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Best Screenplays and Writers Facts & Trivia (3) |
Note: The films that are marked with a yellow starare the films that
"The Greatest Films" site has selected as the 100 Greatest Films.
The Best Screenplays/Writers Academy Awards Facts and Trivia (3) Writers with Most Best Picture Nominations and Wins: Billy Wilder holds the record for writing more Best Picture nominees (7) than anyone else. Wilder's nominated and winning (marked with *) Best Picture films were:
+ - won Best Screenplay Francis Ford Coppola and Alan Jay Lerner both hold the record for writing more Best Picture winners (3) than anyone else. Their nominated and winning (marked with *) Best Picture films were: Francis Ford Coppola:
Alan Jay Lerner:
+ - won Best Screenplay African-American (Black) Screenwriters:
Best Picture Screenplay Writing Trivia: Anita Loos was the second woman to receive
the sole screenplay credit for a Best Picture nominee with San Francisco
(1936). Her play Gigi would later become the basis for the
Best Picture-winning Gigi (1958). Joan Harrison became the first woman
to co-author a Best Picture winner - Wang Hui-Ling and Tsai Kuo Jung are the only Asian screenwriters (assisted by executive producer James Schamus) to write a Best Picture nominee - Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000). George Bernard Shaw was the only Nobel Prize winner to receive a Best Screenplay Oscar, for Pygmalion (1938) -- based on his own 1912 stage play of the same name. Robert Riskin became the first writer to
author two Best Picture winners with You Can't Take It with You (1938)
- his previous Best Picture winner was Paul Haggis became the first screenwriter to have written two consecutive Best Pictures (with a Best Original Screenplay Oscar for Crash (2005) and a nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay for Million Dollar Baby (2004) (which lost to Sideways (2004))). Dudley Nichols was the first Oscar winner to refuse an Academy Award - for his screenplay credit on The Informer (1935). He was boycotting the awards as a member of the Screen Writers Guild. (Two years later, after the Academy accepted the guilds and ended its support for union-busting activities, Nichols accepted his award.) Woody Allen holds the record for most screenplay
nominations (16, and all in the Best Original Screenplay category),
but has only had three film screenplays which were also
Best Picture nominees - David Lean's two screenplays nominated for Best Picture were an incredible 38 years apart - Great Expectations (1946) and A Passage to India (1984). Laurence Olivier's adaptation of Best Picture winner Hamlet (1948) was uncredited, making William Shakespeare the "official" writer of the film. Joseph L. Mankiewicz similarly gave credit for his screenplay of Julius Caesar (1953) to Shakespeare. Neither Olivier, Mankiewicz nor Shakespeare were given Best Screenplay nominations. Romeo and Juliet (1968) was the first Best Picture nominee directly adapted from Shakespeare that did not credit The Bard with the screenplay. Frances Walsh, Philppa Boyens, and Peter Jackson's three screenplays that became Best Picture nominees were all from the Lord of the Rings trilogy. [Oddly, Stephen Sinclair was only involved with The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002).] Albert Hackett and Frances Goodrich co-wrote the most
Best Picture nominees (6) as a writing duo, including The
Thin Man (1934)*, After the Thin Man (1936)*, All of Mario Puzo's screenplays for Best Picture nominees were from the Godfather trilogy. Goodfellas (1990) was the SOLE screenplay by Martin Scorsese to be nominated for Best Picture. Best Picture champs usually win one of the two screenplay awards - approximately two-thirds have done so since 1950. Best Picture Winners: Not Nominated for Best Screenplay Award
Best Picture Winners: Did Not Win Either a Best Screenplay Award or Best Director Award
Best Picture Winners: Won a Best Screenplay Award, But Did Not Win Best Director
Best Picture Winners: Won Best Director, But Did Not Win a Best Screenplay Award
Ring Lardner Jr.'s screenplay of M*A*S*H (1970)
bears little resemblance to the final film, but was the sole screenplay
credit, winning the Best Screenplay Adaptation Oscar, widely seen as
an "apology" for being blacklisted. Philip Dunne was given credit for
The Robe (1953) as a front for blacklisted Albert Maltz. Ian
McLellan Hunter was given credit for |