The Writers Guild of America on Thursday announced the nominees in its film categories, including best original, adapted and documentary screenplays.
Previous WGA Award winners Wes Anderson (The French Dispatch), Tony Kushner (West Side Story), Adam McKay (Don’t Look Up), Eric Roth (Dune) and Aaron Sorkin (Being the Ricardos) all earned nods for their features, while previous nominees Paul Thomas Anderson (Licorice Pizza) and Guillermo del Toro (Nightmare Alley) earned their fifth and second WGA Award nominations, respectively.
Two biopics, Amazon’s Being the Ricardos and Warner Bros.’ King Richard, are among the original screenplay nominees, which also include Netflix’s Don’t Look Up, Searchlight’s The French Dispatch and MGM/United Artists’ Licorice Pizza. Musicals Tick, Tick … Boom! (from Netflix) and West Side Story (from 20th Century Studios), both written by Tony-winning playwrights (Steven Levenson and Kushner, respectively) are among the adapted screenplay nominees, which also feature Apple TV+’s CODA, Warner Bros.’ Dune and Searghlight’s Nightmare Alley.
CODA writer-director Sian Heder and Nightmare Alley co-writer Kim Morgan are the only two women to be nominated in the narrative feature categories. Notable absences in the adapted screenplay category are Jane Campion’s The Power of the Dog, Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Lost Daughter and Rebecca Hall’s Passing, all of which were ineligible. Suzanne Joe Kai is the among the four nominees in the documentary screenplay category for her film, Like A Rolling Stone: The Life & Times of Ben Fong-Torres.
The winners will be revealed Sunday, March 20, at the 74th annual Writers Guild Awards.
The nominees in the TV, new media, news, radio/audio and promotional writing categories were announced last week.
The list of film nominees follows.
ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Being the Ricardos
Written by Aaron Sorkin; Amazon Studios
Don’t Look Up
Screenplay by Adam McKay, Story by Adam McKay & David Sirota; Netflix
The French Dispatch of the Liberty Kansas Evening Sun
Screenplay by Wes Anderson, Story by Wes Anderson & Roman Coppola & Hugo Guinness & Jason Schwartzman; Searchlight Pictures
King Richard
Written by Zach Baylin; Warner Bros. Pictures
Licorice Pizza
Written by Paul Thomas Anderson; United Artists
ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
CODA
Screenplay by Siân Heder, Based on the Original Motion Picture La Famille Belier Directed by Eric Lartigau, Written by Victoria Bedos, Stanislas Carree de Malberg, Eric Lartigau and Thomas Bidegain; Apple
Dune
Screenplay by Jon Spaihts and Denis Villeneuve and Eric Roth, Based on the novel Dune Written by Frank Herbert; Warner Bros. Pictures
Nightmare Alley
Screenplay by Guillermo del Toro & Kim Morgan, Based on the Novel by William Lindsay Gresham; Searchlight Pictures
Tick, Tick … Boom!
Screenplay by Steven Levenson, Based on the play by Jonathan Larson; Netflix
West Side Story
Screenplay by Tony Kushner, Based on the Stage Play, Book by Arthur Laurents, Music by Leonard Bernstein, Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, Play Conceived, Directed and Choreographed by Jerome Robbins; 20th Century Studios
DOCUMENTARY SCREENPLAY
Being Cousteau
Written by Mark Monroe & Pax Wasserman; National Geographic
Exposing Muybridge
Written by Marc Shaffer; Inside Out Media
Like a Rolling Stone: The Life & Times of Ben Fong-Torres
Written by Suzanne Joe Kai; StudioLA.TV
Source: HollyWood
