Read the 10 Feature Screenplays the WGA Thinks Are the Best of 2023

Yeah, yeah, the Oscars are great - but I'm much more interested in what the Writers Guild thinks the best screenwriting of the last year was

Mar 11, 2024

This past weekend, the 96th Academy Awards took place. While I congratulate everyone who won, I didn’t watch, as is usual for me. It’s just not a ceremony I’ve taken seriously for several years now for a variety of personal reasons. I’d prefer to focus on the Writers Guild of America Awards and other American and international awards that make far more sense to me.

My union, the WGA, announced its membership’s nominations a couple of weeks ago and the ceremony itself will take place on April 14th. As a 5AM StoryTalk bonus feature, find below links to the five nominees for Best Original Screenplay (Air, Barbie, The Holdovers, May December, and Past Lives) and Best Adapted Screenplay (American Fiction, Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret., Killers of the Flower Moon, Nyad, and Oppenheimer).

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All of these screenplays tend to vanish, as all things do on the Internet. Download ASAP for your personal educational purposes. And if you want more resources like this one, be sure to check out my articles:

And be sure to check out the WGA’s complete list of nominees across all categories here. I’m very happy to see so many of my friends on it.

Enjoy the reads!

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

AIR by Alex Convery

BARBIE by Greta Gerwig & Noah Baumbach

THE HOLDOVERS by David Hemingson

MAY DECEMBER by Samy Burch; story by Samy Burch & Alex Mechanik

PAST LIVES by Celine Song

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

AMERICAN FICTION by Cord Jefferson; based on Percival Everett’s book Erasure

This, as you probably know by now, won the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar.

ARE YOU THERE GOD? IT’S ME, MARGARET. by Kelly Fremon Craig; based on Judy Blume’s book

Kelly is a friend and was the first artist-on-artist conversation I had here at 5AM StoryTalk. You can read our chat, during which we discuss Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. here.

KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON by Eric Roth and Martin Scorsese; based on David Grann’s book

NYAD by Julia Cox; based on Diane Nyad’s book Find a Way

OPPENHEIMER by Christopher Nolan; based on the Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin’s book American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer

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Norm Fassbender

Nov 18, 2024

I sip my morning coffee while I read research for my screenplay. I’m focused on an article on how fossil fuel corporations are swarming the COP29 climate conference.

Reading about the success of oil companies selling their fiction is depressing. My day stalls before it starts.

Then I get a Substack notification from you. I check it out.

You reminded me that science fiction matters and that our personal worlds are built on a foundation of hope.

Thanks.

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