The Turner/MGM scripts span the years 1918-1986 and encompass approximately 1,378 linear feet. The collection provides comprehensive coverage of MGM's feature film output from the company's earliest days through the acquisition of its film library by Turner in 1986. A total of 1,839 feature films is represented. Some of these films pre-date the 1924 formation of MGM and include scripts dating back to 1918 from Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures, and Louis B. Mayer Productions, plus original source material from earlier years. Among the authors and playwrights who at one time worked at MGM and are represented are F. Scott Fitzgerald, John O'Hara, James M. Cain, Dorothy Parker, Dashiell Hammett, P. G. Wodehouse, Aldous Huxley, and William Saroyan. Screenwriters include Ben Hecht, Frances Marion, Donald Ogden Stewart, Joseph L. Mankiewicz, Dalton Trumbo, John Lee Mahin, Ring Lardner Jr., Paddy Chayefsky, Garson Kanin, and Ruth Gordon. Noteworthy items include a handwritten first draft script for Meet Me in St. Louis (1944), individual two- and three-page script fragments used for the vaudeville "tryouts" of material for the Marx Brothers' A NIGHT AT THE OPERA (1935), and dozens of treatments and drafts for THE WOMEN (1939). Films represented include BEN-HUR (1959), DINER (1982), DINNER AT EIGHT (1933), DOCTOR ZHIVAGO (1965), GIGI (1958), MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY (1962), NETWORK (1976), NORTH BY NORTHWEST (1959), THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE (1946), SHAFT (1971), SINGIN' IN THE RAIN (1952), and 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (1968). TEC has retained all original script material for GONE WITH THE WIND (1939) and THE WIZARD OF OZ (1939).

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer was formed in 1924 when the theater circuit Loew's Inc., owner of Metro Pictures Corporation, acquired Goldwyn Pictures Corporation and Louis B. Mayer Pictures and subsequently merged the three companies. The Culver City studio soon became one of the strongest and most prestigious of the major production companies, superior both in profits and in critical acclaim throughout most of the 1930s and 1940s. During the 1950s changes brought about by the Paramount consent decree eventually rendered the studio system obsolete, and MGM, which had once dominated that system, suffered a slow decline. The studio was purchased in 1970 by Kirk Kerkorian, who sold off most of its assets and, in 1973, shut down the distribution arm of the company. Ted Turner purchased MGM in 1986, then immediately sold the studio to Lorimar Pictures while retaining the film library and script material (see Turner/MGM scripts). Acquired by a consortium of investors in 2005, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Inc. continues to function as a film production and distribution company out of its Century City, California headquarters.

Turner Entertainment Company (TEC), a subsidiary of Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. (TBS), was formed in August 1986 following TBS's acquisition of the MGM library. The company, originally headquartered in Culver City, California, was formed to service the film libraries of MGM, RKO (domestic syndication rights), and Warner Bros. (pre-1950). Time-Warner later took over that function when it acquired TEC in the 1990s. Media mogul Ted Turner, vice chairman of Time-Warner, founded CNN, TBS, and Turner Network Television (TNT). Roger Mayer, an MGM executive for more than 25 years, is president and chief operating officer of TEC.