Since the academy expanded the Best Picture category at the Oscars in 2010, Best Original Screenplay has gone to writers of a wide-range of genres: dramas (“Anatomy of a Fall,” “Birdman,” “Manchester by the Sea”); comedies (“Midnight in Paris”); biopics (“The King’s Speech,” “Green Book”); true-life stories (“Spotlight”); memoirs (“Belfast”); period pictures (“Django Unchained”); war movies (“The Hurt Locker”); sci-fi (“Her”), thrillers (“Parasite,” “Promising Young Woman:) horror (“Get Out”) and fantasies (“Everything Everywhere All at Once”) . (Scroll down for the most up-to-date 2025 Oscar predictions for Best Original Screenplay.)
Regardless of the type of film, a nominee needs broad academy support to win this race. Indeed, all 15 of the most recent Best Original Screenplay winners were, at the least, Best Picture nominees. And seven of them won the big prize, bringing the total number of Best Picture champs with Oscar-winning original screenplays to 18. By comparison, 42 films have done this on the adapted side including the 2022 double dipper “CODA.”
Woody Allen has won this award a record three times for “Annie Hall,” “Hannah and Her Sisters,” and “Midnight in Paris.” He also holds the record for most nominations (16) while Federico Fellini is second with six. Four fellows picked up this prize twice: Charles Brackett (“Sunset Boulevard,” “Titanic”), Paddy Chayefsky (“The Hospital,” “Network”), Quentin Tarantino (“Pulp Fiction,” “Django Unchained”), and Billy Wilder (“Sunset Boulevard,” “The Apartment”).
Please note: To read full descriptions of each film, check out our 2025 Oscars Best Picture predictions.
LEADING CONTENDERS
“Anora” — Sean Baker (Neon)
“Blitz” — Steve McQueen (Apple TV+)”Hard Truths” — Mike Leigh (Bleecker Street/Studio Canal)
“Emilia Pérez” — Jacques Audiard (Pathé)
“Juror #2” — Jonathan Abrams (Warner Bros.)
“A Real Pain” — Jesse Eisenberg (Searchlight)
“The Room Next Door” — Pedro Almodóvar (Warner Bros.)
“The Substance” — Coralie Fargeat (Mubi)
“We Live in Time” — Nick Payne (A24)
STRONG CONTENDERS
“Challengers” — Justin Kuritzkes (Amazon MGM Studios/Warner Bros.)
“Civil War” — Alex Garland (A24)
“Dìdi” — Sean Wang (Focus Features)
“A Different Man” — Aaron Schimberg (A24)
“The Seed of the Sacred Fig” — Mohammad Rasoulof (Films Boutique)
“Kinds of Kindness” — Yorgos Lanthimos and Efthimis Filippou (Searchlight)
“Megalopolis” — Francis Ford Coppola (Lionsgate)
“His Three Daughters” — Azazel Jacobs (Netflix)
POSSIBLE CONTENDERS
“All We Imagine as Light” — Payal Kapadia (Condor Entertainment/September Film)
“Babygirl” — Halina Reijn (A24)
“Bird” — Andrea Arnold (Mubi)
“Bob Marley: One Love” — Reinaldo Marcus Green, Terence Winter, Frank E. Flowers, and Zach Baylin (Paramount Pictures)
“Drive-Away Dolls” — Ethan Coen and Tricia Cooke (Focus Features and Universal Pictures)
“I Saw the TV Glow” — Jane Schoenbrun (A24)
“Monkey Man” — Dev Patel, Paul Angunawela, and John Collee (Universal)
“Thelma” — Josh Margolin (Magnolia Pictures)
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