Awards-watchers are accustomed to waiting for the end of every awards show to see the big film categories handed out, but Saturday’s Writers Guild Awards threw everybody for a loop by making the film awards the first two categories of the night in simultaneous ceremonies in Los Angeles and New York.
“Nickel Boys” won the first award of the night, for Best Adapted Screenplay, and “Anora” won the second, for Best Original Screenplay. The awards led off the shows because the BAFTA Awards are taking place in London on Sunday, with the categories’ early placement giving “Nickel Boys” writers RaMell Ross and Joslyn Barnes and “Anora” writer Sean Baker more time to get to London.
In the television categories that ended the show, “Shōgun” and “Hacks” continued the roll they’ve been on since last September’s Emmy Awards, with the former show winning three awards and the latter show winning two.
“Shōgun” was named best drama series and best new series, while “Hacks” won the award for comedy series. In addition to the categories that cover the entire season of a series, the WGA also gives out awards for specific episodes of a series. The “Bulletproof” episode of “Hacks” won the episodic comedy award, while the “Anjin” episode of “Shōgun” won the episodic drama prize.
“The Penguin” won in the limited series category. “The Great Lillian Hall” won for TV and streaming movies.
“Nikki Glaser: Someday You’ll Die” won in the comedy/variety special category, while “Last Week Tonight With John Oliver” won for comedy/variety talk or sketch series.
The screenplay for “Jim Henson Idea Man” won in the final feature-film category, for documentary features.
Eligibility for the Writers Guild Awards is restricted to screenplays that were written under the guild’s Minimum Basic Agreement or under related agreements from affiliated international guilds. That rule made most of this year’s Oscar nominees ineligible for Writers Guild nominations, with the original scripts “The Brutalist,” “September 5” and “The Substance” and the adaptations “Conclave,” “Sing Sing” and “Emilia Pérez” all disqualified.
Despite the difference in eligibility, in recent years the WGA winner has gone on to win the Oscar about two-thirds of the time in the adapted screenplay category and a little more than half the time in the original screenplay category.
“Anora” has now won three of the major guild awards, after taking the Producers Guild and Directors Guild Awards last weekend. Of the 11 previous films that have won all three of those awards, 10 went on to win the Oscar for Best Picture. (The only one that didn’t was “Brokeback Mountain” — but the film that it lost to, “Crash,” won in the original screenplay category at the WGA while “Brokeback” won in the adapted category.)
The final major guild ceremony, the Screen Actors Guild Awards, will take place on Sunday, Feb. 23.
The Writers Guild of America, West ceremony took place at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills and was hosted by Joel Kim Booster, while the WGA, East ceremony took place at the Edison Ballroom in New York City and was hosted by Roy Wood Jr.
At the WGAW ceremony, David Lynch will be saluted with a posthumous presentation of the Laurel Award for Screenwriting Achievement, which he was able to accept in person before he died in January. In other honorary awards, Vince Gilligan will receive the Paddy Chayefsky Laurel Award for Television Writing Achievement, and “Nickel Boys” writers RaMell Ross and Joslyn Barnes received the Paul Selvin Award.
The WGAE is giving honorary awards to Scott Frank “The Ian McLellan Hunter Award for Career Achievement”, Bill Lawrence “the Herb Sargent Award for Comedy Excellence” and Kathy McGee “the Richard B. Jablow Award for Devoted Service to the Guild”.
Here is the complete list of nominees. Winners are noted with *WINNER.
FILM CATEGORIES
Original Screenplay
“Anora” *WINNER
“Challengers”
“Civil War”
“My Old Ass”
“A Real Pain”
Adapted Screenplay
“A Complete Unknown”
“Dune: Part Two”
“Hit Man”
“Nickel Boys” *WINNER
“Wicked”
Documentary Screenplay
“Jim Henson: Idea Man” *WINNER
“Kiss the Future”
“Martha”
“War Game”
TELEVISION, STREAMING AND NEWS CATEGORIES
Drama Series
“The Boys”
“The Diplomat”
“Fallout”
“Mr. & Mrs. Smith”
“Shōgun” *WINNER
Comedy Series
“Abbott Elementary”
“The Bear”
“Curb Your Enthusiasm”
“Hacks” *WINNER
“What We Do in the Shadows”
New Series
“English Teacher”
“Fallout”
“Mr. & Mrs. Smith”
“Nobody Wants This”
“Shōgun” *WINNER
Limited Series
“The Penguin” *WINNER
“Presumed Innocent”
“Ripley”
“Say Nothing”
“True Detective: Night Country”
TV & Streaming Motion Pictures
“The Great Lillian Hall” *WINNER
“Prom Dates”
“Rebel Ridge”
“Terry McMillan Presents Forever”
Animation
“The Simpsons”: “Bottle Episode”
“The Simpsons”: “Cremains of the Day”
“The Simpsons”: “Night of the Living Wage”
“Bob’s Burgers”: “Saving Favorite Drive-In” *WINNER
“Bob’s Burgers”: “The Tina Table: The Tables Have Tina-ed”
“Blood of Zeus”: “Winter Is Born”
Episodic Drama
“Shōgun”: “Anjin” *WINNER
“Fallout”: “The Beginning”
“Evil”: “Fear of the End”
“Mr. & Mrs. Smith”: “First Date”
“Sugar”: “Olivia”
“Elsbeth”: “Pilot”
Episodic Comedy
“Somebody Somewhere: “AGG”
“Hacks”: “Bulletproof” *WINNER
“English Teacher”: “Linda”
“The Bear”: “Napkins”
“Only Murders in the Building”: “Once Upon a Time in the West”
“The Sticky”: “Petiole”
Comedy/Variety Series – Talk or Sketch
“The Daily Show”
“John Mulaney Presents: Everybody’s in L.A.”
“The Kelly Clarkson Show”
“Last Week Tonight with John Oliver” *WINNER
“The Late Show with Stephen Colbert”
“Saturday Night Live”
Comedy/Variety Specials
“The 77th Annual Tony Awards”
“A Closer Look with Seth Meyers: Primetime Live Election Special”
“Nikki Glaser: Someday You’ll Die” *WINNER
“Ramy Youssef: More Feelings”
Quiz and Audience Participation
“Jeopardy!”
“Pop Culture Jeopardy!” *WINNER
Daytime Drama
“Days of Our Lives”
“General Hospital”
“The Young and the Restless” *WINNER
Children’s Episodic, Long Form, and Specials
“Percy Jackson and the Olympians”: “A God Buys Us Cheeseburgers”
”Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock”: “I’m Pogey”
“Out of My Mind”
“Sesame Street”: “The Sign Language ABCs”
“The Spiderwick Chronicles”: “Welcome to Spiderwick” * WINNER
Short Form Streaming
“Die Hart 3: Hart to Kill” *WINNER
“Tiny Time Travel”
Documentary Script
“American Experience”: “The American Vice President”
“American Experience”: “The Cancer Detectives”
“Dante”: “Part One: Inferno to Paradise” *WINNER
“American Experience”: “Poisoned Ground: The Tragedy at Love Canal”
“The Space Race”
News Script – Regularly Scheduled, Bulletin or Breaking Report”
“CBS Evening News”: “Alabama IVF Ruling Sends Shockwaves Across America”
“CBS Evening News – Special Weekend Edition”: “Assassination Attempt”
“CBS Newspath”: “Willie Mays Tribute” *WINNER
News Script – Analysis, Feature or Commentary
“Finding Cillian Murphy” ”60 Minutes”
“Fine Print: Carl Hiaasen” “CBS Sunday Morning”
“History Repeats Itself in Northern Gaza One Year Later” ”Ayman”
“The Resistance” ”60 Minutes” *WINNER
“Understanding Travel Advisories” ”ABC NewsOne”
Digital News
“The Food That Makes You Gay”
“Mise-en-Seine: A Paris Olympics Diary”
“Sent by God”
“The Unraveling of Nancy Mace”
“What Is Hamas Thinking Now?” *WINNER
RADIO/AUDIO CATEGORIES
Radio/Audio Documentary
“Art on Trial” ”One Year: 1990” Slate *WINNER
“Deadly Exes: Domestic Violence Awareness with Annie Elise”
”Serial Killers” Spotify Studios
“A Hotbed of Homosexuality” ”Slow Burn” Slate
“If You Give a Mouse a Cookie… Will He Want a Welfare Check?” ”Decoder Ring” Slate
Radio/Audio News Script – Regularly Scheduled, Bulletin or Breaking Report
“6:40am News – Nov 6, 2023″; 1010 WINS AM & FM
“12-15-2023, World News This Week”; ABC News Radio
“Inside a Gaza Hospital” ”What Next?”; Slate
“Passages: Three Women Who Made a Difference”; CBS News Radio *WINNER
“World News This Year 2023”; ABC News Radio
Radio/Audio News Script – Analysis, Feature or Commentary
“The Athleticism and Empathy of Horses” ”Press Play 2024”; ABC News Radio
“The bleeding edge” ”Unexplainable”; Vox
“Charles Osgood Remembered”; CBS News Radio *WINNER
PROMOTIONAL WRITING CATEGORY
On-Air Promotion
“Fortune Favors the Bold. Promotions for Tracker and King & Conqueror,” CBS
“LC Voting Ads”, YouTube *WINNER
“NCIS: Season 21 Legacy, Launch and Beyond Trailers”, CBS
“NYSNA AMC Campaign”, YouTube
Joe McGovern contributed to this report.