Welcome to the screenwriting race for 2025. With the fall film festival season now in the distance and a few potential contenders still to debut on the horizon, it’s time for our first look at the battle for Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Original Screenplay.
It’s still very early days, but the two biggest Best Picture contenders right now feel like One Battle After Another and Hamnet. As fate would have it, they’ll both face off in the adapted category. And both are written/co-written by their respective directors. So not only will Paul Thomas Anderson and Chloé Zhao likely face off in Best Director, they’ll also do battle here. Anderson probably has the edge right now in both showdowns, but there’s a long way to go yet.
On the original side, we’re also looking at a battle between two potential Best Picture competitors in Sinners and Sentimental Value. Again, these are written/co-written by their directors, so we’re in for a season of writer/directors facing off. The original category has two big, as-yet-unseen players in Marty Supreme and Is This Thing On?, so all eyes are eagerly poised to see how they play out. And now that Searchlight Pictures has snapped up The Testament of Ann Lee, it leaps into contention for its screenplay too.
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY PREDICTIONS:
1. One Battle After Another (Warner Bros.)
Paul Thomas Anderson
2. Hamnet (Focus Features)
Maggie O’Farrell & Chloé Zhao
3. Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery (Netflix)
Rian Johnson
4. No Other Choice (NEON)
Park Chan-wook, Don McKellar, Lee Kyoung-mi & Lee Ja-hye
5. Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere (20th Century Studios)
Scott Cooper
IN CONTENTION
Bugonia (Focus Features)
Die My Love (MUBI)
Frankenstein (Netflix)
The History of Sound (MUBI)
Nouvelle Vague (Netflix)
The Smashing Machine (A24)*
Train Dreams (Netflix)
Wicked: For Good (Universal Pictures)
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY PREDICTIONS:
1. Sentimental Value (NEON)
Joachim Trier & Eskil Vogt
2. Sinners (Warner Bros.)
Ryan Coogler
3. Jay Kelly (Netflix)
Noah Baumbach & Emily Mortimer
4. Marty Supreme (A24)
Ronald Bronstein & Josh Safdie
5. It Was Just an Accident (NEON)
Jafar Panahi
IN CONTENTION
A House of Dynamite (Netflix)
Is This Thing On? (Searchlight Pictures)
Rental Family (Searchlight Pictures)
The Secret Agent (NEON)
The Smashing Machine (A24)*
Sorry, Baby (A24)
The Testament of Ann Lee (Searchlight Pictures)
Weapons (Warner Bros.)
*Category placement TBD
