32 Scottish screenwriters

Lin (Linda) Anderson is a Tartan Noir crime novelist and screenwriter, best known as the creator of forensic scientist Rhona MacLeod. As of 2010 the Rhona MacLeod books are being developed for ITV.

Gillian Berrie is a film producer and co-founder of the Glasgow-based production company Sigma Films with director David Mackenzie.

James Bridie was the pseudonym of the renowned Scottish playwright, screenwriter and physician whose real name was Osborne Henry Mavor. He took his pen-name from his paternal grandfather's first name and his grandmother's maiden name.

David Dalrymple Butler was a Scottish writer of numerous screenplays and teleplays who won a Primetime Emmy Award and was nominated for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award.

David Byrne is a British-American singer, songwriter, musician, record producer, artist, actor, writer, music theorist, and filmmaker, who was a founding member and the principal songwriter, lead singer, and guitarist of the American new wave band Talking Heads.

Peter Dougan Capaldi is a Scottish actor and filmmaker. He portrayed the twelfth incarnation of the Doctor in Doctor Who (2013–2017) and Malcolm Tucker in The Thick of It, for which he has received four British Academy Television Award nominations, winning Best Male Comedy Performance in 2010. When he reprised the role of Tucker in the feature film In the Loop, Capaldi was honoured with several film critic award nominations for Best Supporting Actor.

(Lucius) Alexander Plantagenet Cary, Master of Falkland, is an English screenwriter, producer, and ex-soldier.

Hugo Francis Guy Charteris MC was a noted Scottish novelist and screenwriter. Charteris wrote nine novels, 17 television screenplays and numerous children's books and short stories.

John Gerald Collee is a Scottish screenwriter whose film scripts include Master and Commander (2003), Happy Feet (2006), Creation (2009), and Walking with Dinosaurs (2013). He is also a journalist and a novelist. Collee practised medicine and wrote several novels before he became a full-time screenwriter. He is married to Deborah Snow, with whom he has three children.

Archibald Joseph Cronin was a Scottish physician and novelist. His best-known novel The Citadel (1937) tells of a Scottish doctor in a Welsh mining village, who later shoots up the career ladder in London. Cronin had seen the venues as a medical inspector of mines and later as a doctor in Harley Street. The book promoted still controversial ideas on medical ethics and helped to inspire the National Health Service. Another popular mining novel of his, set in the North East of England, is The Stars Look Down. Both have been filmed, as have Hatter's Castle, The Keys of the Kingdom and The Green Years. His novella Country Doctor instigated a long-running BBC radio and TV series, Dr. Finlay's Casebook, which was revived many years later.

Alan Cumming is a Scottish-American actor, comedian, singer, writer, filmmaker, and activist who has acted in numerous films, television shows, and plays. His London stage appearances include Hamlet, the Maniac in Accidental Death of an Anarchist, the lead in Bent, and The National Theatre of Scotland's The Bacchae. On Broadway, he has appeared in The Threepenny Opera, as the master of ceremonies in Cabaret, Design for Living and a one-man adaptation of Macbeth. His best-known film roles include his performances in Emma, GoldenEye, the Spy Kids trilogy, Son of the Mask, and X2. Cumming also introduces Masterpiece Mystery! for PBS and appeared on The Good Wife, for which he has been nominated for three Primetime Emmy Awards, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, two Golden Globe Awards and a Satellite Award. A filming of his Las Vegas cabaret show, Alan Cumming Sings Sappy Songs, aired on PBS stations in November 2016.

Michael Ferns is a Scottish film director and screenwriter. He is best known for his debut feature film Kirk about the life of Reverend Robert Kirk of Aberfoyle. The film won the 'Best Independent Feature' at the Festival of Fantastic Films and also earned Ferns the 'Best Director' award at the 2010 British Academy Scotland New Talent Awards.

William David Forsyth is a Scottish film director and writer known for his films Gregory's Girl (1981), Local Hero (1983) and Comfort and Joy (1984).

George MacDonald Fraser was a Scottish author and screenwriter. He is best known for a series of works that featured the character Flashman.

Frank Hannah is a Scottish-born screenwriter and filmmaker.

Paul Laverty is a screenwriter and lawyer best known for his screenplays for films directed by Ken Loach.

Frank William George Lloyd was a British-born American film director, actor, scriptwriter, and producer. He was among the founders of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and was its president from 1934 to 1935.

Alistair Stuart MacLean was a 20th-century Scottish novelist who wrote popular thrillers and adventure stories. His works include The Guns of Navarone, Ice Station Zebra and Where Eagles Dare – all three were made into popular films. He also published two novels under the pseudonym Ian Stuart. His books are estimated to have sold over 150 million copies, making him one of the best-selling fiction authors of all time.

Andy S. McEwan is a Scottish screenwriter and film director.

Allison McGourty is an award-winning film producer and screenwriter.

Ryan McHenry was a Scottish film director best known for the film Zombie Musical in which he received a nomination for the Best Director accolade at the 2011 British Academy Scotland New Talent Awards.

Lorna Moon was a Scottish author and screenwriter from the early days of Hollywood. She is best known as the author of the bestselling novel Dark Star (1929) and as one of the earliest and most successful female screenwriters. As a screenwriter, she developed screenplays for notables including Gloria Swanson, Norma Shearer, Lionel Barrymore and Greta Garbo.

Ewan Morrison is a Scottish author and screenwriter, described as "the most fluent and intelligent writer of his generation here in Scotland" by Booker judge Stuart Kelly.

Peter Mullan is a Scottish actor and filmmaker. He is best known for his role in Ken Loach's My Name Is Joe (1998), for which he won Best Actor Award at 1998 Cannes Film Festival, and The Claim (2000). He is also winner of the World Dramatic Special Jury Prize for Breakout Performances at 2011 Sundance Film Festival for his work on Paddy Considine's Tyrannosaur (2011). Mullan appeared as supporting or guest actor in numerous cult movies, including Riff-Raff (1991), Braveheart (1995), Trainspotting (1996), Young Adam (2003), Children of Men (2006), War Horse (2011) and the Harry Potter film series (2010–11).

John Niven is a Scottish author and screenwriter. His books include Kill Your Friends, The Amateurs, and The Second Coming.

Marianna Bronislawa Barbara Palka is a Scottish actress, producer, director, and writer. She is the writer, director and star of the film Good Dick, which screened at the Sundance Film Festival.

Chris Quick is a Scottish editor and producer of independent films. His editing credits includes Autumn Never Dies, In Search of La Che, Mountain and The Greyness of Autumn which also marked his directorial debut. In July 2019, he became the director of the Glasgow Filmmakers Alliance after serving as the deputy director to Andrew O'Donnell who stepped down from the role after nearly 8 years.

Lynne Ramsay is a Scottish film director, writer, producer, and cinematographer best known for the feature films Ratcatcher (1999), Morvern Callar (2002), We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011), and You Were Never Really Here (2017).

Henry MacLeod Robertson, often credited as Harry Robinson, was a Scottish musician, bandleader, music director and composer. He worked as a musical director on British television shows in the 1950s and 1960s, and also arranged for theatre shows and films, notably those of the Hammer production company.

William Pettigrew Templeton was a Scottish playwright and screenwriter who made a major contribution to the Golden Age of Television writing a string of episodic dramas for American prime time television during the 1950s and 1960s, a time when many hour-long anthology drama series received wide critical acclaim. Templeton had a long film career both in the UK and the US. His adaptation of The Fallen Idol a 1948 film with Ralph Richardson directed by Carol Reed and based on the short story The Basement Room by Graham Greene was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Direction and Best Adapted Screenplay, and won a BAFTA Award for Best British Film.

Margaret Turnbull was a Scottish novelist, playwright and screenwriter in silent films.

Keith Graham Warwick is a Scottish actor and musician. Keith received his Masters Degree in Classical and Contemporary Text from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in 2015. He is best known for the role of Trent Clements in the Royal Television Society award-winning series My Parents Are Aliens. He has toured the world as a musician and has lived in both Paris and New York.