The Best Screenplays/Writers Academy Awards
Facts and Trivia (2)
Other Leading Contenders for Most Writing Nominations
and Wins:
- Ben Hecht: (6 Nominations, 2 Wins)
Oscar wins: Underworld (1927/28), The Scoundrel (1935)
Nominations: Viva Villa! (1934),
Wuthering Heights (1939), Angels Over Broadway (1940),
Notorious (1946)
- Carl Foreman: (6 Nominations, 1 Win)
Oscar win:
The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
Nominations: Champion (1949), The Men (1950),
High Noon (1952), The Guns of Navarone (1961), Young
Winston (1972)
- Oliver Stone: (6 Nominations, 1 Win)
Oscar win: Midnight Express (1978)
Nominations: Platoon (1986), Salvador (1986), Born
on the Fourth of July (1989), JFK (1991), Nixon (1995)
- Robert Benton: (5 Nominations, 2 Wins)
Oscar wins: Kramer vs. Kramer (1979), Places in the Heart
(1984)
Nominations:
Bonnie and Clyde (1967), The Late Show (1977), Nobody's
Fool (1994)
- Joseph L. Mankiewicz: (5 Nominations, 2 Wins)
Oscar wins: A Letter to Three Wives (1949),
All About Eve (1950)
Nominations: Skippy (1930/31), No Way Out (1950), The Barefoot
Contessa (1954)
- Michael Wilson: (5 Nominations, 2 Wins)
Oscar wins: A Place in the Sun (1951),
The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) +
Nominations: 5 Fingers (1952), Friendly Persuasion (1956),
Lawrence of Arabia (1962) +
(+ Wilson was posthumously given his Oscar nominated credit - and
in the case of
The Bridge of the River Kwai (1957), his Oscar (in 1985) -
due to his blacklisting and working on each screenplay anonymously.
The credited and awarded screenwriter, Pierre Boule, could not speak
or write English.)
- Quentin Tarantino: (4 Nominations, 2 Wins)
Oscar wins: Pulp Fiction (1994), Django Unchained
(2012)
Nominations: Inglourious Basterds (2009), Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood
(2019)
- George Seaton: (4 Nominations, 2 Wins)
Oscar wins: Miracle on 34th
Street (1947), The Country Girl (1954)
Nominations: The Song of Bernadette (1943), Airport (1970)
- Stanley Shapiro: (4 Nominations, 1 Win)
Oscar wins: Pillow Talk (1959)
Nominations: Operation Petticoat (1959), Lover Come Back
(1961), That Touch of Mink (1962)
- Melvin Frank: (4 Nominations, 0 Wins)
Nominations: The Road to Utopia (1946), Knock on Wood (1954),
The Facts of Life (1960), A Touch of Class (1973)
- Edward Anhalt: (3 Nominations, 2 Wins)
Oscar wins: Panic in the Streets (1950), Becket (1964)
Nominations: The Sniper (1952)
- Dalton Trumbo: (3 Nominations, 2 Wins)
Oscar wins:
Roman Holiday (1953), The Brave One (1956)+
Nominations: Kitty Foyle (1940)
(+ Trumbo wrote The Brave One (1956) under the
pseudonym Robert Rich due to blacklisting, and received his award
shortly before his death in 1976.)
- Frances Marion: (3 Nominations, 2 Wins)
Oscar wins: The Big House (1929/30), The Champ (1931/32)
Nominations: The Prizefighter and the Lady (1932/33)
- Waldo Salt: (3 Nominations, 2 Wins)
Oscar wins:
Midnight Cowboy (1969), Coming Home (1978)
Nominations: Serpico (1973)
- Alvin Sargent: (3 Nominations, 2 Wins)
Oscar wins: Julia (1977), Ordinary People (1980)
Nominations: Paper Moon (1973)
- Ruth Prawer Jhabvala: (3 Nominations, 2 Wins)
Oscar wins: A Room with a View (1985), Howards End (1992)
Nominations: The Remains of the Day (1993)
- Alan Jay Lerner: (3 Nominations, 2 Wins)
Oscar wins:
An American in Paris (1951), Gigi
(1958)
Nominations: My Fair Lady (1964)
- Robert Bolt: (3 Nominations, 2 Wins)
Oscar wins: Doctor Zhivago (1965), A Man for All Seasons (1966)
Nominations:
Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
- Frank Cavett: (3 Nominations, 2 Wins)
Oscar wins: Going My Way (1944), The Greatest Show on Earth
(1952)
Nominations: Smash-Up, the Story of a Woman (1947)
- Horton Foote: (3 Nominations, 2 Wins)
Oscar wins:
To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), Tender Mercies (1983)
Nominations: The Trip to Bountiful (1985)
- Bo Goldman: (3 Nominations, 2 Wins)
Oscar wins:
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), Melvin and Howard
(1980)
Nominations: Scent of a Woman (1992)
Writers with Triple Wins for the Same Film:
A few writers/directors have accomplished the 'hat trick'
of triple Oscar wins as producer-director-writer:
Other Mosts:
- Toy Story (1995), nominated for Best
Original Screenplay, had the most screenwriters (7) attached
to an Oscar screenplay nominee
- Three films are tied for the
most screenwriters (4) attached to an Oscar screenplay winner
- Pygmalion (1938) (a winner in two categories: Best Adapted
Screenplay and Best Screenplay)
- Mrs. Miniver (1942) (for Best Screenplay)
- Pillow Talk (1959) (for Best Story and Screenplay)
Trivia for Academy Award Writing Nominations and
Wins: Firsts
- Because of confused Academy rules, Bess Meredyth
(for A Woman of Affairs (1928/29) and Wonder of Women
(1928/29))
and Josephine Lovett (for Our Dancing Daughters (1928/29))
were the first women to receive a screenplay "nomination,"
but they were not officially nominated
- Elliott Clawson was nominated (but not officially)
for four films in one ceremony, in 1928/29
(for The Cop; The Leatherneck; Sal of Singapore;
and Skyscraper)
- Frances Marion, a renowned and respected scriptwriter,
was the first woman to win a solo writing Oscar - Best
Screenplay for The Big House (1929/30). This win also
gave her the distinction of being the first woman to write
a Best Picture nominee. She duplicated this feat and became the first screenwriter
to win two screenwriting Oscars with her Best Original Story
win for The
Champ (1931/32). She was nominated only one other time - without
a win, for Best Original Screenplay for The Prizefighter and
the Lady (1932/33). [She scripted screenplays from the silent
era into the late 30s, for films such as Rebecca of Sunnybrook
Farm (1917), Anne of Green Gables (1919), Pollyanna
(1920),
Stella Dallas (1925), The Scarlet Letter (1926), Anna
Christie (1931), Dinner at Eight
(1933),
Camille (1936), and The Good Earth
(1937).]
- Sarah Y. Mason became the first woman to
be a co-winner of a screenplay award, Best Screenplay Adaptation
for
Little Women (1932/33). [Her co-winner was Victor Heerman.]
- Paul Green and Sonya Levien were the first
screenwriters to be nominated for a musical script (State Fair
(1932))
- Both Casey Robinson and Gregory Rogers were the first
and only write-in candidates for screenwriting (in the same
year) that were not official nominees, for Captain Blood (1935)
and G-Men (1935) respectively
- Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett became the first
screenwriters to be nominated for a sequel, After the Thin
Man (1936). [Its predecessor, The Thin
Man (1934), was also nominated for Best Screenplay Adaptation,
and written by the same duo.]
- Sidney Howard became the first post-humous
Oscar winner, for writing the screenplay for Gone
With the Wind (1939).
- Joan Harrison became the first screenwriter
to be nominated in two different categories in the same
year:
Rebecca (1940) (Best Screenplay)
and
Foreign Correspondent (1940) (Best
Original Screenplay). Both films were directed by Alfred Hitchcock
- Emeric Pressburger became the first (and
only) screenwriter to be nominated in three different
screenwriting categories in a single year: Best Original Story
(The
Invaders (1942) aka The 49th Parallel (win)), Best Original
Screenplay (One of Our Aircraft is Missing (1942)), and Best
Screenplay - Adapted (also for The Invaders (1942))
- George Froeschel, Claudine West and Arthur Wimperis
were the first trio of screenwriters to be nominated in
the
same year in the same category (Best Screenplay), for
Mrs. Miniver (1942) (with James Hilton, with whom they won)
and for Random Harvest (1942)
- Julius and Philip Epstein were the first (and
only) twins to win the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay,
for Casablanca
(1942)
- Benjamin Glazer became the first screenwriter
to win Best Screenplay for two different screenplay catagories:
Best Adapted Screenplay (Seventh Heaven (1927/28), the first
screenplay adaptation Oscar ever awarded) and Best Original Story
(Arise, My Love (1940))
- The visually compelling, Oscar-winning short film
with a minimal narrative, The Red Balloon (1956), won the
Best Original Screenplay Academy Award even though the screenplay
consisted of extremely sparse dialogue. It told about a young Parisian
boy and his unique bond with a red balloon.
- Divorce - Italian Style (1962) was the first
foreign language film to win a screenplay Oscar. Ugo Pirro was the
first foreign language screenwriter to have two nominations
in two categories in the same ceremony: The Garden of
the Finzi-Continis (1971) (Screenplay - Original) and Investigation
of a Citizen Above Suspicion (1970) (Screenplay - Adapted)
- Emma Thompson became the only individual to have
won an Academy Award for both acting (Best Actress for Howards
End (1992)) and screenwriting (Best Adapted Screenplay for Sense
and Sensibility (1995))
- In 2007, four female scriptwriters (all first-time nominees)
were nominated for individual screenplay honors:
Original Screenplay nomination: Diablo Cody for Juno,
Tamara Jenkins for The Savages, and Nancy Oliver for Lars
and the Real Girl
Adapted Screenplay nomination: Sarah Polley for Away From Her
- Geoffrey Fletcher became the first black
scriptwriter to win the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay, for Precious
(2009). He was the first African American to win
Best Screenplay (for either Original or Adapted). The next African-American
Oscar winner of Best Adapted Screenplay was John Ridley for 12
Years A Slave (2013).
- With his scriptwriting nominations for Silver
Linings Playbook (2012) and American Hustle (2013),
David O. Russell joined the ranks of six other filmmakers who
were nominated in back-to-back years for directing and writing:
Billy Wilder (Double
Indemnity (1944) and The
Lost Weekend (1945)), David Lean (Brief
Encounter (1946) and Great Expectations (1947)),
Joseph L. Mankiewicz (A Letter to Three Wives (1949) and All
About Eve (1950)), John Huston (The
Asphalt Jungle (1950) and The
African Queen (1951)), Richard Brooks (The Professionals
(1966) and In
Cold Blood (1967)), and Woody Allen (Annie
Hall (1977) and Interiors (1978)).
- As of 2017, only nine animated films have received
nominations for Best Original (O) or Adapted (A) Screenplay (and
eight of them were Disney/Pixar films). The nine nominees (none
of them won) included: Toy Story (1995) (O), Shrek
(2001) (A), Finding Nemo (2003) (O), The Incredibles
(2004) (O), Ratatouille (2007) (O), Wall-E (2008) (O), Up
(2009) (O), Toy Story 3 (2010) (A), and Inside Out
(2015) (O).
- African-American writer/director
Jordan Peele was nominated as Best Director for Get
Out (2017), his solo directorial debut film. Peele's nomination
for Best Director made him the fifth black director ever
nominated for the Oscar. He was also nominated
and received the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay - and became
the first African-American to earn this particular Oscar. He
was also honored as the producer of the Best Picture nominee. Therefore,
he was the first black filmmaker (and the third filmmaker
of all time, after Warren Beatty and James L. Brooks) ever nominated
for the trifecta of directing, writing, and producing in the
same year for his debut feature film.
- 89 year-old James Ivory, a four-time nominee
and well-known for his Merchant Ivory Productions and acclaimed
British period films, finally won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay
for Call Me By Your Name (2017), marking him as the oldest
Oscar winner to date. He had previously been nominated
three times as Best Director for A Room with a View (1985), Howards
End (1992), and The Remains of the Day (1993).
- The Best Picture-winning fantasy romance The
Shape of Water (2017) was only the second movie with
a credited female screenwriter (Vanessa Taylor with co-writer
Guillermo del Toro) to win Best Picture since World War II. [Note:
The first film was Best Picture-winning The
Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) - co-written
by two female screenwriters: Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens.]
- One of the X-Men franchise
superhero films, Logan (2017) was the first superhero film
to be nominated for a Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar.
- Spike Lee’s Oscar for his co-written Best
Adapted Screenplay for BlacKkKlansman
(2018) came 29 years after his first nomination for Best Original
Screenplay for Do the Right Thing (1989). Among screenwriters,
this was the second-longest gap between first nomination
and first win. Previously, there was a 34-year gap between The
Last Picture Show (1971) and Brokeback
Mountain (2005) for Larry McMurtry.
- The Best Picture winner Green Book (2018) was
the first film to win Best Original Screenplay for multiple screenwriters
who were all nominated as producers for Best Picture (Nick Vallelonga,
Brian Currie, Peter Farrelly).
- In 2019, the Best Original Screenplay Oscar awarded
to
Parasite (2019, S. Korea) was the first writing win for
an entirely Foreign-Language film since Talk to Her (2002,
Sp.),
and it was the first time Asian writers had ever won an Oscar.
And the Best Adapted Screenplay went to Maori indigenous film-maker
Taika Waititi for Jojo
Rabbit (2019), marking a year that two non-white scribes
received screenplay accolades.
- The 2010s was the first decade since the 1960s with zero female
writing Oscar winners.
- Sarah Polley’s Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar
for Women Talking (2022) has now been presented to women nine
times. Last year's winner was also female: Sian Heder for CODA
(2021).
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