‘One Battle After Another’ Wins USC Scripter Award for Adapted Screenplay
One Battle After Another, written by Paul Thomas Anderson and inspired by Thomas Pynchon’s 1990 novel “Vineland,” has won the 38th annual USC Libraries Scripter Award, an honor that goes to the best page-to-screen adaptations of the year. The ceremony took place on Saturday evening on the USC campus.
As the Scripter Awards honor both the writer of the screenplay and the author of the original work from which the film or TV show was adapted, the prize officially went jointly to Anderson and Pynchon. Anderson accepted the award on video. Pynchon did not attend.
The film’s bested its fellow Oscar-nominated competition for Best Adapted Screenplay: Frankenstein, Hamnet, and Train Dreams, plus the indie Peter Hujar’s Day.
In the 38 years since the Scripter Awards began in 1988, its winner has matched the Oscar winner for Best Adapted Screenplay 17 times. Almost half of those times came in an eight-year stretch between 2011 and 2018, which was followed by four years in which the awards did not align. But for the last three years, Scripter winners Women Talking (2023), American Fiction (2024) and Conclave last year have all gone on to receive the Oscar.
In the Scripter television series category, the winners was Netflix’s Death By Lightning, the historical drama based on the non-fiction book “Destiny of the Republic,” by Candice Millard. The limited series, chronicling the election and assassination of President James Garfied, was adapted by Mike Makowsky.
In his acceptance speech, Makowsky explained that he only picked up Millard’s book when he was looking for a third book to buy at a Barnes and Noble “buy two, get one free” sale table.
Novelist Michael Connelly was given the USC Libraries Literary Achievement Award, which was presented by actor Titus Welliver, who played Detective Harry Bosch, one of Connelly’s most indelible characters, from the TV series Bosch and Bosch: Legacy.
He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Critics Choice Association (CCA), San Francisco Bay Area Film Critics Circle (SFBAFCC) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.
- ‘One Battle After Another’ Wins USC Scripter Award for Adapted Screenplay - January 25, 2026
- Denver Film Critics Society (DFCS) Awards: ‘Sinners’ Tops Wins with Film and Director - January 24, 2026
- Frontrunner Friday: First Take on 2026 Oscar Winner Predictions - January 23, 2026
‘One Battle After Another’ Wins USC Scripter Award for Adapted Screenplay 
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