TrackingB Script Contests

Closed for this cycle

The 2026-27 cycle is under way and both public entry windows have already closed, each filling on capacity ahead of its published deadline. The Black List portal opened 8 June 2026 and shut around 19 June on its 2,500 cap, well before the 6 July date the Academy had published; the Writers Guild Foundation portal opened 22 June and filled its 2,000 places before its 20 July deadline. Fellows are awarded in spring 2027. There is no stable annual pattern to plan around: under the old open-entry model the contest opened in January or February with a March to May ladder, while the two cycles under the partner model opened in mid-May 2025 and early June 2026. The practical advice is to watch for the Academy's partner announcement press release, which came on 8 June for this cycle, and enter the same week. Waiting for the published deadline is how people miss it.

Closed for this cycle

The window for the January 2027 programme ran 1 to 21 June 2026 and is closed. No further window has been announced.

Closed for this cycle

The 2026 competitions closed early: Austin states that submission volume reached capacity in all categories ahead of the published late deadline of 27 May, so the effective close fell somewhere between 1 and 27 May and no exact date was published. Winners are announced on 31 October 2026, with reader comments sent by mid-November. The 2027 competitions open in December 2026, which Austin has published. The annual shape is reliable across four evidenced cycles: entries open in the first half of December (7 December 2022, early December 2023, 9 December 2024 and 8 December 2025), early bird lands in late March, regular in mid-to-late April, and the late deadline in the last days of May. All deadlines close at 11:59pm Central. Winners are announced at the Awards Luncheon during the festival in late October or early November. Two changes make the late deadline less dependable than it looks. The capacity cap is new for 2026, pre-announced and then triggered for the first time, and the Extended tier that existed in 2023, 2024 and 2025 was abolished. Deadlines have also tightened year on year, from a late deadline extended to 31 May in both 2023 and 2024, to a firm 28 May in 2025 and 27 May in 2026. Enter early: the published date is now a ceiling rather than a promise.

Closed for this cycle

The 2026 round opened on 6 April and closed on 25 May 2026 at 11:59pm Eastern, with winners announced at the Virginia Film Festival in October. This has one of the most predictable calendars we have found: across four consecutive cycles the closing date has fallen on US Memorial Day, the last Monday in May, every single year, with entries opening in early April in three of those four. No extensions are ever granted. One small note for verification: only the 2026 cycle published a timezone; earlier years stated 11:59pm with no zone.

Closed for this cycle

The eleventh annual round closed on 16 February 2026 at 11:59pm Pacific at a fee of 70 dollars, with the lab running April through May 2026. The calendar is consistent: a mid-February final deadline in each of the last two cycles, both falling on a Monday, an April to May lab, and seven fellows selected each time. The pricing has drifted, though: the previous cycle offered a cheaper 60 dollar regular tier alongside the 70 dollar final deadline, and the most recent cycle published only the 70 dollar tier, so the cheaper route disappeared. Curriculum length has also changed from eight weeks to seven.

Closed for this cycle

Registration for the first India edition closed at 23:59 IST on 1 September 2026. Selected writers are announced on 15 December 2026, every applicant hears by email in December, and the workshop begins in February 2027. NextGen is a travelling programme that changes shape per territory (France, then the Netherlands, then India), so do not expect a second India cycle unless Netflix announces one.