The Best Screenplay and Writing

The Best Screenplay and WritingAcademy Awards

The Category of Screenplay and Writing Awards:

See this site's

101 Greatest Film Screenplays of All-Time

One indicator of the types of screenplays that are nominated for awards is within the BestPicture category. Through the 79th Academy Awards ceremony (through 2007), the vastmajority of films that have won the top prize have been adapted from other sources, whileabout a fourth have been original screenplays:

•

43 of 80 Best Picture-winning films: adapted from novels, stories or short stories, or remakes of other films (i.e.,

Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)

,

Rebecca (1940)

,

Ben-Hur (1959)

,

The Departed (2006), No Country for Old Men (2007)

)

•

12 of 80 Best Picture-winning films: adapted from stage plays or stage musicals (i.e.,

You Can't Take It With You (1938)

,

Hamlet (1948)

,

West Side Story (1961)

,

TheSound of Music (1965)

)

•

1 of 80 Best Picture-winning films: adapted from an article (

On the Waterfront(1954)

)

•

1 of 80 Best Picture-winning films: adapted from a TV show (

Marty (1955)

)

•

1 of 80 Best Picture-winning films: adapted from various writings (

Lawrence of Arabia (1962)

)

•

22 of 80 Best Picture-winning films: original screenplays (i.e.,

Going My Way (1944)

,

The Apartment (1960)

,

Rocky (1976)

,

Unforgiven (1992)

,

Crash (2005)

)

There have been many writers who have

unofficially

worked on various nominated (andwinning) screenplays who are not included or credited for the screenplay. [Uncredited buttalented screenwriters include neophytes, called screenplay polishers, who make minor rewrites to improve the dialogue or scene directions.] The Academy Awards include onlythose who are officially nominated.

History of Changes in the Award:

See an entire detailed listing of

Academy Award Script/Screenplay Winners from 1927/28 to the Present

on this site.This awards category has varied considerably over the first 30 years of the awards ceremony,but solidified itself by about 1970:

•

in the first year of the Academy Awards, 1927/1928, there were only two writingcategories:

Best Writing, Adaptation

and

Best Original Story;

there was also a short-lived category termed

Best Title Writing

, discontinued after this year at the end of thesilent era

•

in the second and third years of the Academy Awards (1928/29 and 1929/30), therewas only a single writing award:

Writing Achievement

, with no distinction betweenoriginal works and adaptations. Only the titles of the nominated films wereannounced. Writers were nominated for all of their work that year, rather than

nominating the writer for a specific film

•

in the next four ceremonies (1930/31, 1931/32, 1932/33, and 1934), the distinctionbetween original works and adaptations was resumed with two categories:

Best Writing, Adaptation

and

Best Original Story

•

beginning in 1935, the term screenplay was first used as a nomination category(replacing

Best Writing, Adaptation

- it was used to indicate an adaptation rather thanan original story), so now there were two categories:

Best Original Story

and

Best Screenplay

(adaptation)(Because of these rules,

The Story of Louis Pasteur (1936)

remains the only film towin its two writing nominations in one ceremony for the same screenwriters (PierreCollings and Sheridan Gibney), for both

Best Original Story

and

Best Screenplay

(adaptation). Collings and Gibney are the only screenwriters to win two Oscars eachfor their work on a single film.)

•

in 1940, the Academy started a new category -

Best Original Screenplay

, in additionto the other two categories:

Best Original Story

and

Best Screenplay

(adaptation).

Best Original Story

was intended to give credit to the authors of performance works(not novels) that films were based on. Therefore, oftentimes, the source and itsadaptation would earn nominations - and Oscars.(Besides

The Story of Louis Pasteur (1936)

with more than one writing Oscar,

HereComes Mr. Jordan (1941)

was the first to win

two

writing Oscars, followed by

GoingMy Way (1944)

and

Miracle on 34th Street (1947)

. But in these other three cases,the script authors were

different

people from the writers credited with the screenplay.)

•

in 1942, the titles for the three awards were:

Best Screenplay

(adaptation),

Best Original Screenplay

, and

Best Original Motion Picture Story

•

in 1948, the award went back to only two awards:

Best Motion Picture Story

(originalscreenplay) and

Best Screenplay

(adaptation); the

Best Original Screenplay

categorywas dropped

•

in 1949, the award was expanded back to three nebulous categories:

Best MotionPicture Story

,

Best Screenplay

(adaptation) and

Best Story and Screenplay (

the newname for the

Best Original Screenplay

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