Tuesday, June 9, 2026

Billy Wilder’s 10 Rules for Screenwriting—with Pulitzer winner Daniel Kraus!

Keir and Mike are joined by a very special guest and friend of the show—Pulitzer Prize-winning author Daniel Kraus!—to dissect Billy Wilder’s 10 Rules for Screenwriting. Which ones are still relevant? Which ones aren’t even rules? Listen and find out! Join our Patreon for episodes and content you won’t find anywhere else! Patreon.com/TheFilmographersPodcast Social media Instagram @thefilmographers Bluesky @thefilmographers.bsky.social Letterboxd @filmographers YouTube @TheFilmographersPodcast Website https://filmographerspodcast.com/ Credits Keir Graff & Michael Moreci, hosts Kevin Lau, producer Gompson, theme music Cosmo Graff, graphic design Time Stamps • 6:46 – How to win a Pulitzer with one sentence • 14:25 – Rule #1: The audience is fickle. • 19:06 – Rule #2: Grab ’em by the throat and never let ’em go. • 23:51 – Rule #3: Develop a clean line of action for your leading character. • 26:21 – Rule #4: Know where you’re going. • 33:54 – Rule #5: The more subtle and elegant you are in hiding your plot points, the better you are as a writer. • 36:16 – Rule #6: If you have a problem with the third act, the real problem is in the first act. • 38:18 – Rule #7: A tip from Lubitsch: Let the audience add up two plus two. They’ll love you forever. • 41:12 – Rule #8: In doing voice-overs, be careful not to describe what the audience already sees. Add to what they’re seeing. • 43:46 – Rule #9: The event that occurs at the second act curtain triggers the end of the movie. • 45:58 – Rule #10: The third act must build, build, build in tempo and action until the last event, and then—that’s it. Don’t hang around. • 51:34 – Daniel Kraus’s favorite Wilder films