Jordan Peele won an Oscar for the screenplay to his directorial debut, 2017’s Get Out. Other writers to win an Academy Award in the 2010s include Quentin Tarantino, Bong Joon-ho, Spike Jonze, and Barry Jenkins, and in the decade before, Diablo Cody, Charlie Kaufman, Sofia Coppola, and Pedro Almodóvar. This group wrote some of the best movies ever, but Peele has them beat, according to the Writers Guild of America.
On Monday, the WGA released its list of the “101 Greatest Screenplays of the 21st Century (So Far).” Get Out was ranked number one, ahead of Kaufman’s Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Aaron Sorkin’s The Social Network, Bong and Han Jin Won’s Parasite, and Joel and Ethan Coen’s No Country for Old Men. Five films, five classics. Other highlights include Best Picture winner Moonlight at #6, Bridesmaids at #12 (it’s the highest-ranked movie written by a woman, or in the case of Barb and Star icons Annie Mumulo and Kristen Wiig, women), and only two non-Pixar animated films, Spirited Away and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, at #67 and #71.
Here’s the top 10:
1. Get Out (2017)
Written by Jordan Peele2. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
Written by Charlie Kaufman, Story by Charlie Kaufman & Michel Gondry & Pierre Bismuth3. The Social Network (2010)
Screenplay by Aaron Sorkin, Based Upon the Book The Accidental Billionaires by Ben Mezrich4. Parasite (2019)
Screenplay by Bong Joon Ho and Han Jin Won, Story by Bong Joon Ho5. No Country for Old Men (2007)
Written for the Screen by Joel Coen & Ethan Coen, Based on the Novel by Cormac McCarthy6. Moonlight (2016)
Screenplay by Barry Jenkins, Story by Tarell Alvin McCraney7. There Will Be Blood (2007)
Screenplay by Paul Thomas Anderson, Based on the Novel Oil! by Upton Sinclair8. Inglourious Basterds (2009)
Written by Quentin Tarantino9. Almost Famous (2000)
Written by Cameron Crowe10. Memento (2000)
Screenplay by Christopher Nolan, Based on the Short Story by Jonathan Nolan
You can find the full list here.
