Between 2007 and 2012 more than 100 new books on screenwriting have been accessioned to the United States Library of Congress. The present work reviews 68 of these books and another 27 manuals on screenwriting published since 1979, the year of publication of The Foundations of Screenwriting, Syd Field's seminal work on this discipline. This article seeks to explore the range of Aristotle's influence on these manuals and to suggest that there should be a second reading of Poetics, that considers not only its didactic and technical dimension, but also that pertaining to philosophy and wisdom, and thus the professional interest for writers and viewers. © 2014 Communication and Society / Comunicación y Sociedad.