The Grey List 2025 Showcases the Top Forty Over 40, Proving Creativity Has No Expiration Date

The 2025 edition of The Grey List is here, spotlighting the Top Forty Over 40—a curated collection of original, production-ready feature and pilot scripts from screenwriters over 40. Launched in 2022 by writer and filmmaker Brad M. Johnson’s Daisy If You Do Productions to push back against ageism in the entertainment industry, The Grey List continues to prove that great storytelling thrives at any age.

Going into their third year, 2025’s list features 40 exceptional, market-ready scripts from seasoned writers—along with a few special guests—and showcases an impressive range of genres, voices, and perspectives, resulting in fresh, compelling stories ready for production.

By opening a line of discourse on the topic of ageism, Johnson hopes the stigma of being an older writer can be repositioned. Instead of an obstacle to be overcome, a writer’s age can, and should, be viewed as a benefit to gatekeepers and showrunners of fresh perspectives and life experiences which can be brought to bear in a feature script or writers’ room.

“Over the last few years, we’ve had the privilege of reading some truly amazing scripts, and see nour writers be signed, have their script optioned, and even move into preproduction.,” says Johnson. “It’s a testament to the level of skill that writers with more lived experiences bring to the table, and proof that our goal here at The Grey List is one worth striving for. ”

The work represented within The Grey List was selected by a dedicated team of working creatives— including writers, actors, and directors—who combed through more than 350 scripts and evaluated each one based on concept and execution, as well as individual acclaim through contests, fellowships and other forms of third-party recognition, and personal recommendations from industry professionals.

The result is a diverse list of forty screenplays that not only cross lines of race, gender identity and sexual orientation, but also represent diversity from a career perspective, featuring work from writers at every level from actively working professionals, to repped writers still looking for their break, and emerging writers just starting out on the path to achieving their dreams.

The Grey List for 2025 can be seen here.

For more information on The Grey List and its work to push back against ageism in the entertainment industry, contact Brad M. Johnson at bradmckayjohnson@gmail.com, or on social media on Bluesky (@bradmjohnson.com) or X (@RWWFilm.)