Best Original Screenplay
| Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay | |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Presented by | Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) |
| First awarded | 1940 |
| Currently held by |
Tom McCarthy Josh Singer Spotlight (2015) |
| Official website | oscars |
The Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay is the Academy Award for the best script not based upon previously published material. It was created for 1940 as a separate writing award from the Academy Award for Best Story. Beginning with the Oscars for 1957, the two categories were combined to honor only the screenplay. In 2002, the name of the award was changed from Writing (Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen) to Writing (Original Screenplay).
Noted novelists and playwrights who have received nominations in this category include: John Steinbeck, Noël Coward, Raymond Chandler, Alain Robbe-Grillet, Edward Bond, Arthur C. Clarke, Lillian Hellman, Neil Simon, Paddy Chayefsky, Tom Stoppard, and Terence Rattigan.
Woody Allen has the most nominations in this category with 16, and the most awards with 3, though Paddy Chayefsky won the Best Adapted Screenplay in 1955 for his adaptation of his teleplay, Marty, and also won for Original Screenplay for The Hospital and Network, considered by many critics to be the most notable screenplay of the twentieth century. Woody Allen also holds the record as the oldest winner (at age 76 for Midnight in Paris, 2011).
Ben Affleck is the youngest winner, at the age of 25 for Good Will Hunting; he co-wrote the screenplay with Matt Damon (age 27 at the time of their award).
Richard Schweizer was the first to win for a foreign-language film, Marie-Louise. Other winners for a non-English screenplay include Albert Lamorisse, Pietro Germi, Claude Lelouch, and Pedro Almodóvar. Lamorisse is additionally the only person to win or even be nominated for Best Original Screenplay for a short film (The Red Balloon, 1956).
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