a smaller name than the others here, so the mentorship is the main value. Judge it on who the mentors are.

Labs and staffing programs select far fewer writers than contests and give each one far more.

Sundance Institute Screenwriters Lab. For first- or second-time feature writers. There's an application fee, and once selected, travel, lodging and meals are covered for up to two people per project. The 2027 cycle took applications April 14 to May 12, 2026, with final selections by December 15 (Sundance). Sundance is also a Nicholl partner: one 2025–26 fellow came through the Lab (Academy).

Stowe Story Labs. A lab with $2,750 tuition, and fellowships that cover it, including fellowships awarded through partners such as Austin and PAGE. The 2027 labs run in June and September 2027, and application rounds close October 3, November 16 and December 2, 2026 (Stowe).

Black List fellowships. Watch for a paid step. The Michael Collyer Memorial Fellowship, for writers aged 18 to 25, pays a $10,000 stipend plus mentorship and closes January 8, 2027. It's free to apply to, but you need at least one Black List evaluation, which isn't free (Black List help center). Check other Black List partner labs for the same requirement before you plan around them.

Studio writing programs. These are jobs, not contests: no fee, a salary, and a year inside a studio. The Disney Entertainment Television Writing Program took 2027 applications May 4 to June 1, 2026, and doesn't notify applicants who aren't selected (Disney). NBCUniversal's TV writers program and the WBD Access Writers Program (formerly the Warner Bros. Television Writers' Workshop) run similar annual windows, typically in early summer. Check each program's page in spring.

Ask five questions. Coverfly used to answer most of them for you.

1. Who reads the scripts? Credible contests say whether early rounds use paid readers, volunteers or industry judges, and name the final-round judges. "Industry professionals" with no names is a weak answer.
2. What does the top tier actually receive? Look for something specific: cash, a fellowship, a mentorship, guaranteed reads by named companies. "Exposure" and "consideration" are not prizes.
3. Can you name past winners, and what happened to them? A contest that's worth entering lists alumni by name with outcomes you can check: a sale, a staffing job, representation.
4. How does the fee compare to the prize? A $90 late fee for a contest whose top prize is software and a laurel is a poor trade. Early-deadline fees at credible contests are the best value in this market.
5. Who owns it? Know whether the contest is independent, run by a festival, or part of a larger company that also sells you software, hosting or coverage. It doesn't disqualify a contest, but it tells you what the contest is for.

Red flags: more than six deadline tiers, a fee ladder that starts late, every entrant "advancing" to a paid next round, and winners' pages with no last names. A contest that fails two of the five questions isn't worth the fee, however good the logo looks.

Some screenwriting contests are, for some scripts. A top-tier placement at the Nicholl, Austin or a lab opens real doors: reads, representation, meetings. A quarterfinal laurel from a contest nobody recognizes usually doesn't, and since 2025 there's no ranking that adds those laurels up into something a manager will notice.

The odds are long by design. Five Nicholl fellows from 5,500 scripts is about as clear as contest numbers get. That argues for entering fewer contests more carefully, not for skipping them. A practical budget is three or four contests a season, chosen with the five questions above, entered at the earliest deadline.

The biggest factor you control is the draft you send. Contest readers move fast, and a script that loses them in the first ten pages won't recover. Enter your strongest draft rather than your newest one, and get it read before you pay a fee, by peers, beta readers or coverage. Screenplay Notes: How to Read, Sort, and Use Them covers how to turn that feedback into a rewrite, and Why Your Script Keeps Getting Passes covers the patterns that sink scripts in early rounds. StoryNotes is one way to get a detailed read before you enter, and our sample report shows what you'd get back.