Loglines & Screenplays by Donald Lewis

GENRES: Thriller, Crime

When a beloved pastor is murdered, his brothers -- a state trooper and an ex-con on the rebound -- take to the streets of Chicago's South Side to bring his killer to justice, only to unearth a scheme to displace the community's minority residents.

Finalist, 2025 Stage 32 Feature Drama Screenwriting Contest

GENRES: Film-noir, Thriller

After winning a lottery ticket worth $6.5 million, a small town housewife hides it from her abuser husband, planning to burn it in front of him on the day of its expiration, until she realizes her more empowering path is his murder.

GENRES: Thriller, Drama

When a biracial lawyer discovers his African American family on an ancestry website, his loving younger sister invites him to the annual reunion, their bitter older sister summoning the supernatural to destroy him over his origin story -- their deceased father's love for a white woman.

GENRES: Thriller

A needy 12-year-old boy and his mother's boyfriend conspire to create a family, leading to the mother's murder and the boy's fight for his future and redemption.

GENRES: Thriller

In leafy suburbia, a preppy teen beauty takes a bullied outcast under her sophomore wing, inadvertently opening a Pandora's box of working class revenge.

GENRES: Film-noir, Thriller

An avenging daughter plots to execute her father when he's released from prison for her mother's murder, but her mother's spirit has more ambitious plans.

GENRES: Drama, Historical

Two 11-year old boys -- one white, one black -- fight against their oppression in a Catholic orphanage and run away, only to escape into the oppression of 1968 Chicago.

GENRES: Drama, Sports

In a downtown Chicago hotel on the day of the NBA Draft, eight guys take on race, basketball and what it means to be a man, balling on the court of explosive racial politics.

(adapted from my stage play, which Daily Variety called "powerful and provocative")

GENRES: Comedy, Drama

Two gals in their golden years -- a straight-laced businesswoman and a free-spirited eccentric -- meet in Taos, New Mexico, finding love, adventure and purpose on a cantankerous road to Chicago.

GENRES: Drama, Comedy, Romance

A single mom navigates through the pain of romance and fear of her jazz piano talent, driving a night bus in the big city, when a pain in the ass law student challenges her to reimagine her life.

GENRES: Comedy, Romance

A self-absorbed law firm manager acquires boyfriends for the sole purpose of working on her aging parents' home, only to fall for a pro skateboarder past his prime who can't fix anything -- except her heart.

GENRES: Comedy, Romance

On the cusp of high school, a small town boy's first love faces first bust when his nemesis middle school principal begins dating the new high school principal -- his crush's mother.

GENRES: Comedy

When a college basketball star loses her scholarship to a sorority vendetta, a group of off-campus slackers take her in and fight the power to get her back in school, becoming student movers.

GENRES: Horror

A deteriorating movie palace learns that developers have plans to convert it into a mall, forcing it to take the only action it can -- deadly defiance.

GENRES: Thriller, Drama

A doll searches for answers when her young owner doesn't return, revealing dark, disturbing secrets a doll shouldn't have to know.

(adapted from my nationally produced stage play)

GENRES: Drama

Paranoia takes root when a white suburban woman repeatedly receives business cards from a Mexican landscaper through her front door mail slot, sending her on a frantic mission to stop the invasion of her home.

GENRES: Drama

A businessman helps an elderly woman cross the street, opening his troubled heart to her and changing his life.

GENRES: Drama, Comedy

Struggling through stages of political grief, a working man finds that all is not lost -- there's always more to lose.

GENRES: Comedy

A nerdy guy confidentially obsesses about the girl on the other side of his apartment wall, till the girl's new beau forces him out of his comfort zone.