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Frances Marion (The Big House) was the first woman to win in any screenplay category, although she won for her original script for Best Writing, which then included both original and adapted screenplays before a separate award for Best Original Screenplay was introduced.
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- 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 a screenplay 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 a complicated history. In the 1st ceremony (1927–28), an award was given for best adaptation. In the 2nd and 3rd 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 7th (1934) ceremonies, an award was again given for best adaptation. Beginning with the 8th ceremony (1935), a screenplay award was given that was the equivalent of the modern award for best adapted screenplay. At the 29th ceremony (1956), the screenplay category was split into best adaptation and best original screenplay. The award had various names before the academy finally settled on best adapted screenplay for the 75th ceremony (2002). The winning screenwriters are given a gold-plated statuette known as an Oscar.
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: adaptation: Benjamin Glazer (7th Heaven)
•1928–29: writing: Hans Kraly (The Patriot)
•1929–30: none
•1930–31: adaptation: Howard Estabrook (Cimarron)
•1931–32: adaptation: Edward Burke (Bad Girl)
•1932–33: adaptation: Victor Heerman and Sarah Y. Mason (Little Women)
•1940: screenplay: Donald Ogden Stewart (The Philadelphia Story)
•1941: screenplay: Sidney Buchman and Seton I. Miller (Here Comes Mr. Jordan)
•1942: screenplay: Arthur Wimperis, George Froeschel, James Hilton, and Claudine West (Mrs. Miniver)
•1943: screenplay: Julius J. Epstein, Philip G. Epstein, and Howard Koch (Casablanca)
•1944: screenplay: Frank Butler and Frank Cavett (Going My Way)
•1945: screenplay: Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder (The Lost Weekend)
•1960: Richard Brooks (Elmer Gantry)
•1961: Abby Mann (Judgment at Nuremberg)
•1962: Horton Foote (To Kill a Mockingbird)
•1963: John Osborne (Tom Jones)
•1964: Edward Anhalt (Becket)
•1965: Robert Bolt (Doctor Zhivago)
•1980: Alvin Sargent (Ordinary People)
•1981: Ernest Thompson (On Golden Pond)
•1982: Costa-Gavras and Donald Steward (Missing)
•1983: James L. Brooks (Terms of Endearment)
•1984: Peter Shaffer (Amadeus)
•1985: Kurt Luedtke (Out of Africa)
•2000: Stephen Gaghan (Traffic)
•2001: Akiva Goldsman (A Beautiful Mind)
•2002: Ronald Harwood (The Pianist)
•2003: Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, and Peter Jackson (The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King)
•2004: Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor (Sideways)
•2005: Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana (Brokeback Mountain)
•2020: Christopher Hampton and Florian Zeller (The Father)
•2021: Siân Heder (CODA)
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Cabaret (1972) Screenplay by Jay Presson Allen, based on the 1966 musical of the same name by Joe Masteroff; I Am a Camera, the 1951 play by John Van Druten; and Goodbye to Berlin, the original 1939 story by Christopher Isherwood.
- A Room With a View (1985) Screenplay by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, based on the novel of the same name by E.M. Forster. In 1993, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, a great German-Indian-American screenwriter who was the third member of the Merchant-Ivory film-making partnership (but sadly unnamed), won two Oscars for screenwriting.
- Thelma and Louise (1991) Screenplay by Callie Khouri. Over thirty years after its release, Thelma and Louise might remain the most famous “all-female film” (or, at least, a film with two female leads) ever made.
- Sense and Sensibility (1995) Screenplay by Emma Thompson, based on the novel of the same name by Jane Austen. There are many great Jane Austen screen (both big and small) adaptations, notably Andrew Davies’s 1995 BBC TV adaptation, which launched the career of Colin Firth (who played Mr. Darcy) and led to the creation of Bridget Jones (who idealized Darcy and sought a modern-day equivalent).
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.
Mar 8, 2022 · Last year, Emerald Fennell won the Best Original Screenplay Oscar for “Promising Young Woman,” becoming the first female champ in either writing category in 13 years. And an even longer...
- Joyce Eng
Apr 26, 2021 · Emerald Fennell has won the original screenplay Oscar for her feature directorial debut, “ Promising Young Woman,” the first female filmmaker to do so since Diablo Cody in 2008.
Apr 26, 2021 · Several women have won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. Frances Marion was the first woman ever to win a screenplay award for The Big House in 1930.
