# Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay

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. Beginning with the Oscars for 1957, the two categories were combined to honor only the screenplay.
See also the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, a similar award for screenplays that are adaptations of pre-existing material.

## Eligibility

Screenplays are eligible if they are not based on "previously published material". The Writer's Branch of the academy determines if a screenplay is adapted or original, based on possible sources in question, interviews given about the film and the film's publicity materials, and sometimes places screenplays in a different category than the Writers Guild of America. For the 75th Academy Awards, Gangs of New York was nominated as an original screenplay despite being based on the book The Gangs of New York because the writers based the film on the book's historical research but largely invented the characters and plot. For the 89th Academy Awards, Moonlight was campaigned as an original screenplay, being based on an unpublished play, but was ultimately placed in the adapted screenplay category, which it won. Similarly, Whiplash was considered an adapted screenplay at the 87th Academy Awards despite being written as an original screenplay because a scene from the script was produced as a proof-of-concept short film. However, 2008's Frozen River, which similarly had a proof-of-concept short film screened at film festivals, was nominated as an original screenplay.

## Superlatives

Woody Allen has the most nominations in this category with 16, and the most awards with 3 (for Annie Hall (1977), Hannah and Her Sisters (1986), and Midnight in Paris (2011)). Paddy Chayefsky and Billy Wilder have also won three screenwriting Oscars: Chayefsky won two for Original Screenplay (The Hospital and Network) and one for Adapted Screenplay (Marty), while Wilder won one for Adapted Screenplay (The Lost Weekend, shared with Charles Brackett), and two for Original Screenplay (Sunset Boulevard, shared with Brackett and D. M. Marshman Jr., and The Apartment, shared with I. A. L. Diamond)
Woody Allen also holds the record as the oldest winner (76) for Midnight in Paris. Ben Affleck is the youngest winner (25) for Good Will Hunting, co-written with Matt Damon (27).
Richard Schweizer was the first to win the award for a foreign-language film, Marie-Louise (French). Other winners for a non-English screenplay include Albert Lamorisse (The Red Balloon; French), Pietro Germi (Divorce Italian Style; Italian), Claude Lelouch (A Man and A Woman; French), Pedro Almodóvar (Talk to Her; Spanish), Bong Joon-ho and Han Jin-won (Parasite, Korean), and Justine Triet and Arthur Harari (Anatomy of a Fall, French). Lamorisse is the only person to win or even be nominated for Best Original Screenplay for a short film.
Frances Marion (The Big House) was the first woman to win for her original script, although she won Best Writing, which then included both original and adapted screenplays before a separate award for Best Original Screenplay was introduced. Muriel Box (The Seventh Veil) was the first woman to win in this category; she shared the award with her husband, Sydney Box. They are also the first of two married couples to win in this category; Earl W. Wallace and Pamela Wallace (Witness) are the others.
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. The Lucas Bros are the only African-American siblings to receive a nomination in this category (Judas and the Black Messiah, 2021).
Preston Sturges was nominated for two different films in the same year (1944): Hail the Conquering Hero and The Miracle of Morgan's Creek. Oliver Stone achieved the same distinction in 1986, for Platoon and Salvador. Maurice Richlin and Stanley Shapiro were nominated in 1959 for both Operation Petticoat and Pillow Talk and won for the latter.
Jordan Peele became the first and only African-American to win in this category for 2017's Get Out.
Bong Joon-ho and Han Jin-won became the first Asian writers to win either Screenplay award, for 2019's Parasite. This was also the most recent of 10 occasions when Oscars in this category have been awarded to writers for both screenplay AND story on one film (sometimes they have been completely different, and sometimes the credited screenplay author also contributed to the story alongside at least one other credited scribe).

## Winners and nominees

Winners are listed first in the colored row and denoted by double dagger (‡), followed by the other nominees.

### 1940s

| Year | Film | Nominee |
| 1940 (13th) | The Great McGinty | Preston Sturges‡ |
| 1940 (13th) | Angels Over Broadway | Ben Hecht |
| 1940 (13th) | Dr. Ehrlich's Magic Bullet | Norman Burnside, Heinz Herald & John Huston |
| 1940 (13th) | Foreign Correspondent | Charles Bennett & Joan Harrison |
| 1940 (13th) | The Great Dictator | Charlie Chaplin |
| 1941 (14th) | Citizen Kane | Herman J. Mankiewicz & Orson Welles‡ |
| 1941 (14th) | The Devil and Miss Jones | Norman Krasna |
| 1941 (14th) | Sergeant York | Harry Chandlee, Abem Finkel, John Huston & Howard Koch |
| 1941 (14th) | Tall, Dark and Handsome | Karl Tunberg & Darrell Ware |
| 1941 (14th) | Tom, Dick and Harry | Paul Jarrico |
| 1942 (15th) | Woman of the Year | Ring Lardner Jr. & Michael Kanin‡ |
| 1942 (15th) | One of Our Aircraft Is Missing | Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger |
| 1942 (15th) | Road to Morocco | Frank Butler & Don Hartman |
| 1942 (15th) | Wake Island | W. R. Burnett & Frank Butler |
| 1942 (15th) | The War Against Mrs. Hadley | George Oppenheimer |
| 1943 (16th) | Princess O'Rourke | Norman Krasna‡ |
| 1943 (16th) | Air Force | Dudley Nichols |
| 1943 (16th) | In Which We Serve | Noël Coward |
| 1943 (16th) | The North Star | Lillian Hellman |
| 1943 (16th) | So Proudly We Hail! | Allan Scott |
| 1944 (17th) | Wilson | Lamar Trotti‡ |
| 1944 (17th) | Hail the Conquering Hero | Preston Sturges |
| 1944 (17th) | The Miracle of Morgan's Creek | Preston Sturges |
| 1944 (17th) | Two Girls and a Sailor | Richard Connell & Gladys Lehman |
| 1944 (17th) | Wing and a Prayer | Jerome Cady |
| 1945 (18th) | Marie-Louise | Richard Schweizer‡ |
| 1945 (18th) | Dillinger | Philip Yordan |
| 1945 (18th) | Music for Millions | Myles Connolly |
| 1945 (18th) | Salty O'Rourke | Milton Holmes |
| 1945 (18th) | What Next, Corporal Hargrove? | Harry Kurnitz |
| 1946 (19th) | The Seventh Veil | Muriel & Sydney Box‡ |
| 1946 (19th) | The Blue Dahlia | Raymond Chandler |
| 1946 (19th) | Children of Paradise | Jacques Prévert |
| 1946 (19th) | Notorious | Ben Hecht |
| 1946 (19th) | Road to Utopia | Melvin Frank & Norman Panama |
| 1947 (20th) | The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer | Sidney Sheldon‡ |
| 1947 (20th) | Body and Soul | Abraham Polonsky |
| 1947 (20th) | A Double Life | Ruth Gordon & Garson Kanin |
| 1947 (20th) | Monsieur Verdoux | Charlie Chaplin |
| 1947 (20th) | Shoeshine | Sergio Amidei, Adolfo Franci, Cesare Giulio Viola & Cesare Zavattini |
| 1948 (21st) | N/A | — |
| 1949 (22nd) | Battleground | Robert Pirosh‡ |
| 1949 (22nd) | Jolson Sings Again | Sidney Buchman |
| 1949 (22nd) | Paisan | Sergio Amidei, Federico Fellini, Alfred Hayes, Marcello Pagliero & Roberto Rossellini |
| 1949 (22nd) | Passport to Pimlico | T. E. B. Clarke |
| 1949 (22nd) | The Quiet One | Helen Levitt, Janice Loeb & Sidney Meyers |

### 1950s

| Year | Film | Nominees |
| 1950 (23rd) | Sunset Boulevard | Charles Brackett, D. M. Marshman Jr. & Billy Wilder‡ |
| 1950 (23rd) | Adam's Rib | Ruth Gordon & Garson Kanin |
| 1950 (23rd) | Caged | Virginia Kellogg & Bernard C. Schoenfeld |
| 1950 (23rd) | The Men | Carl Foreman |
| 1950 (23rd) | No Way Out | Joseph L. Mankiewicz & Lesser Samuels |
| 1951 (24th) | An American in Paris | Alan Jay Lerner‡ |
| 1951 (24th) | Ace in the Hole | Walter Newman, Lesser Samuels & Billy Wilder |
| 1951 (24th) | David and Bathsheba | Philip Dunne |
| 1951 (24th) | Go for Broke! | Robert Pirosh |
| 1951 (24th) | The Well | Clarence Greene & Russell Rouse |
| 1952 (25th) | The Lavender Hill Mob | T. E. B. Clarke‡ |
| 1952 (25th) | The Atomic City | Sydney Boehm |
| 1952 (25th) | Breaking the Sound Barrier | Terence Rattigan |
| 1952 (25th) | Pat and Mike | Ruth Gordon & Garson Kanin |
| 1952 (25th) | Viva Zapata! | John Steinbeck |
| 1953 (26th) | Titanic | Charles Brackett, Richard L. Breen & Walter Reisch‡ |
| 1953 (26th) | The Band Wagon | Betty Comden & Adolph Green |
| 1953 (26th) | The Desert Rats | Richard Murphy |
| 1953 (26th) | The Naked Spur | Harold Jack Bloom & Sam Rolfe |
| 1953 (26th) | Take the High Ground! | Millard Kaufman |
| 1954 (27th) | On the Waterfront | Budd Schulberg‡ |
| 1954 (27th) | The Barefoot Contessa | Joseph L. Mankiewicz |
| 1954 (27th) | Genevieve | William Rose |
| 1954 (27th) | The Glenn Miller Story | Oscar Brodney & Valentine Davies |
| 1954 (27th) | Knock on Wood | Melvin Frank & Norman Panama |
| 1955 (28th) | Interrupted Melody | Sonya Levien & William Ludwig‡ |
| 1955 (28th) | The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell | Emmet Lavery & Milton Sperling |
| 1955 (28th) | It's Always Fair Weather | Betty Comden & Adolph Green |
| 1955 (28th) | Mr. Hulot's Holiday | Henri Marquet & Jacques Tati |
| 1955 (28th) | The Seven Little Foys | Melville Shavelson & Jack Rose |
| 1956 (29th) | The Red Balloon | Albert Lamorisse‡ |
| 1956 (29th) | The Bold and the Brave | Robert Lewin |
| 1956 (29th) | Julie | Andrew L. Stone |
| 1956 (29th) | La Strada | Federico Fellini & Tullio Pinelli |
| 1956 (29th) | The Ladykillers | William Rose |
| 1957 (30th) | Designing Woman | George Wells‡ |
| 1957 (30th) | Funny Face | Leonard Gershe |
| 1957 (30th) | Man of a Thousand Faces | Screenplay: Robert Campbell, Ivan Goff & Ben Roberts; Story: Ralph Wheelwright |
| 1957 (30th) | The Tin Star | Screenplay: Dudley Nichols; Story: Joel Kane & Barney Slater |
| 1957 (30th) | I Vitelloni | Screenplay: Federico Fellini & Ennio Flaiano; Story: Fellini, Flaiano & Tullio Pinelli |
| 1958 (31st) | The Defiant Ones | Nedrick Young & Harold Jacob Smith‡ |
| 1958 (31st) | The Goddess | Paddy Chayefsky |
| 1958 (31st) | Houseboat | Melville Shavelson & Jack Rose |
| 1958 (31st) | The Sheepman | Screenplay: William Bowers & James Edward Grant; Story: Grant |
| 1958 (31st) | Teacher's Pet | Fay Kanin & Michael Kanin |
| 1959 (32nd) | Pillow Talk | Screenplay: Stanley Shapiro & Maurice Richlin; Story: Clarence Greene & Russell Rouse‡ |
| 1959 (32nd) | The 400 Blows | Marcel Moussy & François Truffaut |
| 1959 (32nd) | North by Northwest | Ernest Lehman |
| 1959 (32nd) | Operation Petticoat | Screenplay: Shapiro & Richlin; Story: Paul King & Joseph Stone |
| 1959 (32nd) | Wild Strawberries | Ingmar Bergman |

### 1960s

| Year | Film | Nominees |
| 1960 (33rd) | The Apartment | I. A. L. Diamond & Billy Wilder‡ |
| 1960 (33rd) | The Angry Silence | Screenplay: Bryan Forbes; Story: Michael Craig & Richard Gregson |
| 1960 (33rd) | The Facts of Life | Melvin Frank & Norman Panama |
| 1960 (33rd) | Hiroshima, Mon Amour | Marguerite Duras |
| 1960 (33rd) | Never on Sunday | Jules Dassin |
| 1961 (34th) | Splendor in the Grass | William Inge‡ |
| 1961 (34th) | Ballad of a Soldier | Grigory Chukhray & Valentin Yezhov |
| 1961 (34th) | General Della Rovere | Sergio Amidei, Diego Fabbi & Indro Montanelli |
| 1961 (34th) | La Dolce Vita | Federico Fellini, Ennio Flaiano, Tullio Pinelli & Brunello Rondi |
| 1961 (34th) | Lover Come Back | Paul Henning & Stanley Shapiro |
| 1962 (35th) | Divorce Italian Style | Ennio De Concini, Pietro Germi & Alfredo Giannetti‡ |
| 1962 (35th) | Freud | Screenplay: Charles Kaufman & Wolfgang Reinhardt; Story: Kaufman |
| 1962 (35th) | Last Year at Marienbad | Alain Robbe-Grillet |
| 1962 (35th) | That Touch of Mink | Nate Monaster & Stanley Shapiro |
| 1962 (35th) | Through a Glass Darkly | Ingmar Bergman |
| 1963 (36th) | How the West Was Won | James R. Webb‡ |
| 1963 (36th) | America America | Elia Kazan |
| 1963 (36th) | 8½ | Federico Fellini, Ennio Flaiano, Tullio Pinelli & Brunello Rondi |
| 1963 (36th) | The Four Days of Naples | Screenplay: Carlo Bernari, Pasquale Festa Campanile, Massimo Franciosa & Nanni Loy; Story: Campanile, Franciosa, Loy & Vasco Pratolini |
| 1963 (36th) | Love with the Proper Stranger | Arnold Schulman |
| 1964 (37th) | Father Goose | Screenplay: Peter Stone & Frank Tarloff; Story: S. H. Barnett ‡ |
| 1964 (37th) | A Hard Day's Night | Alun Owen |
| 1964 (37th) | One Potato, Two Potato | Screenplay: Orville H. Hampton; Story: Raphael Hayes |
| 1964 (37th) | The Organizer | Age, Mario Monicelli & Furio Scarpelli |
| 1964 (37th) | That Man from Rio | Daniel Boulanger, Philippe de Broca, Ariane Mnouchkine & Jean-Paul Rappeneau |
| 1965 (38th) | Darling | Frederic Raphael‡ |
| 1965 (38th) | Casanova 70 | Age, Suso Cecchi d'Amico, Tonino Guerra, Mario Monicelli, Giorgio Salvioni & Furio Scarpelli |
| 1965 (38th) | Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines | Ken Annakin & Jack Davies |
| 1965 (38th) | The Train | Franklin Coen & Frank Davis |
| 1965 (38th) | The Umbrellas of Cherbourg | Jacques Demy |
| 1966 (39th) | A Man and a Woman | Screenplay: Claude Lelouch & Pierre Uytterhoeven; Story: Lelouch ‡ |
| 1966 (39th) | Blowup | Screenplay: Michelangelo Antonioni, Edward Bond & Tonino Guerra; Story: Antonioni |
| 1966 (39th) | The Fortune Cookie | I. A. L. Diamond & Billy Wilder |
| 1966 (39th) | Khartoum | Robert Ardrey |
| 1966 (39th) | The Naked Prey | Clint Johnston & Don Peters |
| 1967 (40th) | Guess Who's Coming to Dinner | William Rose‡ |
| 1967 (40th) | Bonnie and Clyde | Robert Benton & David Newman |
| 1967 (40th) | Divorce American Style | Screenplay: Norman Lear; Story: Robert Kaufman |
| 1967 (40th) | La Guerre Est Finie | Jorge Semprún |
| 1967 (40th) | Two for the Road | Frederic Raphael |
| 1968 (41st) | The Producers | Mel Brooks‡ |
| 1968 (41st) | The Battle of Algiers | Gillo Pontecorvo & Franco Solinas |
| 1968 (41st) | Faces | John Cassavetes |
| 1968 (41st) | Hot Millions | Peter Ustinov & Ira Wallach |
| 1968 (41st) | 2001: A Space Odyssey | Arthur C. Clarke & Stanley Kubrick |
| 1969 (42nd) | Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid | William Goldman‡ |
| 1969 (42nd) | Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice | Paul Mazursky & Larry Tucker |
| 1969 (42nd) | The Damned | Screenplay: Nicola Badalucco, Enrico Medioli & Luchino Visconti; Story: Badalucco |
| 1969 (42nd) | Easy Rider | Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper & Terry Southern |
| 1969 (42nd) | The Wild Bunch | Screenplay: Walon Green & Sam Peckinpah; Story: Green & Roy N. Sickner |

### 1970s

| Year | Film | Nominees |
| 1970 (43rd) | Patton | Francis Ford Coppola & Edmund H. North‡ |
| 1970 (43rd) | Five Easy Pieces | Screenplay: Carole Eastman; Story: Eastman & Bob Rafelson |
| 1970 (43rd) | Joe | Norman Wexler |
| 1970 (43rd) | Love Story | Erich Segal |
| 1970 (43rd) | My Night at Maud's | Éric Rohmer |
| 1971 (44th) | The Hospital | Paddy Chayefsky‡ |
| 1971 (44th) | Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion | Elio Petri & Ugo Pirro |
| 1971 (44th) | Klute | Andy & David Lewis |
| 1971 (44th) | Summer of '42 | Herman Raucher |
| 1971 (44th) | Sunday Bloody Sunday | Penelope Gilliatt |
| 1972 (45th) | The Candidate | Jeremy Larner‡ |
| 1972 (45th) | The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie | Screenplay & Story: Luis Buñuel; Collaboration: Jean-Claude Carrière |
| 1972 (45th) | Lady Sings the Blues | Chris Clark, Suzanne de Passe & Terrence McCloy |
| 1972 (45th) | Murmur of the Heart | Louis Malle |
| 1972 (45th) | Young Winston | Carl Foreman |
| 1973 (46th) | The Sting | David S. Ward‡ |
| 1973 (46th) | American Graffiti | Willard Huyck, George Lucas & Gloria Katz |
| 1973 (46th) | Cries and Whispers | Ingmar Bergman |
| 1973 (46th) | Save the Tiger | Steve Shagan |
| 1973 (46th) | A Touch of Class | Melvin Frank & Jack Rose |
| 1974 (47th) | Chinatown | Robert Towne‡ |
| 1974 (47th) | Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore | Robert Getchell |
| 1974 (47th) | The Conversation | Francis Ford Coppola |
| 1974 (47th) | Day for Night | Jean-Louis Richard, Suzanne Schiffman & François Truffaut |
| 1974 (47th) | Harry and Tonto | Josh Greenfeld & Paul Mazursky |
| 1975 (48th) | Dog Day Afternoon | Frank Pierson‡ |
| 1975 (48th) | Amarcord | Federico Fellini & Tonino Guerra |
| 1975 (48th) | And Now My Love | Claude Lelouch & Pierre Uytterhoeven |
| 1975 (48th) | Lies My Father Told Me | Ted Allan |
| 1975 (48th) | Shampoo | Robert Towne & Warren Beatty |
| 1976 (49th) | Network | Paddy Chayefsky‡ |
| 1976 (49th) | Cousin, Cousine | Screenplay & Story: Jean-Charles Tacchella Adaptation: Daniele Thompson |
| 1976 (49th) | The Front | Walter Bernstein |
| 1976 (49th) | Rocky | Sylvester Stallone |
| 1976 (49th) | Seven Beauties | Lina Wertmüller |
| 1977 (50th) | Annie Hall | Woody Allen & Marshall Brickman |
| 1977 (50th) | The Goodbye Girl | Neil Simon |
| 1977 (50th) | The Late Show | Robert Benton |
| 1977 (50th) | Star Wars | George Lucas |
| 1977 (50th) | The Turning Point | Arthur Laurents |
| 1978 (51st) | Coming Home | Screenplay: Robert C. Jones‡ & Waldo Salt; Story: Nancy Dowd ‡ |
| 1978 (51st) | Autumn Sonata | Ingmar Bergman |
| 1978 (51st) | The Deer Hunter | Screenplay: Deric Washburn; Story: Michael Cimino, Louis Garfinkle, Quinn Redeker & Washburn |
| 1978 (51st) | Interiors | Woody Allen |
| 1978 (51st) | An Unmarried Woman | Paul Mazursky |
| 1979 (52nd) | Breaking Away | Steve Tesich‡ |
| 1979 (52nd) | All That Jazz | Robert Alan Aurthur & Bob Fosse |
| 1979 (52nd) | ...And Justice for All. | Valerie Curtin & Barry Levinson |
| 1979 (52nd) | The China Syndrome | James Bridges, T. S. Cook & Mike Gray |
| 1979 (52nd) | Manhattan | Woody Allen & Marshall Brickman |

### 1980s

| Year | Film | Nominees |
| 1980 (53rd) | Melvin and Howard | Bo Goldman‡ |
| 1980 (53rd) | Brubaker | Screenplay: W. D. Richter; Story: Richter & Arthur A. Ross |
| 1980 (53rd) | Fame | Christopher Gore |
| 1980 (53rd) | Mon oncle d'Amérique | Jean Gruault |
| 1980 (53rd) | Private Benjamin | Nancy Meyers, Harvey Miller & Charles Shyer |
| 1981 (54th) | Chariots of Fire | Colin Welland‡ |
| 1981 (54th) | Absence of Malice | Kurt Luedtke |
| 1981 (54th) | Arthur | Steve Gordon |
| 1981 (54th) | Atlantic City | John Guare |
| 1981 (54th) | Reds | Trevor Griffiths & Warren Beatty |
| 1982 (55th) | Gandhi | John Briley‡ |
| 1982 (55th) | Diner | Barry Levinson |
| 1982 (55th) | E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial | Melissa Mathison |
| 1982 (55th) | An Officer and a Gentleman | Douglas Day Stewart |
| 1982 (55th) | Tootsie | Screenplay: Larry Gelbart & Murray Schisgal; Story: Gelbart & Don McGuire |
| 1983 (56th) | Tender Mercies | Horton Foote‡ |
| 1983 (56th) | The Big Chill | Barbara Benedek & Lawrence Kasdan |
| 1983 (56th) | Fanny and Alexander | Ingmar Bergman |
| 1983 (56th) | Silkwood | Alice Arlen & Nora Ephron |
| 1983 (56th) | WarGames | Lawrence Lasker & Walter Parkes |
| 1984 (57th) | Places in the Heart | Robert Benton‡ |
| 1984 (57th) | Beverly Hills Cop | Screenplay: Daniel Petrie Jr.; Story: Danilo Bach & Petrie |
| 1984 (57th) | Broadway Danny Rose | Woody Allen |
| 1984 (57th) | El Norte | Gregory Nava & Anna Thomas |
| 1984 (57th) | Splash | Screenplay: Bruce Jay Friedman, Lowell Ganz & Babaloo Mandel; Story: Friedman & Brian Grazer |
| 1985 (58th) | Witness | Screenplay: William Kelley & Earl W. Wallace; Story: Kelley, E. Wallace & Pamela Wallace ‡ |
| 1985 (58th) | Back to the Future | Bob Gale & Robert Zemeckis |
| 1985 (58th) | Brazil | Terry Gilliam, Charles McKeown & Tom Stoppard |
| 1985 (58th) | The Official Story | Aída Bortnik & Luis Puenzo |
| 1985 (58th) | The Purple Rose of Cairo | Woody Allen |
| 1986 (59th) | Hannah and Her Sisters | Woody Allen‡ |
| 1986 (59th) | Crocodile Dundee | Screenplay: John Cornell, Paul Hogan & Ken Shadie; Story: Hogan |
| 1986 (59th) | My Beautiful Laundrette | Hanif Kureishi |
| 1986 (59th) | Platoon | Oliver Stone |
| 1986 (59th) | Salvador | Richard Boyle & Stone |
| 1987 (60th) | Moonstruck | John Patrick Shanley‡ |
| 1987 (60th) | Au Revoir Les Enfants (Goodbye, Children) | Louis Malle |
| 1987 (60th) | Broadcast News | James L. Brooks |
| 1987 (60th) | Hope and Glory | John Boorman |
| 1987 (60th) | Radio Days | Woody Allen |
| 1988 (61st) | Rain Man | Screenplay: Ronald Bass & Barry Morrow; Story: Morrow ‡ |
| 1988 (61st) | Big | Gary Ross & Anne Spielberg |
| 1988 (61st) | Bull Durham | Ron Shelton |
| 1988 (61st) | A Fish Called Wanda | Screenplay: John Cleese; Story: Cleese & Charles Crichton |
| 1988 (61st) | Running on Empty | Naomi Foner Gyllenhaal |
| 1989 (62nd) | Dead Poets Society | Tom Schulman‡ |
| 1989 (62nd) | Crimes and Misdemeanors | Woody Allen |
| 1989 (62nd) | Do the Right Thing | Spike Lee |
| 1989 (62nd) | Sex, Lies, and Videotape | Steven Soderbergh |
| 1989 (62nd) | When Harry Met Sally... | Nora Ephron |

### 1990s

| Year | Film | Nominees |
| 1990 (63rd) | Ghost | Bruce Joel Rubin‡ |
| 1990 (63rd) | Alice | Woody Allen |
| 1990 (63rd) | Avalon | Barry Levinson |
| 1990 (63rd) | Green Card | Peter Weir |
| 1990 (63rd) | Metropolitan | Whit Stillman |
| 1991 (64th) | Thelma & Louise | Callie Khouri‡ |
| 1991 (64th) | Boyz n the Hood | John Singleton |
| 1991 (64th) | Bugsy | James Toback |
| 1991 (64th) | The Fisher King | Richard LaGravenese |
| 1991 (64th) | Grand Canyon | Lawrence Kasdan & Meg Kasdan |
| 1992 (65th) | The Crying Game | Neil Jordan‡ |
| 1992 (65th) | Husbands and Wives | Woody Allen |
| 1992 (65th) | Lorenzo's Oil | Nick Enright & George Miller |
| 1992 (65th) | Passion Fish | John Sayles |
| 1992 (65th) | Unforgiven | David Peoples |
| 1993 (66th) | The Piano | Jane Campion‡ |
| 1993 (66th) | Dave | Gary Ross |
| 1993 (66th) | In the Line of Fire | Jeff Maguire |
| 1993 (66th) | Philadelphia | Ron Nyswaner |
| 1993 (66th) | Sleepless in Seattle | Screenplay: Jeff Arch, Nora Ephron & David S. Ward; Story: Arch |
| 1994 (67th) | Pulp Fiction | Screenplay: Quentin Tarantino; Story: Roger Avary & Tarantino ‡ |
| 1994 (67th) | Bullets over Broadway | Woody Allen & Douglas McGrath |
| 1994 (67th) | Four Weddings and a Funeral | Richard Curtis |
| 1994 (67th) | Heavenly Creatures | Peter Jackson & Frances Walsh |
| 1994 (67th) | Three Colours: Red | Krzysztof Kieślowski & Krzysztof Piesiewicz |
| 1995 (68th) | The Usual Suspects | Christopher McQuarrie‡ |
| 1995 (68th) | Braveheart | Randall Wallace |
| 1995 (68th) | Mighty Aphrodite | Woody Allen |
| 1995 (68th) | Nixon | Stephen J. Rivele, Oliver Stone & Christopher Wilkinson |
| 1995 (68th) | Toy Story | Screenplay: Joel Cohen, Alec Sokolow, Andrew Stanton & Joss Whedon; Story: Pete Docter, John Lasseter, Joe Ranft & Stanton |
| 1996 (69th) | Fargo | Coen Brothers‡ |
| 1996 (69th) | Jerry Maguire | Cameron Crowe |
| 1996 (69th) | Lone Star | John Sayles |
| 1996 (69th) | Secrets & Lies | Mike Leigh |
| 1996 (69th) | Shine | Screenplay: Jan Sardi; Story: Scott Hicks |
| 1997 (70th) | Good Will Hunting | Ben Affleck & Matt Damon‡ |
| 1997 (70th) | As Good as It Gets | Screenplay: Mark Andrus & James L. Brooks; Story: Andrus |
| 1997 (70th) | Boogie Nights | Paul Thomas Anderson |
| 1997 (70th) | Deconstructing Harry | Woody Allen |
| 1997 (70th) | The Full Monty | Simon Beaufoy |
| 1998 (71st) | Shakespeare in Love | Marc Norman & Tom Stoppard‡ |
| 1998 (71st) | Bulworth | Screenplay: Warren Beatty & Jeremy Pikser; Story: Beatty |
| 1998 (71st) | Life Is Beautiful | Roberto Benigni & Vincenzo Cerami |
| 1998 (71st) | Saving Private Ryan | Robert Rodat |
| 1998 (71st) | The Truman Show | Andrew Niccol |
| 1999 (72nd) | American Beauty | Alan Ball‡ |
| 1999 (72nd) | Being John Malkovich | Charlie Kaufman |
| 1999 (72nd) | Magnolia | Paul Thomas Anderson |
| 1999 (72nd) | The Sixth Sense | M. Night Shyamalan |
| 1999 (72nd) | Topsy-Turvy | Mike Leigh |

### 2000s

| Year | Film | Nominees |
| 2000 (73rd) | Almost Famous | Cameron Crowe‡ |
| 2000 (73rd) | Billy Elliot | Lee Hall |
| 2000 (73rd) | Erin Brockovich | Susannah Grant |
| 2000 (73rd) | Gladiator | Screenplay: David Franzoni, John Logan & William Nicholson; Story: Franzoni |
| 2000 (73rd) | You Can Count on Me | Kenneth Lonergan |
| 2001 (74th) | Gosford Park | Julian Fellowes‡ |
| 2001 (74th) | Amélie | Screenplay: Jean-Pierre Jeunet & Guillaume Laurant; Dialogue: Laurant |
| 2001 (74th) | Memento | Screenplay: Christopher Nolan; Story: Jonathan Nolan |
| 2001 (74th) | Monster's Ball | Milo Addica & Will Rokos |
| 2001 (74th) | The Royal Tenenbaums | Wes Anderson & Owen Wilson |
| 2002 (75th) | Talk to Her | Pedro Almodóvar‡ |
| 2002 (75th) | Far from Heaven | Todd Haynes |
| 2002 (75th) | Gangs of New York | Screenplay: Jay Cocks, Kenneth Lonergan & Steven Zaillian; Story: Cocks |
| 2002 (75th) | My Big Fat Greek Wedding | Nia Vardalos |
| 2002 (75th) | Y Tu Mamá También | Alfonso & Carlos Cuarón |
| 2003 (76th) | Lost in Translation | Sofia Coppola‡ |
| 2003 (76th) | The Barbarian Invasions | Denys Arcand |
| 2003 (76th) | Dirty Pretty Things | Steven Knight |
| 2003 (76th) | Finding Nemo | Screenplay: Bob Peterson, David Reynolds & Andrew Stanton; Story: Stanton |
| 2003 (76th) | In America | Jim, Kirsten & Naomi Sheridan |
| 2004 (77th) | Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind | Screenplay: Charlie Kaufman; Story: Pierre Bismuth, Michel Gondry & Kaufman ‡ |
| 2004 (77th) | The Aviator | John Logan |
| 2004 (77th) | Hotel Rwanda | Terry George & Keir Pearson |
| 2004 (77th) | The Incredibles | Brad Bird |
| 2004 (77th) | Vera Drake | Mike Leigh |
| 2005 (78th) | Crash | Screenplay: Paul Haggis & Bobby Moresco; Story: Haggis ‡ |
| 2005 (78th) | Good Night, and Good Luck | George Clooney & Grant Heslov |
| 2005 (78th) | Match Point | Woody Allen |
| 2005 (78th) | The Squid and the Whale | Noah Baumbach |
| 2005 (78th) | Syriana | Stephen Gaghan |
| 2006 (79th) | Little Miss Sunshine | Michael Arndt‡ |
| 2006 (79th) | Babel | Guillermo Arriaga |
| 2006 (79th) | Letters from Iwo Jima | Screenplay: Iris Yamashita; Story: Paul Haggis & Yamashita |
| 2006 (79th) | Pan's Labyrinth | Guillermo del Toro |
| 2006 (79th) | The Queen | Peter Morgan |
| 2007 (80th) | Juno | Diablo Cody‡ |
| 2007 (80th) | Lars and the Real Girl | Nancy Oliver |
| 2007 (80th) | Michael Clayton | Tony Gilroy |
| 2007 (80th) | Ratatouille | Screenplay: Brad Bird; Story: Bird, Jim Capobianco & Jan Pinkava |
| 2007 (80th) | The Savages | Tamara Jenkins |
| 2008 (81st) | Milk | Dustin Lance Black‡ |
| 2008 (81st) | Frozen River | Courtney Hunt |
| 2008 (81st) | Happy-Go-Lucky | Mike Leigh |
| 2008 (81st) | In Bruges | Martin McDonagh |
| 2008 (81st) | WALL-E | Screenplay: Jim Reardon & Andrew Stanton; Story: Pete Docter & Stanton |
| 2009 (82nd) | The Hurt Locker | Mark Boal‡ |
| 2009 (82nd) | Inglourious Basterds | Quentin Tarantino |
| 2009 (82nd) | The Messenger | Alessandro Camon & Oren Moverman |
| 2009 (82nd) | A Serious Man | Coen Brothers |
| 2009 (82nd) | Up | Screenplay: Pete Docter & Bob Peterson; Story: Docter, Peterson & Tom McCarthy |

### 2010s

| Year | Film | Nominees |
| 2010 (83rd) | The King's Speech | David Seidler‡ |
| 2010 (83rd) | Another Year | Mike Leigh |
| 2010 (83rd) | The Fighter | Screenplay: Eric Johnson, Scott Silver & Paul Tamasy; Story: Keith Dorrington, Johnson & Tamasy |
| 2010 (83rd) | Inception | Christopher Nolan |
| 2010 (83rd) | The Kids Are All Right | Stuart Blumberg & Lisa Cholodenko |
| 2011 (84th) | Midnight in Paris | Woody Allen‡ |
| 2011 (84th) | The Artist | Michel Hazanavicius |
| 2011 (84th) | Bridesmaids | Annie Mumolo & Kristen Wiig |
| 2011 (84th) | Margin Call | J. C. Chandor |
| 2011 (84th) | A Separation | Asghar Farhadi |
| 2012 (85th) | Django Unchained | Quentin Tarantino‡ |
| 2012 (85th) | Amour | Michael Haneke |
| 2012 (85th) | Flight | John Gatins |
| 2012 (85th) | Moonrise Kingdom | Wes Anderson & Roman Coppola |
| 2012 (85th) | Zero Dark Thirty | Mark Boal |
| 2013 (86th) | Her | Spike Jonze‡ |
| 2013 (86th) | American Hustle | David O. Russell & Eric Warren Singer |
| 2013 (86th) | Blue Jasmine | Woody Allen |
| 2013 (86th) | Dallas Buyers Club | Craig Borten & Melisa Wallack |
| 2013 (86th) | Nebraska | Bob Nelson |
| 2014 (87th) | Birdman | Armando Bo, Alexander Dinelaris Jr., Nicolás Giacobone & Alejandro G. Iñárritu‡ |
| 2014 (87th) | Boyhood | Richard Linklater |
| 2014 (87th) | Foxcatcher | E. Max Frye & Dan Futterman |
| 2014 (87th) | The Grand Budapest Hotel | Screenplay: Wes Anderson; Story: Anderson & Hugo Guinness |
| 2014 (87th) | Nightcrawler | Dan Gilroy |
| 2015 (88th) | Spotlight | Josh Singer & Tom McCarthy‡ |
| 2015 (88th) | Bridge of Spies | Matt Charman & Coen Brothers |
| 2015 (88th) | Ex Machina | Alex Garland |
| 2015 (88th) | Inside Out | Screenplay: Josh Cooley, Pete Docter & Meg LeFauve; Story: Ronnie del Carmen & Docter |
| 2015 (88th) | Straight Outta Compton | Screenplay: Andrea Berloff & Jonathan Herman; Story: Berloff, S. Leigh Savidge & Alan Wenkus |
| 2016 (89th) | Manchester by the Sea | Kenneth Lonergan‡ |
| 2016 (89th) | Hell or High Water | Taylor Sheridan |
| 2016 (89th) | La La Land | Damien Chazelle |
| 2016 (89th) | The Lobster | Efthimis Filippou & Yorgos Lanthimos |
| 2016 (89th) | 20th Century Women | Mike Mills |
| 2017 (90th) | Get Out | Jordan Peele‡ |
| 2017 (90th) | The Big Sick | Emily V. Gordon & Kumail Nanjiani |
| 2017 (90th) | Lady Bird | Greta Gerwig |
| 2017 (90th) | The Shape of Water | Screenplay: Guillermo del Toro & Vanessa Taylor; Story: del Toro |
| 2017 (90th) | Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri | Martin McDonagh |
| 2018 (91st) | Green Book | Brian Currie, Peter Farrelly & Nick Vallelonga‡ |
| 2018 (91st) | The Favourite | Deborah Davis & Tony McNamara |
| 2018 (91st) | First Reformed | Paul Schrader |
| 2018 (91st) | Roma | Alfonso Cuarón |
| 2018 (91st) | Vice | Adam McKay |
| 2019 (92nd) | Parasite | Screenplay: Bong Joon-ho & Han Jin-won; Story: Bong‡ |
| 2019 (92nd) | Knives Out | Rian Johnson |
| 2019 (92nd) | Marriage Story | Noah Baumbach |
| 2019 (92nd) | 1917 | Sam Mendes & Krysty Wilson-Cairns |
| 2019 (92nd) | Once Upon a Time in Hollywood | Quentin Tarantino |

### 2020s

| Year | Film | Nominees |
| 2020/21 (93rd) | Promising Young Woman | Emerald Fennell‡ |
| 2020/21 (93rd) | Judas and the Black Messiah | Screenplay: Will Berson & Shaka King; Story: Berson, King, Keith & Kenny Lucas |
| 2020/21 (93rd) | Minari | Lee Isaac Chung |
| 2020/21 (93rd) | Sound of Metal | Screenplay: Abraham & Darius Marder; Story: Derek Cianfrance & D. Marder |
| 2020/21 (93rd) | The Trial of the Chicago 7 | Aaron Sorkin |
| 2021 (94th) | Belfast | Kenneth Branagh‡ |
| 2021 (94th) | Don't Look Up | Screenplay: Adam McKay; Story: McKay & David Sirota |
| 2021 (94th) | King Richard | Zach Baylin |
| 2021 (94th) | Licorice Pizza | Paul Thomas Anderson |
| 2021 (94th) | The Worst Person in the World | Joachim Trier & Eskil Vogt |
| 2022 (95th) | Everything Everywhere All at Once | Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert‡ |
| 2022 (95th) | The Banshees of Inisherin | Martin McDonagh |
| 2022 (95th) | The Fabelmans | Tony Kushner & Steven Spielberg |
| 2022 (95th) | Tár | Todd Field |
| 2022 (95th) | Triangle of Sadness | Ruben Östlund |
| 2023 (96th) | Anatomy of a Fall | Arthur Harari & Justine Triet‡ |
| 2023 (96th) | The Holdovers | David Hemingson |
| 2023 (96th) | Maestro | Bradley Cooper & Josh Singer |
| 2023 (96th) | May December | Screenplay: Samy Burch; Story: Burch & Alex Mechanik |
| 2023 (96th) | Past Lives | Celine Song |
| 2024 (97th) | Anora | Sean Baker‡ |
| 2024 (97th) | The Brutalist | Brady Corbet & Mona Fastvold |
| 2024 (97th) | A Real Pain | Jesse Eisenberg |
| 2024 (97th) | September 5 | Moritz Binder & Tim Fehlbaum; Co-written by Alex David |
| 2024 (97th) | The Substance | Coralie Fargeat |

## Age superlatives

| Record | Writer | Film | Age (in years) |
| Oldest winner | Woody Allen | Midnight in Paris | 76 |
| Oldest nominee | Charles Crichton | A Fish Called Wanda | 78 |
| Youngest winner | Ben Affleck | Good Will Hunting | 25 |
| Youngest nominee | John Singleton | Boyz n the Hood | 24 |