The Black List Reviews 

I’ve paid for two evaluations of the same feature screenplay on The Black List. In 2021, an earlier draft got a 7 overall and an 8 on premise. This year, after a full rewrite with exactly the same premise, a new reader gave it a 5 overall and a 4 on premise.

When I asked how the same premise could drop four points, support replied politely, and in their own words: “Even some of the highest-rated projects on the site sometimes receive lower scores, as taste is so deeply subjective.”

In other words, it’s a lottery. You’re not paying about $100 for an evaluation of your work. You’re paying for the personal taste of one anonymous reader, and you have no say in who that is. That reader earns only a fraction of the $100 you pay, for a couple of hours’ work, and I find it hard to believe that an experienced producer or a successful screenwriter would read scripts for that money. My script is a time-travel story, a genre that isn’t for everyone, so the result depends mostly on whether it lands with someone who likes the genre or someone who doesn’t.

A professional evaluation should be able to tell “not my taste” from “no market”. I’ve never watched more than a few minutes of Harry Potter, but I wouldn’t score its script a 4.

One simple improvement: let writers request the same reader for a new draft.

My advice: treat any score here as one stranger’s opinion, not a verdict on your script, and think twice before paying for more, on top of the monthly hosting fee.

Completely useless customer service. After my evaluator made up several plot points in my script, customer service simply said "but based on your logline it sounds like something that might happen." It doesn't, though. Like, at all. No respect or care for customers at all.

Not a huge fan. The feedback felt template-ized and useless to a working writer. There's literally nothing specific to any of the feedback I received or I've seen anyone else receive. They appear to hate genre movies too. Anything comedy or horror, their readers appear to just be totally, completely out on from the jump. The rating system also makes literally no sense. I've seen terrible writers score highly with boring, impossible to make period dramas I'd pull my own teeth out to avoid watching, while many great writers score lowly repeatedly with movies I'd pay double tomorrow to watch. Not worth the exorbitant price at all

The Black List is supposed to be a site that connects amateur screenwriters with producers. What could be more appealing?
But once you’re logged in, the trouble begins: you actually have to pay $30 a month just to register your script.
The “free” mode only allows you to upload your "synopsis" (which is basically useless). Finally, the site’s design is poorly thought out and not very engaging (the dashboard is incomprehensible).