2024 Oscar Predictions: ADAPTED SCREENPLAY and ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY (November)

Keeping Barbie in Original Screenplay for the time being, where its WGA designation is, until the Academy deems it otherwise and likewise Ava DuVernay’s Origin screenplay, which is being pushed in original by NEON. Based on the non-fiction book “Caste” by Isabel Wilkerson, the film weaves the book’s themes with Wilkerson’s own life, loosely biopic-style, during and leading up to the writing of the book itself.

Oscar nominations will be announced on January 23, 2024 and the 96th Academy Awards will be held on March 10. The Writers Guild of America (WGA) nominations won’t be announced until February 21 with their awards not happening until after the Oscars, on April 14.

Here are my 2024 Oscar predictions in Adapted Screenplay and Original Screenplay for October 2023.

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

1. Oppenheimer (Universal Pictures) – Christopher Nolan (based on the book by Kai Bird, Martin J. Sherwin)
2. Poor Things (Searchlight Pictures) – Tony McNamara (based on the book by Alasdair Gray)
3. Killers of the Flower Moon (Apple Original Films) – Eric Roth, Martin Scorsese (based on the book by David Grann)
4. American Fiction (Amazon MGM/Orion) – Cord Jefferson (based on “Erasure” by Percival Everett
5. All of Us Strangers (Searchlight Pictures) – Andrew Haigh (based on the book by Taichi Yamada)
6. The Zone of Interest (A24) – Jonathan Glazer (based on the book by Martin Amis)
7. Priscilla (A24) – Sofia Coppola (based on the autobiography by Priscilla Presley and Sandra Harmon)
8. Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret (Lionsgate) – Kelly Fremon Craig (based on the novel by Judy Blume)
9. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (Sony Pictures) – Phil Lord, Christopher Miller, Dave Callaham (based on the character created by Marvel Comics)
10. The Taste of Things (IFC Films) – Tran Anh Hung (based on the novel by Marcel Rouffe)

Next up:

• The Color Purple (Warner Bros) – Marcus Gardley (based on the novel by Alice Walker and the musical by Brenda Russell, Allee Willis, Stephen Bray, Marsha Norman)
• Ferrari (NEON) – Troy Kennedy Martin (based on the novel by Brock Yates)
• Freud’s Last Session (Sony Pictures Classics) – Mark St. Germain (based on the play by Germain)
• NYAD (Netflix) – Julia Cox (based on the autobiography “Find a Way” by Diana Nyad)
• Society of the Snow (Netflix) – J. A. Bayona, Bernat Vilaplana, Jaime Marques, Nicolás Casariego

Other contenders:

• BlackBerry (IFC Films) – Matt Johnson, Matthew Miller (based on the book by Jacquie McNish, Sean Silcoff)
• The Boys in the Boat (Amazon MGM) – Mark L. Smith (based on the book by Daniel James Brown)
• Dumb Money (Sony Pictures) – Rebecca Angelo, Lauren Schuker Blum (based on the book by Ben Mezrich)
• Eileen (NEON) – Ottessa Moshfegh, Luke Goebel (based on the novel by Moshfegh)
• The Killer (Netflix) – Andrew Kevin Walker (based on graphic novel by Alexis Nolent, Luc Jacamon)

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

1. Barbie (Warner Bros) – Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach
2. The Holdovers (Focus Features) – David Hemingson
3. Past Lives (A24) – Celine Song
4. Anatomy of a Fall (NEON) – Justin Triet and Arthur Harari
5. May December (Netflix) – Samy Burch, story by Samy Burch and Alex Mechanik
6. Maestro (Netflix) – Bradley Cooper and Josh Singer
7. Saltburn (Amazon Studios) – Emerald Fennell
8. Air (Amazon Studios) – Alex Convery
9. Fair Play (Netflix) – Chloe Domont
10. Origin (NEON) – Ava DuVernay

Next up:

• Asteroid City (Focus Features) – Wes Anderson and Roman Coppola
• The Bikeriders (20th Century Studios) – Jeff Nichols
• The Iron Claw (A24) – Sean Durkin
• The Boy and the Heron (GKIDS) – Hayao Miyazaki
• Rustin (Netflix) – Julian Breece and Dustin Lance Black, story by Julian Breece

Other contenders:

• Beau Is Afraid (A24) – Ari Aster
• Bob Marley: One Love (Paramount Pictures) – Terence Winter & Frank E. Flowers and Zach Baylin & Reinaldo Marcus Green, story by Terence Winter & Frank E. Flowers
• La Chimera (NEON) – Carmela Covino, Marco Pettenello and Alice Rohrwacher
• Dream Scenario (A24) – Kristoffer Borgli
• Fingernails (Apple Original Films) – Christos Nikou, Stavros Raptis and Sam Steiner
• A Little Prayer (Sony Pictures Classics) – Angus MacLachlan
• Napoleon (Apple Original Films/Sony Pictures) – David Scarpa
• The Persian Version (Sony Pictures Classics) – Maryam Keshavarz
• Theater Camp (Searchlight Pictures) – Noah Galvin & Molly Gordon & Nick Lieberman & Ben Platt
• A Thousand and One (Focus Features) – A.V. Rockwell