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The Lakes List is a collection of exemplary screenplays for movies, short films, web series and TV shows, written by the screenwriting students and alumni of the Screenwriting BA program at Metro State University in St. Paul, Minnesota.

For inquiries, and for access to a writer and their screenplay, please send an email to lakeslist@metrostate.edu.

Logline and summary

A mid life crisis turns to a forever life crisis when Shane's big fifty roaring night out at a trendy new night club has some serious...vampiric consequences.

  • Year
    2023
  • Format
    Short film
  • Genres
    Comedy
    Horror

Logline and summary

A young skater, Kit, has a bad encounter at a skate park one day and makes an enemy out of the new kid in town. Now the tension between these two puts Kit in a very stressful and uncomfortable situation.

  • Year
    2021
  • Set in Minnesota
  • Format
    Short film
  • Genres
    Drama
    Action/Adventure

Logline and summary

At a pool party with his friends, a teen struggling with self-harm is forced to wear swim trunks that puts his biggest insecurities on full display.

  • Year
    2019
  • Set in Minnesota
  • Format
    Short film
  • Genre
    Drama

Logline and summary

A group of friends take a trip to a landfill to break things, in order to vent, after one of them is cheated on by his partner. At the landfill, a chain of events reveals a traumatic plight one of the other friends has been experiencing but not saying anything about.

  • Year
    2021
  • Format
    Short film
  • Genre
    Drama

Logline and summary

A woman undergoes increasingly bizarre interruptions as she tries to meditate and reminisce on a past relationship, leading to chaotic exaltation.

  • Year
    2022
  • Format
    Short film
  • Genres
    Drama
    Comedy

Logline and summary

Five years after his college expulsion, Dan Archer aspires to be a writer while trying to survive his low-paying part-time job. Everything's bothersome to Dan; except, that is, for Evie.

  • Year
    2023
  • Format
    Feature film
  • Genres
    Drama
    Comedy

Logline and summary

This compelling series, exploring the themes of relationships and self-harm, revolves around a young teen trying her best to live her life while also struggling with severe depression. In the pilot, Dana’s already rocky relationship with her mother is put to the test when her twin sister leaks that Dana’s been cutting herself.

  • Year
    2020
  • Set in Minnesota
  • Format
    Web series pilot
  • Genre
    Drama

Logline and summary

A pair of Alien anthropologists, operating on little time and even less funding, discover a lost and hopeless earthling guide to help them on their evidence-gathering mission. Through their city escapades, both parties find more than they ever expected.

  • Year
    2021
  • Set in Minnesota
  • Format
    Short film
  • Genres
    Drama
    Comedy
    Sci-Fi/Fantasy

Logline and summary

Old college friends confront their previous relationships after an illness is discovered at an impromptu wedding.

  • Year
    2020
  • Format
    Short film
  • Genres
    Drama
    Comedy

Logline and summary

After two star-crossed opiate addicts discover they're having a child, the couple painfully attempt inpatient treatment as a final shot to take responsibility over their lives, their addiction, and the family they never planned.

  • Year
    2020
  • Format
    Feature film
  • Genre
    Drama

Logline and summary

A man and a woman enter a green card marriage but each have a different agenda.

  • Year
    2021
  • Set in Minnesota
  • Format
    Web series pilot
  • Genres
    Drama
    Comedy

Logline and summary

Set in a fantasy-esque Wild West, Jack Crescent, wielder of the Scale of the Fire Dragon, hunts down powerful Heirlooms to stop corrupt collectors from abusing their powers.

  • Year
    2023
  • Format
    Web series pilot
  • Genres
    Action/Adventure
    Animated
    Sci-Fi/Fantasy
    Other

Logline and summary

When his daughter is kidnapped, an indecisive mortgage lender struggling with loss, desperately seeks the help of his deranged brother to conduct a scheme that they hope will work in order to get her back safely from the gangsters that took her.

  • Year
    2020
  • Set in Minnesota
  • Format
    Feature film
  • Genres
    Drama
    Comedy
    Action/Adventure

Logline and summary

The eccentric captain Abby and her food critic Kapp set sail across Thousand Seas in this thrilling animated adventure series. Paid to deliver a mysterious pirate chest, they must contend with many dangers, from ravenous sea monsters to failed treasure hunters.

  • Year
    2019
  • Format
    TV pilot
  • Genres
    Comedy
    Action/Adventure
    Animated

Logline and summary

After discovering that her husband is cheating on her, Jodi takes matters into her own hands.

  • Year
    2019
  • Set in Minnesota
  • Format
    Short film
  • Genre
    Drama

Logline and summary

Follow the Asian-American experience with the 3 Lee sisters on their journey of healing and boundaries through trauma. Where to draw the line between how much of your personal life to share. Do we trust our family members because we were born and raised to, or do we actually put in the effort to keep each other in our lives? After trials and hardships, and a lack of self-awareness find out, where does their love lie? *Trigger Warning: sexual abuse and self-harm*

  • Year
    2022
  • Format
    Web series pilot
  • Genre
    Drama

Logline and summary

Midwest Mexican is the story of a Chicano man and his life growing up in Minnesota as an "Other". From 1947 through to 2022, this web series highlights the life of a veteran, activist, husband, father, friend and family member.

  • Year
    2022
  • Set in Minnesota
  • Format
    Web series pilot
  • Genre
    Drama

Logline and summary

Facing many setbacks, funny mishaps, and a rent deadline, three friends must find a way through the unpredictable world of odd jobs, learning, laughing, and occasionally breaking bones along the way.

  • Year
    2023
  • Format
    Web series pilot
  • Genre
    Comedy

Logline and summary

A shy elementary school boy finds a mysterious pendant necklace that can stop time for a short period. When he sees his father slowly dying at the hospital, he tries to keep him alive as long as possible.

  • Year
    2020
  • Set in Minnesota
  • Format
    Short film
  • Genres
    Drama
    Sci-Fi/Fantasy

Logline and summary

A young hiker’s chance of survival depends on the help of a high-functioning autistic child and a two-way radio.

  • Year
    2020
  • Format
    Short film
  • Genre
    Drama

Logline and summary

Planes, Planes, and Planes is a six-episode dramedy web series trailing Roger as he experiences the current state of air travel in the U.S. Problems we all know and experience every time we go to the airport pile up on Roger and threaten an end to his hard-earned career.

  • Year
    2023
  • Set in Minnesota
  • Format
    Web series pilot
  • Genres
    Drama
    Comedy

Logline and summary

Buried in snow, during the Halloween Blizzard of 1991, a young artist is thrust into the family business. She must use all her skills in snow removal to prove she can be the best of the Plow Boys.

  • Year
    2023
  • Format
    Web series pilot
  • Genre
    Action/Adventure

Logline and summary

A boy and an android run away from their homes, cross country, evading men in suits trying to retrieve them.

  • Year
    2019
  • Format
    Short film
  • Genres
    Drama
    Sci-Fi/Fantasy

Logline and summary

Everything falls apart for a broken family when their mother dies. They must convene in their childhood home to pick up the pieces.

  • Year
    2020
  • Format
    Feature film
  • Genre
    Drama

Logline and summary

A tough, reclusive woman is tormented and driven from her cabin by a malevolent entity during a snowstorm.

  • Year
    2023
  • Format
    Short film
  • Genre
    Horror

Logline and summary

As a group of screenwriting students try to write their own horror screenplays, a masked killer begins to pick them off one-by-one. The group must use their extensive knowledge of horror films to navigate common slasher tropes.

  • Year
    2023
  • Set in Minnesota
  • Format
    Feature film
  • Genres
    Comedy
    Horror

Logline and summary

When a headstrong young woman forced home from college due to the pandemic decides to spend afternoons holding up a Black Lives Matter sign at a gas station in her small MN hometown, the uproar finds her in the crosshairs of a sleepy yet belligerent town.

  • Year
    2021
  • Set in Minnesota
  • Format
    Web series pilot
  • Genres
    Drama
    Comedy

Logline and summary

When an anxious girl joins the Space Force Academy she must train to become a cadet while uncovering secrets about her father's supposed death.

  • Year
    2023
  • Format
    Web series pilot
  • Genres
    Drama
    Animated
    Sci-Fi/Fantasy

Logline and summary

A young man takes his shot at love, and misses completely. A stranger helps him find meaning in his misery.

  • Year
    2021
  • Set in Minnesota
  • Format
    Short film
  • Genre
    Other

Logline and summary

A Muslim teenager struggling with her identity and Islamophobia takes comfort from a guiding letter from a loved one...

  • Year
    2020
  • Set in Minnesota
  • Format
    Web series pilot
  • Genre
    Drama

Logline and summary

A self-absorbed fly thrives in the Richardson Family Garden without a care in the world. When he befriends his natural predator, he risks his wits and his survival.

  • Year
    2020
  • Set in Minnesota
  • Format
    Short film
  • Genres
    Drama
    Animated

Logline and summary

A heartwarming story about a boy and his mom struggling to understand each other and better their relationship after the loss of the father figure.

  • Year
    2022
  • Format
    Short film
  • Genre
    Drama

Logline and summary

The Wall, a tale from the streets, tells the story of the infamous homeless camp in south Minneapolis. It follows a struggling couple as they navigate the trials and tribulations of trying to find a way off the streets.

  • Year
    2023
  • Set in Minnesota
  • Format
    Web series pilot
  • Genre
    Drama

Logline and summary

A quiet young boy named Wyatt waits with his uncle in a bar for Wyatt's father, who is being released from prison.

  • Year
    2021
  • Set in Minnesota
  • Format
    Short film
  • Genre
    Drama

Logline and summary

Ellie is the aunt of Ann, a 5-year-old girl. In Ellie's past life she was a murderer, and now the spirits of her past life’s victims are coming back to haunt her.

  • Year
    2024
  • Format
    Short film
  • Genre
    Horror

Logline and summary

Alone and unsure of her new found powers, a young woman searches for her missing sister. Up against supernatural forces, she will risk everything to save her before time runs out.

  • Year
    2020
  • Format
    TV pilot
  • Genre
    Thriller

Logline and summary

This series follows two lifelong friends, Kevin and Stan, as they stumble through life by working day jobs and dabbling in convenience store robberies trying to get ahead in life. When will these two guys learn their lesson and grow-up?

  • Year
    2023
  • Format
    Web series pilot
  • Genres
    Drama
    Comedy

Logline and summary

Dash, a backwoods drug dealer, attempts suicide after unsuccessfully betraying his own drug family and the opposing French-Canadian cartel... Except Dash doesn’t die, rather suffering amnesia that leaves him a shell of the former douchebag he was. As the reformed Dash tries to remember his past, those he betrayed learn he’s still alive, each renewed for revenge against him for their own cunning futures.

  • Year
    2019
  • Format
    TV pilot
  • Genres
    Comedy
    Action/Adventure
    Thriller

About the Lakes List

The Lakes List is a collection of exemplary screenplays for movies, short films, web series and TV shows, all written by the screenwriting students and alumni of the Screenwriting Program at Metro State University in St. Paul, MN.

The Lakes List is created by Metro State Prof. Jeremy Bandow, who was inspired by other national screenwriting 'lists' - like the Black List, and the Red List - which highlight excellent screenplays and help connect screenwriters to producers.

The Lakes List mission is much the same, to connect our emerging writers and their stories with local & regional directors, producers, and actors looking for future film and TV projects to bring to life.

As new and improved tax credit incentive programs spur production and create a wellspring of film & TV opportunities in Minnesota, there is no better time to ensure that the stories that get told here are our own stories.

Read more about the new film production incentives in Minnesota.

Many of these scripts are Minnesota’s stories, written by local writers. All contribute to the diverse artistic and cinematic culture of Minnesota, and assist in reinforcing our thriving, vibrant, regional artistic identity.

Enjoy your visit. We hope you find a screenplay you like!

Contact us

For inquiries, and for access to a writer and their screenplay, please send an email to lakeslist@metrostate.edu.