As stated on the Must Watch page, I think Roger Ebert's DVD commentary on Citizen Kane is mandatory viewing. Ebert comments on everything from camera angles to script lines to Welles' own character flaws. Great info!

Thank you, chrisoakes. I've been hoping we'd get some good DVD commentary recommendations on here. My own rec: Lindsay Doran's TEXxConejo2012 talk (video) on what makes movie endings satisfying: Saving the World vs Kissing the Girl (pertinent to all genres but especially to drama).

I've given these recommendations before but: The STAR TREK: GENERATIONS commentary with screenwriters Ron Moore and Brannon Braga is amazingly candid. The two are merciless when it comes to copping to their own mistakes and discuss why certain elements of the script ended up the way they did. It's a great look at the process and really informative. It's neither a love-fest nor a "someone else is responsible for everything that sucks" session. I think every writer would learn something from it. Their commentary on STAR TREK: FIRST CONTACT is also pretty good. The TERMINATOR 2 commentary is pretty comprehensive, bringing in not only the writer and director, but an entire host of behind-the-scenes folks. All of the STAR WARS films follow suit. I rather enjoy Richard Donner and Tom Mankiewicz on SUPERMAN. They cover a lot of gerat stories about not only developing the project but the difficult process of getting it made. Along the lines of the Moore/Braga GENERATIONS commentary, SUPERMAN IV has writer Mark Rosenthal performing an autopsy on everything that doesn't work about the film and why. Wes Craven usually gives good commentary, particularly on SCREAM with Kevin Williamson and on RED EYE. THE WIZARD OF OZ set has a really interesting commentary pulled together from archive interviews and a new commentary from a film historian. And I can't overlook Joel Schumacher flat-out apologizing for the film on the commentary for BATMAN & ROBIN

It's great to get these recommendations, Bitter Script Reader. Thanks very much. We looked at action genre essentials at the beginning of the series, and we'll be looking at sci fi, horror, and fantasy in the weeks ahead. Do you feel like some of these might work well in those genre discussions, or do the specifics of the commentaries lend themselves more to drama? (I'm worried the question is going to come across as annoying, and I don't mean it that way--this is when I hate the limitations of text communication; I'm not familiar with any of these commentaries and so I don't know if you make the recommendations as great DVD commentaries in general, or specifically with drama in mind.)

Fair question, as I neglected to notice these were specifically Drama-based. I think most of them work well in general and in their specific subgeneres. Particularly when you have the screenwriters there, there tends to be a fair amount of talk about writing in general. It's not so much that you get a "here's how to write a sci-fi" movie, so much as you get "This is what makes for good drama and script writing." The Moore/Braga one specifically is good because they discuss why two character-driven subplots don't really work. Another recurring theme is that they were often so focused on doing something unique and defying expectations that they ended up making choices that didn't work. I think that's definitely a universal message outside the Sci-Fi sub-genre, but then perhaps there should be a master list of Great Commentaries regardless of genre? But yeah, I didn't really pay attention to the Drama sub-catagory, so sorry about that.

No worries, and thanks for the clarification. I agree: the best screenwriter commentaries are going to be transcend genre in most cases and be useful to study regardless of category. It looks like we're going to build up a great commentaries list as a side effect of the genre essential project--at least I hope so, and so far it's shaping up that way. (The recommendations that have already come in so far for action and comedy are here: action resources and comedy resources.) As you can see, we're still really light on drama-specific suggestions. If you have any up your sleeve...