The Best Screenplays/Writers Academy Awards
Facts and Trivia (2)
Other Leading Contenders for Most Writing Nominations
and Wins:
- Ben Hecht: (6 Nominations, 2 Wins)
Oscar wins: Underworld (1927/28), The Scoundrel (1935)
Nominations: Viva Villa! (1934), 
Wuthering Heights (1939), Angels Over Broadway (1940),
Notorious (1946)
- Carl Foreman: (6 Nominations, 1 Win)
Oscar win:
The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
Nominations: Champion (1949), The Men (1950),
High Noon (1952), The Guns of Navarone (1961), Young
Winston (1972)
- Oliver Stone: (6 Nominations, 1 Win)
Oscar win: Midnight Express (1978)
Nominations: Platoon (1986), Salvador (1986), Born
on the Fourth of July (1989), JFK (1991), Nixon (1995)
- Robert Benton: (5 Nominations, 2 Wins)
Oscar wins: Kramer vs. Kramer (1979), Places in the Heart
(1984)
Nominations:
Bonnie and Clyde (1967), The Late Show (1977), Nobody's
Fool (1994)
- Joseph L. Mankiewicz: (5 Nominations, 2 Wins)
Oscar wins: A Letter to Three Wives (1949),
All About Eve (1950)
Nominations: Skippy (1930/31), No Way Out (1950), The Barefoot
Contessa (1954)
- Michael Wilson: (5 Nominations, 2 Wins)
Oscar wins: A Place in the Sun (1951),
The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) +
Nominations: 5 Fingers (1952), Friendly Persuasion (1956),
Lawrence of Arabia (1962) +
(+ Wilson was posthumously given his Oscar nominated credit - and
in the case of
The Bridge of the River Kwai (1957), his Oscar (in 1985) -
due to his blacklisting and working on each screenplay anonymously.
The credited and awarded screenwriter, Pierre Boule, could not speak
or write English.)
- George Seaton: (4 Nominations, 2 Wins)
Oscar wins: Miracle on 34th Street (1947), The Country Girl (1954)
Nominations: The Song of Bernadette (1943), Airport (1970)
- Stanley Shapiro: (4 Nominations, 1 Win)
Oscar wins: Pillow Talk (1959)
Nominations: Operation Petticoat (1959), Lover Come Back
(1961), That Touch of Mink (1962)
- Melvin Frank: (4 Nominations, 0 Wins)
Nominations: The Road to Utopia (1946), Knock on Wood (1954),
The Facts of Life (1960), A Touch of Class (1973)
- Edward Anhalt: (3 Nominations, 2 Wins)
Oscar wins: Panic in the Streets (1950), Becket (1964)
Nominations: The Sniper (1952)
- Dalton Trumbo: (3 Nominations, 2 Wins)
Oscar wins:
Roman Holiday (1953), The Brave One (1956)+
Nominations: Kitty Foyle (1940)
(+ Trumbo wrote The Brave One (1956) under the
pseudonym Robert Rich due to blacklisting, and received his award
shortly before his death in 1976.)
- Frances Marion: (3 Nominations, 2 Wins)
Oscar wins: The Big House (1929/30), The Champ (1931/32)
Nominations: The Prizefighter and the Lady (1932/33)
- Waldo Salt: (3 Nominations, 2 Wins)
Oscar wins:
Midnight Cowboy (1969), Coming Home (1978)
Nominations: Serpico (1973)
- Alvin Sargent: (3 Nominations, 2 Wins)
Oscar wins: Julia (1977), Ordinary People (1980)
Nominations: Paper Moon (1973)
- Ruth Prawer Jhabvala: (3 Nominations, 2 Wins)
Oscar wins: A Room with a View (1985), Howards End (1992)
Nominations: The Remains of the Day (1993)
- Alan Jay Lerner: (3 Nominations, 2 Wins)
Oscar wins:
An American in Paris (1951), Gigi
(1958)
Nominations: My Fair Lady (1964)
- Robert Bolt: (3 Nominations, 2 Wins)
Oscar wins: Doctor Zhivago (1965), A Man for All Seasons (1966)
Nominations:
Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
- Frank Cavett: (3 Nominations, 2 Wins)
Oscar wins: Going My Way (1944), The Greatest Show on Earth
(1952)
Nominations: Smash-Up, the Story of a Woman (1947)
- Horton Foote: (3 Nominations, 2 Wins)
Oscar wins:
To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), Tender Mercies (1983)
Nominations: The Trip to Bountiful (1985)
- Bo Goldman: (3 Nominations, 2 Wins)
Oscar wins:
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), Melvin and Howard
(1980)
Nominations: Scent of a Woman (1992)
- Quentin Tarantino: (3 Nominations, 2 Wins)
Oscar wins: Pulp
Fiction (1994), Django Unchained (2012)
Nominations: Inglourious Basterds (2009)
Writers with Triple Wins for the Same Film:
A few writers/directors have accomplished the 'hat trick'
of triple Oscar wins as producer-director-writer:
Other Mosts:
- Toy Story (1995), nominated for Best
Original Screenplay, had the most screenwriters (7) attached
to an Oscar screenplay nominee
- Three films are tied for the
most screenwriters (4) attached to an Oscar screenplay winner
- Pygmalion (1938) (a winner in two categories: Best Adapted
Screenplay and Best Screenplay)
- Mrs. Miniver (1942) (for Best Screenplay)
- Pillow Talk (1959) (for Best Story and Screenplay)
Trivia for Academy Award Writing Nominations and
Wins: Firsts
- Because of confused Academy rules, Bess Meredyth
(for A Woman of Affairs (1928/29) and Wonder of Women (1928/29))
and Josephine Lovett (for Our Dancing Daughters (1928/29))
were the first women to receive a screenplay "nomination",
but they were not officially nominated
- Elliott Clawson was nominated (but not officially)
for four films in one ceremony, in 1928/29
(for The Cop; The Leatherneck; Sal of Singapore;
and Skyscraper)
- Frances Marion, a renowned and respected scriptwriter,
was the first woman to win a solo writing Oscar - Best Screenplay
for The Big House (1929/30). This win also gave her the distinction
of being the first woman to write a Best Picture nominee. She
duplicated this feat and became the first screenwriter to win
two screenwriting Oscars with her Best Original Story win for The
Champ (1931/32). She was nominated only one other time - without
a win, for Best Original Screenplay for The Prizefighter and the
Lady (1932/33). [She scripted screenplays from the silent era
into the late 30s, for films such as Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm
(1917), Anne of Green Gables (1919), Pollyanna (1920),
Stella Dallas (1925), The Scarlet Letter (1926), Anna
Christie (1931), Dinner at Eight (1933),
Camille (1936), and The Good Earth
(1937).]
- Sarah Y. Mason became the first woman to be
a co-winner of a screenplay award, Best Screenplay Adaptation for
Little Women (1932/33). [Her co-winner was Victor Heerman.]
- Paul Green and Sonya Levien were the first
screenwriters to be nominated for a musical script (State Fair
(1932))
- Both Casey Robinson and Gregory Rogers were the first
and only write-in candidates for screenwriting (in the same
year) that were not official nominees, for Captain Blood (1935)
and G-Men (1935) respectively
- Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett became the first
screenwriters to be nominated for a sequel, After the Thin
Man (1936). [Its predecessor, The Thin
Man (1934), was also nominated for Best Screenplay Adaptation,
and written by the same duo.]
- Joan Harrison became the first screenwriter
to be nominated in two different categories in the same
year:
Rebecca (1940) (Best Screenplay) and
Foreign Correspondent (1940) (Best
Original Screenplay). Both films were directed by Alfred Hitchcock
- Emeric Pressburger became the first (and
only) screenwriter to be nominated in three different
screenwriting categories in a single year: Best Original Story (The
Invaders (1942) aka The 49th Parallel (win)), Best Original
Screenplay (One of Our Aircraft is Missing (1942)), and Best
Screenplay - Adapted (also for The Invaders (1942))
- George Froeschel, Claudine West and Arthur Wimperis
were the first trio of screenwriters to be nominated in the
same year in the same category (Best Screenplay), for
Mrs. Miniver (1942) (with James Hilton, with whom they won)
and for Random Harvest (1942)
- Benjamin Glazer became the first screenwriter
to win Best Screenplay for two different screenplay catagories: Best
Adapted Screenplay (Seventh Heaven (1927/28), the first
screenplay adaptation Oscar ever awarded) and Best Original Story
(Arise, My Love (1940))
- The visually compelling, Oscar-winning short film with a minimal
narrative, The Red Balloon (1956), won the Best Original
Screenplay Academy Award even though the screenplay consisted of
extremely sparse dialogue. It told about a young Parisian boy and
his unique bond with a red balloon.
- Divorce - Italian Style (1962) was the first
foreign language film to win a screenplay Oscar. Ugo Pirro was the
first foreign language screenwriter to have two nominations
in two categories in the same ceremony: The Garden of the
Finzi-Continis (1971) (Screenplay - Original) and Investigation
of a Citizen Above Suspicion (1970) (Screenplay - Adapted)
- Emma Thompson became the only individual to have
won an Academy Award for both acting (Best Actress for Howards
End (1992)) and screenwriting (Best Adapted Screenplay for Sense
and Sensibility (1995))
- In 2007, four female scriptwriters (all first-time nominees) were nominated for individual screenplay honors:
Original Screenplay nomination: Diablo Cody for Juno, Tamara Jenkins for The Savages, and Nancy Oliver for Lars and the Real Girl
Adapted Screenplay nomination: Sarah Polley for Away From Her
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