Award-winning screenplays

Award winning screenplays. Best Original Screenplay Oscar Winners of the 21st Century Ranked, From ‘Her’ to ‘Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind’

he Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay is the Academy Award for the best screenplay not based upon previously published material. It was created for 1940 as a separate writing award from the Academy Award for Best Story. Beginning with the Oscars for 1957, the two categories were combined to honor only the screenplay. In 2002, the name of the award was changed from Writing (Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen) to Writing (Original Screenplay)

original screenplays

Woody Allen has the most nominations in this category with 16, and the most awards with 3, though Paddy Chayefsky won the Best Adapted Screenplay in 1955 for his adaptation of his teleplay, Marty, and also won for Original Screenplay for The Hospital and Network. Woody Allen also holds the record as the oldest winner (at age 76 for Midnight in Paris, 2011).[3]

Ben Affleck is the youngest winner, at the age of 25 for Good Will Hunting; he co-wrote the screenplay with Matt Damon (age 27 at the time of their award).

Richard Schweizer was the first to win for a foreign-language film, Marie-Louise. Other winners for a non-English screenplay include Albert LamorissePietro GermiClaude Lelouch, and Pedro Almodóvar. Lamorisse is additionally the only person to win or even be nominated for Best Original Screenplay for a short film (The Red Balloon, 1956).

Muriel Box was the first woman to win in this category; she shared the award with her husband, Sydney Box, for the 1945 film The Seventh Veil. The Boxes are also the first married couple to win in this category. Only three other married couples won an Oscar in another category—Earl W. Wallace and Pamela Wallace (for Original Screenplay), Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh (for Adapted Screenplay and Picture), and Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez (for Original Song).

In 1996, Joel Coen and Ethan Coen became the only siblings to win in this category (for Fargo). Francis Ford Coppola (Patton, 1970) and Sofia Coppola (Lost in Translation, 2003) are the only father-daughter pair to win.

Preston Sturges was nominated for two different films in the same year (1944): Hail the Conquering Hero and The Miracle of Morgan’s CreekOliver Stone achieved the same distinction in 1986, for Platoon and SalvadorMaurice Richlin and Stanley Shapiro were nominated in 1959 for both Operation Petticoat and Pillow Talk and won for the latter.

At the 2018 ceremony, Get Out writer-director Jordan Peele became the first African-American to win in this category.

List of screenplays

get out manchester by the sea kenneth lonergan birdman alejandro g. inarritu

her spike jonze

django quentin tarantino

midnight in paris woody allen

hurt locker mark boal

milk dustin lance black

juno diablo cody

little miss sunshine michael arndt

crash paul haggis & bobby moresco

eternal sunshine of the spotless mind charlie kaufman

lost in translation sofia coppola

talk to her pedro almodovar

gosford park julian fellows

almost famous cameron crowe

american beauty alen ball

shakespeare in love marc norman & tom stoppard

good will hunting ben affleck & matt damon

fargo ethan coen & joel coen

the usual suspects christopher mcquarrie

pulp fiction quentin tarantino & roger avery

the piano jane champion

the crying game neil jordan

thelma & louise callie khouri

ghost bruce joel rubin

dead poets society tom schulman

rain man ronald bass & barry morrow

moonstruck john patrick shanley

hannah and her sisters woody allen

witness earl w. wallace, william kelley & pamela wallace

places in the heart robert benton

tender mercies horton foote

ghandi john briley

ernestia fraser screenplays

chariots of fire colin welland

melvin and howard bo goldman

breaking away steve tesich

coming home nancy down waldo salt & robert jones

annie hall woody allen & marshall brickman

network paddy chayefsky

dog day afternoon frank person

chinatown robert towne

the sting david s ward

the candidate jeremy larner

hospital paddy cheyefsky

patton francis ford coppola & edmund h north

butch cassidy and the sundance kid william goldman

the producers mel brooks

gues who’s coming to dinner william rose

a man and a woman claude lelouch & pierre uytterhoeven

darling frederic raphael

father goose barnett peter stone frank tarloff

how the west was won james r. webb

divorce italian style ennio de concini alfredo giannetti pietro germi

splendor in the grass william inge

pillow talk russell rouse claren greene stanley shapiro maurice richlin

the defiant ones nedrick young harold jacob smith

designing woman george wells

the brave one dalton trumbo robert rich

the red balloon albert lamorisse

love me or leave me

marty paddy chayefsky

broken lance phillip yordan

roman holiday dalton trumbo ian mclellan hunter

the greatest show on earth frederic m. frank theodore st. john frank cavett

seven to noon paul dehn & james bernard

panic in the streets edna & edward anhalt

the stratton story douglas morrow

the search richard schweizer & david wechsler

miracle on 34th street valentine davies

the house on 92nd street charles g booth

going my way leo mccarey

the human comedy william saroyan

the invaders emeric pressburger

citizen kane herman j mankiewicz & orson wells

the great mcginty preston sturges

mr. smith goes to washington lewis r. foster

boys town dore schary & eleanore griffin

a star is born william a wellman & robert carson

the story of lewis pasteur pierre colllings & sheridan gibney

the scoundrel ben hecht & charle macarthur

it happened one night robert riskin

little women vistor heerman & sarah y. mason

bad girl edwin burke

cimarron howard estabrook

the big house frances marion

the patriot hans kraly

underworld ben hect

7th heaven benjamin glazer