How long does your script actually run?

One page equals one minute is close enough to be dangerous. Drop in your script and get a real estimate with the range it deserves, plus the thing the rule hides: how much of your film is people talking, and how much is everything else.

Drop your screenplay here

You can also pick a file from your computer.

PDF, Final Draft (.fdx), Fountain (.fountain, .spmd) and plain text. Nothing is uploaded.

Why one page is not one minute

Across thousands of finished films, the average script runs about 1.1 pages for every minute on screen, so a page is closer to 55 seconds than to 60. The rule is roughly right for a balanced script and drifts by 15 to 20 percent as soon as a script leans hard towards dialogue or hard towards action.

That is why this gives you a range rather than a number, and why it shows you the split. A script that is three quarters dialogue is not wrong, but it will not time like the rule says, and it is better to know that before someone else tells you.

Write it, then time it again.

Screenplay Editor formats your script while you type in Google Docs, so the page count you are timing is a real page count and not an accident of margins. It is free to start.

Install it
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Questions about running time

I write my own films in Google Docs, so I built the tools I kept wishing existed.

Ask me something
How accurate is a page count as a runtime?
For a script with a normal balance of dialogue and action it lands within about five percent. Outside that it drifts by fifteen to twenty percent, which is why this tool gives a range and shows you which way your script leans.
How long is a 90 page screenplay?
About 82 minutes, taking a page as 55 seconds rather than 60. If the script is dialogue heavy it will play longer than that, and if it is action heavy it will usually play shorter.
Does it count the title page?
No. A title page is not screen time, so it is left out of the count.
Is my script uploaded?
No. The reading happens in this page on your own computer, and nothing is stored anywhere.

The other free tools

Open your screenplay in Google Docs

A PDF, a Final Draft file or a Fountain file becomes a document that opens already formatted.

Check your format before you send it

The notes a reader would write, before a reader writes them.

Turn your script into a breakdown sheet

Every scene, its location, its time of day and its cast, in a coloured spreadsheet.

Lay out your beats and start writing

Fifteen beats at their real page numbers, in a document already divided.

Make a title page that looks right

Four fields, and the title page a reader expects.

See who carries your script

Who speaks, how much, in how many scenes, from which page to which.