Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay

Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay
Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay
Country	United States
Presented by	Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS)
First awarded	1929
Most recent winner	Cord Jefferson, ; American Fiction (2023)
Website	oscars.org

The Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay is the Academy Award for the best screenplay adapted from previously established material. The most frequently adapted media are novels, but other adapted narrative formats include stage plays, musicals, short stories, TV series, and other films and film characters. All sequels are also considered adaptations by this standard, being based on the story and characters of the original film.

Prior to its current name, the award was known as the Academy Award for Best Screenplay Based On Material From Another Medium.^[1]^[2] The Best Adapted Screenplay category has been a part of the Academy Awards since their inception.

Superlatives

The first person to win twice in this category was Joseph L. Mankiewicz, who won the award in two consecutive years, 1949 and 1950. Others to win twice in this category include George Seaton, Robert Bolt (who also won in consecutive years), Francis Ford Coppola, Mario Puzo, Alvin Sargent, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, Michael Wilson, Alexander Payne and Christopher Hampton. Payne won both awards as part of a writing team, with Jim Taylor for Sideways and Jim Rash and Nat Faxon for The Descendants. Michael Wilson was blacklisted at the time of his second Oscar, so the award was given to a front (novelist Pierre Boulle). However, the Academy officially recognized him as the winner several years later.^[3]

Billy Wilder, Charles Brackett, Paddy Chayefsky, Francis Ford Coppola, Horton Foote, William Goldman, Robert Benton, Bo Goldman, Waldo Salt, and the Coen brothers have won Oscars for both original and adapted screenplays.

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. Sarah Y. Mason (Little Women) was the first woman to win for adaptation from previously established material; she shared the award with her husband, Victor Heerman. They are also the first of two married couples to win in this category; Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh (The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King) are the others.

Pierre Collings and Sheridan Gibney (The Story of Louis Pasteur) were the first to win for adapting their own work.

Philip G. Epstein and Julius J. Epstein (Casablanca) are the first siblings to win in this category. James Goldman (The Lion in Winter) and William Goldman (All the President's Men) are the first siblings to win for separate films. Joel Coen and Ethan Coen (No Country for Old Men) are the third winning siblings.

Mario Puzo is the one of two writers whose work has been adapted and resulted in two wins. Puzo's novel The Godfather resulted in wins in 1972 and 1974 for himself and Francis Ford Coppola. The other is E. M. Forster, whose novels A Room with a View and Howards End resulted in wins for Ruth Prawer Jhabvala.

Larry McMurtry is the only person who has won for adapting someone else's work (Brokeback Mountain), and whose own work has been adapted by someone else, resulting in a win (Terms of Endearment).

William Monahan (The Departed) and Sian Heder (CODA) are the only people who have won this award by using another full-length feature film as the credited source of the adaptation.

Geoffrey S. Fletcher (Precious), John Ridley (12 Years a Slave) and Cord Jefferson (American Fiction) are the only African-Americans to win solo in this category; Fletcher is also the first African-American to win in any writing category. Barry Jenkins and Tarell Alvin McCraney (Moonlight) are the first African-American writing duo to win; Spike Lee and Kevin Willmott (BlacKkKlansman) are the second, although their co-writers, David Rabinowitz and Charlie Wachtel, are both white.

James Ivory (Call Me by Your Name) is the oldest person to receive the award at age 89. Charlie Wachtel (BlacKkKlansman) is the youngest at age 32.

Taika Waititi (Jojo Rabbit) is the first person of Māori descent to receive the award.

Emma Thompson (Sense and Sensibility) is the only winner who has also won for acting.^[4] Winners Billy Bob Thornton (Sling Blade) and John Huston (The Treasure of the Sierra Madre) have been nominated for acting but not won.

Charles Schnee (The Bad and the Beautiful), Billy Bob Thornton (Sling Blade), and Bill Condon (Gods and Monsters) are the only winners whose respective films were not nominated for Best Picture.

Notable nominees

Noted novelists and playwrights nominated in this category include: George Bernard Shaw (who shared an award for an adaptation of his play Pygmalion), Graham Greene, Tennessee Williams, Vladimir Nabokov, James Hilton, Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, Lillian Hellman, Irwin Shaw, James Agee, Norman Corwin, S. J. Perelman, Terence Rattigan, John Osborne, Robert Bolt, Harold Pinter, David Mamet, Larry McMurtry, Arthur Miller, John Irving, David Hare, Tony Kushner, August Wilson, Florian Zeller and Kazuo Ishiguro.

Ted Elliott, Roger S. H. Schulman, Joe Stillman & Terry Rossio, writers of Shrek and Michael Arndt, John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton & Lee Unkrich, writers of Toy Story 3, are as of 2020, the only writers to be nominated for an animated film.^[5]^[6]

Scott Frank, James Mangold and Michael Green, writers of Logan, are the first writers to be nominated for a film based on superhero comic books (the X-Men).^[7]^[8]

Winners and nominees

Winners are listed first in colored row, followed by the other nominees.

1920s

1930s

1940s

1950s

1960s

1970s

1980s

1990s

2000s

2010s

2020s

Multiple wins and nominations

Age superlatives

Notes

^ a b c d e During these years, the award was bestowed as Best Writing, Adaptation.
^ The 2nd Academy Awards is unique in being the only occasion where there were no official nominees. Subsequent research by AMPAS has resulted in a list of unofficial or de facto nominees, based on records of which films were evaluated by the judges.
^ During this year, the award was bestowed as Best Writing and included both original and adapted screenplays.
^ The Academy also announced that Robert Riskin came in second and Paul Green and Sonya Levien third.
^ The Academy also announced that Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett came in second and Ben Hecht third.
^ From 1935 until 1955, the award was bestowed as Best Writing, Screenplay.
^ Captain Blood, written by Casey Robinson from the novel Captain Blood: His Odyssey by Rafael Sabatini, was not officially nominated for this award, but appears in Academy records because it placed third in voting as a write-in candidate in 1935.
^ The Academy also announced that Talbot Jennings, Jules Furthman, and Carey Wilson came in second and Casey Robinson third. This means Waldemar Young, John L. Balderston, Achmed Abdullah, Grover Jones, and William Slavens McNutt came in fourth.
^ Dudley Nichols refused to accept the award, but was in possession of it by 1949 according to Academy records.
^ Michael Blankfort was originally nominated as the screenwriter of Broken Arrow. In 1991, research proved blacklisted Albert Maltz was the screenwriter and his credit was restored. Blankfort was removed from the nomination and it was given to Maltz.
^ Michael Wilson was originally credited as the screenwriter of Friendly Persuasion, but Allied Artists, acting in agreement with the Screen Writers Guild, removed his credit because he was blacklisted. Early in 1957, the Academy revised its bylaws so the film would be eligible for a writing nomination without naming Wilson as a nominee. Friendly Persuasion was initially announced a nominee without a writer's name attached. The Academy's Board of Governors voted to strike the nomination altogether and it was not included on the final ballot. The Board of Governors, however, reinstated the nomination with Wilson's name attached in 2002.
^ Pierre Boulle was credited as the screenwriter of The Bridge on the River Kwai and ultimately won the award. Blacklisted writers Michael Wilson and Carl Foreman, who actually wrote the screenplay, were awarded posthumous Oscars by the Academy's Board of Governors in 1984.
^ Due to blacklisting, Young wrote under the pseudonym Nathan E. Douglas.
^ In 1995, research proved blacklisted Michael Wilson was also a screenwriter of Lawrence of Arabia. He was added as a nominee by the Academy's Board of Governors.
^ Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes was initially adapted by screenwriter Robert Towne, but he removed his name from the credits because he was unhappy with co-writer Michael Austin's alterations and the finished film itself. He instead used the pseudonym P.H. Vazak, the name of his late Hungarian sheepdog.
^ Screenwriter Charlie Kaufman is a character in his own script for Adaptation, as is his fictional twin brother Donald. The nonexistent Donald was credited as a screenwriter and was nominated for an Academy Award. The film's end credits claimed he had died during pre-production.

References

^ "Academy Awards Best Screenplays and Writers".
^ "Oscar Week: Best Adapted Screenplay". 21 February 2008.
^ Aljean Harmetz (March 16, 1985). "Oscars Go to Writers of 'Kwai'". The New York Times.
^ Johnson, Andrew (28 March 2010). "Emma Thompson: How Jane Austen saved me from going under". The Independent. Archived from the original on 2010-04-06. Retrieved 18 August 2011.
^ A Beautiful Mind Wins Adapted Screenplay: 2002 Oscars
^ Aaron Sorkin Wins Adapted Screenplay: 2011 Oscars
^ "Call Me by Your Name" wins Best Adapted Screenplay-Oscars on YouTube
^ 2018|Oscars.org
^ "The Official Academy Awards Database". Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Archived from the original on February 27, 2009. Retrieved January 9, 2018.
^ "The 18th Academy Awards – 1946". Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Retrieved January 17, 2018.
^ a b Saito, Stephen (February 20, 2008). "Fake Names, Real Oscars: Five Nominees Who Didn't Really Exist". IFC. Retrieved January 9, 2018.
^ "Academy Awards 2017: Complete list of Oscar winners and nominees". Los Angeles Times. February 26, 2017. Retrieved January 8, 2018.
^ "90th Oscar Nominations Announced" (PDF). Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. January 23, 2018. Archived (PDF) from the original on January 23, 2018. Retrieved January 23, 2018.
^ "91st Oscar Nominations Announced" (PDF). Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. January 22, 2019. Archived (PDF) from the original on January 23, 2019. Retrieved January 22, 2019.
^ "92nd Oscar Nominations Announced" (PDF). Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. January 22, 2019. Archived (PDF) from the original on January 23, 2019. Retrieved January 22, 2019.
^ "Complete list of nominees for the 93rd Academy Awards". ABC News. March 15, 2021. Retrieved March 15, 2021.
^ "94th Academy Awards Nominees". Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Archived from the original on January 30, 2022. Retrieved February 8, 2022.
^ "James Ivory is oldest Oscar winner ever with screenplay award for Call Me by Your Name". The Guardian. 5 March 2018. Retrieved April 3, 2020.
^ Snubs, Surprises, and a Staring Contest: The Academy Awards Nominations - The Ringer
^ "SOC Alumnus Wins Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay". American Washington University. 25 February 2019. Retrieved April 3, 2020.

[writingadaptation-9] During these years, the award was bestowed as Best Writing, Adaptation.

[twentynine-10] The 2nd Academy Awards is unique in being the only occasion where there were no official nominees. Subsequent research by AMPAS has resulted in a list of unofficial or de facto nominees, based on records of which films were evaluated by the judges.

[writing-11] During this year, the award was bestowed as Best Writing and included both original and adapted screenplays.

[12] The Academy also announced that Robert Riskin came in second and Paul Green and Sonya Levien third.

[13] The Academy also announced that Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett came in second and Ben Hecht third.

[writingscreenplay-14] From 1935 until 1955, the award was bestowed as Best Writing, Screenplay.

[captainblood-15] Captain Blood, written by Casey Robinson from the novel Captain Blood: His Odyssey by Rafael Sabatini, was not officially nominated for this award, but appears in Academy records because it placed third in voting as a write-in candidate in 1935.

[16] The Academy also announced that Talbot Jennings, Jules Furthman, and Carey Wilson came in second and Casey Robinson third. This means Waldemar Young, John L. Balderston, Achmed Abdullah, Grover Jones, and William Slavens McNutt came in fourth.

[nichols-17] Dudley Nichols refused to accept the award, but was in possession of it by 1949 according to Academy records.

[maltz-20] Michael Blankfort was originally nominated as the screenwriter of Broken Arrow. In 1991, research proved blacklisted Albert Maltz was the screenwriter and his credit was restored. Blankfort was removed from the nomination and it was given to Maltz.

[wilson-21] Michael Wilson was originally credited as the screenwriter of Friendly Persuasion, but Allied Artists, acting in agreement with the Screen Writers Guild, removed his credit because he was blacklisted. Early in 1957, the Academy revised its bylaws so the film would be eligible for a writing nomination without naming Wilson as a nominee. Friendly Persuasion was initially announced a nominee without a writer's name attached. The Academy's Board of Governors voted to strike the nomination altogether and it was not included on the final ballot. The Board of Governors, however, reinstated the nomination with Wilson's name attached in 2002.

[kwai-22] Pierre Boulle was credited as the screenwriter of The Bridge on the River Kwai and ultimately won the award. Blacklisted writers Michael Wilson and Carl Foreman, who actually wrote the screenplay, were awarded posthumous Oscars by the Academy's Board of Governors in 1984.

[young-23] Due to blacklisting, Young wrote under the pseudonym Nathan E. Douglas.

[wilson2-24] In 1995, research proved blacklisted Michael Wilson was also a screenwriter of Lawrence of Arabia. He was added as a nominee by the Academy's Board of Governors.

[vazak-25] Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes was initially adapted by screenwriter Robert Towne, but he removed his name from the credits because he was unhappy with co-writer Michael Austin's alterations and the finished film itself. He instead used the pseudonym P.H. Vazak, the name of his late Hungarian sheepdog.

[kaufman-27] Screenwriter Charlie Kaufman is a character in his own script for Adaptation, as is his fictional twin brother Donald. The nonexistent Donald was credited as a screenwriter and was nominated for an Academy Award. The film's end credits claimed he had died during pre-production.

[1] "Academy Awards Best Screenplays and Writers".

[2] "Oscar Week: Best Adapted Screenplay". 21 February 2008.

[oscars1-3] Aljean Harmetz (March 16, 1985). "Oscars Go to Writers of 'Kwai'". The New York Times.

[4] Johnson, Andrew (28 March 2010). "Emma Thompson: How Jane Austen saved me from going under". The Independent. Archived from the original on 2010-04-06. Retrieved 18 August 2011.

[5] A Beautiful Mind Wins Adapted Screenplay: 2002 Oscars

[6] Aaron Sorkin Wins Adapted Screenplay: 2011 Oscars

[7] "Call Me by Your Name" wins Best Adapted Screenplay-Oscars on YouTube

[8] 2018|Oscars.org

[Database-18] "The Official Academy Awards Database". Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Archived from the original on February 27, 2009. Retrieved January 9, 2018.

[19] "The 18th Academy Awards – 1946". Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Retrieved January 17, 2018.

[ifc-26] Saito, Stephen (February 20, 2008). "Fake Names, Real Oscars: Five Nominees Who Didn't Really Exist". IFC. Retrieved January 9, 2018.

[28] "Academy Awards 2017: Complete list of Oscar winners and nominees". Los Angeles Times. February 26, 2017. Retrieved January 8, 2018.

[29] "90th Oscar Nominations Announced" (PDF). Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. January 23, 2018. Archived (PDF) from the original on January 23, 2018. Retrieved January 23, 2018.

[30] "91st Oscar Nominations Announced" (PDF). Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. January 22, 2019. Archived (PDF) from the original on January 23, 2019. Retrieved January 22, 2019.

[31] "92nd Oscar Nominations Announced" (PDF). Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. January 22, 2019. Archived (PDF) from the original on January 23, 2019. Retrieved January 22, 2019.

[32] "Complete list of nominees for the 93rd Academy Awards". ABC News. March 15, 2021. Retrieved March 15, 2021.

[33] "94th Academy Awards Nominees". Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Archived from the original on January 30, 2022. Retrieved February 8, 2022.

[34] "James Ivory is oldest Oscar winner ever with screenplay award for Call Me by Your Name". The Guardian. 5 March 2018. Retrieved April 3, 2020.

[35] Snubs, Surprises, and a Staring Contest: The Academy Awards Nominations - The Ringer

[36] "SOC Alumnus Wins Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay". American Washington University. 25 February 2019. Retrieved April 3, 2020.