# AARP Movies for Grownups Award for Best Screenwriter

The AARP Movies for Grownups Award for Best Screenwriter is one of the AARP Movies for Grownups Awards presented annually by the AARP. The award honors a screenwriter over the age of 50 who has written an outstanding supporting screenplay for a film produced in a given year. The award for Best Screenwriter was first given in 2003, when the awards expanded beyond their initial categories of Best Movie for Grownups, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Documentary, Best Foreign Film, and Best Movie for Grownups Who Refuse to Grow Up.

## Winners and Nominees

    indicates the winners.

### 2000s

| Year | Film | Nominees |
| 2002 (2nd) | The Hours | David Hare |
| 2002 (2nd) | Gangs of New York | Jay Cocks |
| 2002 (2nd) | The Quiet American | Christopher Hampton |
| 2002 (2nd) | The Pianist | Ronald Harwood |
| 2003 (3rd) | In America | Jim Sheridan |
| 2003 (3rd) | Something's Gotta Give | Nancy Meyers |
| 2003 (3rd) | Cold Mountain | Anthony Minghella |
| 2003 (3rd) | Casa de los Babys | John Sayles |
| 2004 (4th) | Spider-Man 2 | Alvin Sargent |
| 2004 (4th) | Bad Education | Pedro Almodóvar |
| 2004 (4th) | Spanglish | James L. Brooks |
| 2004 (4th) | Million Dollar Baby | Paul Haggis & F.X. Toole |
| 2005 (5th) | Brokeback Mountain | Larry McMurtry & Diana Ossana |
| 2005 (5th) | Bad Education. | Pedro Almodóvar |
| 2005 (5th) | Crash | Paul Haggis |
| 2005 (5th) | Broken Flowers | Jim Jarmusch |
| 2005 (5th) | Yes | Sally Potter |
| 2006 (6th) | Flags of Our Fathers | William Broyles Jr. & Paul Haggis |
| 2006 (6th) | Boynton Beach Club | Susan Seidelman, David Cramer & Florence Seidelman |
| 2006 (6th) | For Your Consideration | Christopher Guest & Eugene Levy |
| 2006 (6th) | Keeping Mum | Richard Russo |
| 2006 (6th) | Catch a Fire | Shawn Slovo |
| 2007 (7th) | The Diving Bell and the Butterfly | Ronald Harwood |
| 2007 (7th) | No Country for Old Men | Joel and Ethan Coen |
| 2007 (7th) | In the Valley of Elah | Paul Haggis |
| 2007 (7th) | Atonement | Christopher Hampton |
| 2007 (7th) | American Gangster | Steven Zaillian |
| 2008 (8th) | Changeling | J. Michael Straczynski |
| 2008 (8th) | Vicky Cristina Barcelona | Woody Allen |
| 2008 (8th) | Burn After Reading | Joel and Ethan Coen |
| 2008 (8th) | The Curious Case of Benjamin Button | Eric Roth |
| 2008 (8th) | Doubt | John Patrick Shanley |
| 2009 (9th) | It's Complicated | Nancy Meyers |
| 2009 (9th) | A Serious Man | Joel and Ethan Coen |
| 2009 (9th) | Julie & Julia | Nora Ephron |
| 2009 (9th) | Taking Woodstock | James Schamus |

### 2010s

| Year | Film | Nominees |
| 2010 (10th) | The Company Men | John Wells |
| 2010 (10th) | True Grit | Joel and Ethan Coen |
| 2010 (10th) | The Next Three Days | Paul Haggis |
| 2010 (10th) | Another Year | Mike Leigh |
| 2010 (10th) | The King's Speech | David Seidler |
| 2011 (11th) | Midnight in Paris | Woody Allen |
| 2011 (11th) | The Descendants | Alexander Payne |
| 2011 (11th) | Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close | Eric Roth |
| 2011 (11th) | A Better Life | Roger Simon |
| 2011 (11th) | Moneyball | Steven Zaillian & Aaron Sorkin |
| 2012 (12th) | The Sessions | Ben Lewin |
| 2012 (12th) | Amour | Michael Haneke |
| 2012 (12th) | Lincoln | Tony Kushner |
| 2012 (12th) | Hyde Park on Hudson | Richard Nelson |
| 2012 (12th) | Silver Linings Playbook | David O. Russell |
| 2013 (13th) | Before Midnight | Richard Linklater with Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke |
| 2013 (13th) | Inside Llewyn Davis | Joel and Ethan Coen |
| 2013 (13th) | About Time | Richard Curtis |
| 2013 (13th) | Enough Said | Nicole Holofcener |
| 2013 (13th) | American Hustle | David O. Russell & Eric Warren Singer |
| 2014 (14th) | Wild | Nick Hornby & Cheryl Strayed |
| 2014 (14th) | Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) | Alejandro González Iñárritu |
| 2014 (14th) | Into the Woods | James Lapine |
| 2014 (14th) | Boyhood | Richard Linklater |
| 2014 (14th) | The Theory of Everything | Anthony McCarten |
| 2015 (15th) | Joy | David O. Russell |
| 2015 (15th) | Brooklyn | Nick Hornby |
| 2015 (15th) | The Intern | Nancy Meyers |
| 2015 (15th) | Love & Mercy | Oren Moverman & Michael Alan Lerner |
| 2015 (15th) | Steve Jobs | Aaron Sorkin |
| 2016 (16th) | Manchester by the Sea | Kenneth Lonergan |
| 2016 (16th) | Julieta | Pedro Almodovar |
| 2016 (16th) | Silence | Jay Cocks & Martin Scorsese |
| 2016 (16th) | Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them | J.K. Rowling |
| 2016 (16th) | Fences | August Wilson |
| 2017 (17th) | Molly's Game | Aaron Sorkin |
| 2017 (17th) | The Shape of Water | Guillermo del Toro |
| 2017 (17th) | Call Me By Your Name | James Ivory |
| 2017 (17th) | Darkest Hour | Anthony McCarten |
| 2017 (17th) | I, Tonya | Steven Rogers |
| 2018 (18th) | Can You Ever Forgive Me? | Nicole Holofcener & Jeff Whitty |
| 2018 (18th) | Green Book | Peter Farrelly, Brian Hayes Curie & Nick Vallelonga |
| 2018 (18th) | The Favourite | Deborah Davis & Tony McNamara |
| 2018 (18th) | Ben Is Back | Peter Hedges |
| 2018 (18th) | First Reformed | Paul Schrader |
| 2019 (19th) | Marriage Story | Noah Baumbach |
| 2019 (19th) | Harriet | Kasi Lemmons & Gregory Allen Howard |
| 2019 (19th) | The Two Popes | Anthony McCarten |
| 2019 (19th) | Once Upon a Time in Hollywood | Quentin Tarantino |
| 2019 (19th) | The Irishman | Steven Zaillian |

### 2020s

| Year | Film | Nominees |
| 2020/21 (20th) | The Trial of the Chicago 7 | Aaron Sorkin |
| 2020/21 (20th) | Da 5 Bloods | Danny Bilson, Paul De Meo, Kevin Willmott, Spike Lee |
| 2020/21 (20th) | Ma Rainey's Black Bottom | Ruben Santiago Hudson |
| 2020/21 (20th) | News of the World | Paul Greengrass & Luke Davies |
| 2020/21 (20th) | One Night in Miami... | Kemp Powers |
| 2021 (21st) | West Side Story | Tony Kushner |
| 2021 (21st) | Licorice Pizza | Paul Thomas Anderson |
| 2021 (21st) | Belfast | Kenneth Branagh |
| 2021 (21st) | The Power of the Dog | Jane Campion |
| 2021 (21st) | Nightmare Alley | Guillermo del Toro & Kim Morgan |
| 2022 (22nd) | Living | Kazuo Ishiguro |
| 2022 (22nd) | TÁR | Todd Field |
| 2022 (22nd) | The Fabelmans | Tony Kushner & Steven Spielberg |
| 2022 (22nd) | She Said | Rebecca Lenkiewicz |
| 2022 (22nd) | The Woman King | Dana Stevens |
| 2023 (23rd) | Barbie | Noah Baumbach & Greta Gerwig |
| 2023 (23rd) | The Holdovers | David Hemingson |
| 2023 (23rd) | Poor Things | Tony McNamara |
| 2023 (23rd) | Oppenheimer | Christopher Nolan |
| 2023 (23rd) | Killers of the Flower Moon | Martin Scorsese & Eric Roth |
| 2024 (24th) | Wicked | Winnie Holzman and Dana Fox |
| 2024 (24th) | Emilia Pérez | Jacques Audiard, Thomas Bidegain & Nicolas Livecchi |
| 2024 (24th) | A Complete Unknown | Jay Cocks & James Mangold |
| 2024 (24th) | Conclave | Peter Straughan |
| 2024 (24th) | Dune: Part Two | Denis Villeneuve & Jon Spaihts |

## Writers with multiple nominations and wins

| Wins | Screenwriter | Nominations |
| 2 | Aaron Sorkin | 4 |
| Nominations | Screenwriter |
| 5 | Ethan Coen |
| 5 | Joel Coen |
| 5 | Paul Haggis |
| 4 | Aaron Sorkin |
| 3 | Pedro Almodovar |
| 3 | Tony Kushner |
| 3 | Anthony McCarten |
| 3 | Nancy Meyers |
| 3 | David O. Russell |
| 3 | Steven Zaillian |
| 2 | Woody Allen |
| 2 | Jay Cocks |
| 2 | Guillermo del Toro |
| 2 | Ronald Harwood |
| 2 | Nicole Holofcener |
| 2 | Nick Hornby |
| 2 | Richard Linklater |
| 2 | Eric Roth |

## Age superlatives

| Record | Screenwriter | Film | Age (in years) |
| Oldest winner | Alvin Sargent | Spider-Man 2 | 77 |
| Oldest nominee | James Ivory | Call Me By Your Name | 89 |
| Youngest winner | Ethan Hawke | Before Midnight | 44 |
| Youngest nominee | Ethan Hawke | Before Midnight | 44 |