Search results
The Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay is the Academy Award (also known as an Oscar) for the best screenplay not based upon previously published material. It was created in 1940 as a separate writing award from the Academy Award for Best Story .
- Overview
- 1920s and 1930s
- 1940s and 1950s
- 1960s and 1970s
- 1980s and 1990s
- 2000s and 2010s
- 2020s
award presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, located in Beverly Hills, California. It honors outstanding achievement by screenwriters for an original screenplay (not one adapted from another work, such as a play or novel) from a given year, as determined by the academy’s voting members.
At the inaugural Academy Awards ceremony, in 1929, the award recognized the work in films released from August 1, 1927, to August 1, 1928. The next four ceremonies honored work in films released from August to July. The 6th ceremony honored work from August to December, and beginning with the 7th ceremony (1935), only work in movies released the previous calendar year was eligible for consideration.
This award has had a complicated history. In the first ceremony (1927–28), an award was given for best original story; an award for title writing was also given. A story was a prose narration of the action in the film that typically would later be converted to a screenplay by another screenwriter. In the second and third ceremonies (1928–30), an award was given for best writing, with no distinction between original work and adaptations. From the 4th (1930–31) to the 12th (1939) ceremonies, an award was again given for best original story, with a screenplay award that was the equivalent of the modern award for best adapted screenplay. Starting with the 13th ceremony (1940), original writing received two awards, one for best original story and one for best original screenplay, with the exception of the 21st ceremony (1948), wherein only one award was given, for best screenplay. A separate award for best story and screenplay was added for the 22nd ceremony (1949), and the category for best story was dropped as a separate award in the 30th ceremony (1957). The “story” was dropped from the name of the award at the 47th ceremony (1974), and the award had various names before it finally settled on best original screenplay at the 75th ceremony (2002). The winning screenwriters are given a gold-plated statuette known as an Oscar.
Woody Allen has won the most Academy Awards for best original screenplay (three). Below is a list of the winning screenwriters and the films for which they won. The years indicate when the eligible films were released.
•1927–28: original story: Ben Hecht (Underworld); title writing: Joseph Farnham (no specific film was mentioned); special award: Charles Chaplin for acting, writing, directing, and producing The Circus
•1928–29: none
•1929–30: writing: Frances Marion (The Big House)
•1930–31: original story: John Monk Saunders (The Dawn Patrol)
•1931–32: original story: Frances Marion (The Champ)
•1932–33: original story: Robert Lord (One Way Passage)
•1940: original story: Benjamin Glazer and John S. Toldy (Arise, My Love); original screenplay: Preston Sturges (The Great McGinty)
•1941: original story: Harry Segall (Here Comes Mr. Jordan); original screenplay: Herman J. Mankiewicz and Orson Welles (Citizen Kane)
•1942: original motion picture story: Emeric Pressburger (49th Parallel; released in the Uunited States as The Invaders); original screenplay: Ring Lardner, Jr., and Michael Kanin (Woman of the Year)
•1943: original motion picture story: William Saroyan (The Human Comedy), original screenplay: Norman Krasna (Princess O’Rourke)
•1944: original motion picture story: Leo McCarey (Going My Way); original screenplay: Lamar Trotti (Wilson)
•1945: original motion picture story: Charles G. Booth (The House on 92nd Street); original screenplay: Richard Schweizer (Marie-Louise)
•1960: story and screenplay: Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond (The Apartment)
•1961: story and screenplay: William Inge (Splendor in the Grass)
•1962: story and screenplay: Ennio de Concini, Alfredo Giannetti, and Pietro Germi (Divorce—Italian Style)
•1963: story and screenplay: James R. Webb (How the West Was Won)
•1964: story and screenplay: story by S.H. Barnett, screenplay by Peter Stone and Frank Tarloff (Father Goose)
•1965: story and screenplay: Frederic Raphael (Darling)
•1980: Bo Goldman (Melvin and Howard)
•1981: Colin Welland (Chariots of Fire)
•1982: John Briley (Gandhi)
•1983: Horton Foote (Tender Mercies)
•1984: Robert Benton (Places in the Heart)
•1985: story by William Kelley and Pamela and Earl W. Wallace, screenplay by Earl W. Wallace and William Kelley (Witness)
•2000: Cameron Crowe (Almost Famous)
•2001: Julian Fellowes (Gosford Park)
•2002: Pedro Almodóvar (Talk to Her)
•2003: Sofia Coppola (Lost in Translation)
•2004: story by Charlie Kaufman, Michel Gondry, and Pierre Bismuth, screenplay by Charlie Kaufman (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind)
•2005: story by Paul Haggis, screenplay by Paul Haggis and Bobby Moresco (Crash)
•2020: Emerald Fennell (Promising Young Woman)
•2021: Kenneth Branagh (Belfast)
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Mar 12, 2021 · The Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay is the Award for the best screenplay not based upon previously published material. It was created in 1940 as a separate writing award from the Academy Award for Best Story.
Preston Sturges won the first Original Screenplay Award for the political screwball comedy spoof The Great McGinty (the film's sole nomination and award) about city hall graft, Sturges' directorial debut film.
1. The Great McGinty. 1940 1h 22m Approved. 7.3 (4.4K) Rate. Dan McGinty has great success in his chosen field of crooked politics, but he endangers it all in one crazy moment of honesty. Director Preston Sturges Stars Brian Donlevy Muriel Angelus Akim Tamiroff. 2. Citizen Kane. 1941 1h 59m PG. 8.3 (468K) Rate. 100 Metascore.