2021 Oscars: The Screenplay Contenders (February)

Check out a full list below of Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Original Screenplay contenders and my current top 10 (in alphabetical order) for February.

2021 BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY TOP 10 PREDICTIONS (February)

• The Father (Sony Pictures Classics)
• Hillbilly Elegy (Netflix)
• The Humans (A24)
• I’m Thinking of Ending Things (Netflix)
• The Midnight Sky (Netflix)
• News of the World (Universal)
• Next Goal Wins (Searchlight)
• Nightmare Alley (Searchlight)
• Nomadland (Searchlight)
• Untitled Nora Fingscheidt Project (Netflix)

2021 BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY CONTENDERS

• Blonde (Netflix)
• Dune (Warner Bros)
• The Eyes of Tammy Faye (Searchlight)
• The Father (Sony Pictures Classics)
• French Exit (Sony Pictures Classics)
• The Green Knight (A24)
• Hillbilly Elegy (Netflix)
• The Humans (A24)
• I’m Thinking of Ending Things (Netflix)
• In the Heights (Warner Bros)
• The Last Duel (20th Century)
• The Life Ahead (Netflix)
• Macbeth (A24)
• Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (Netflix)
• The Midnight Sky (Netflix)
• News of the World (Universal)
• Next Goal Wins (Searchlight)
• Nightmare Alley (Searchlight)
• Nomadland (Searchlight)
• Prisoner 760 (STX Entertainment)
• The Prom (Netflix)
• Untitled Nora Fingscheidt Project (Netflix)
• West Side Story (20th Century)
• The White Tiger (Netflix)
• Wild Mountain Thyme (Bleecker Street)

CURRENTLY WITHOUT DISTRIBUTION

• Benedetta
• Flag Day
• Passing
• The Story of My Wife

2021 BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY TOP 10 PREDICTIONS (February)

• C’mon C’mon (A24)
• Da 5 Bloods (Netflix)
• The French Dispatch (Searchlight)*
• Last Night in Soho (Focus Features)
• Mank (Netflix)
• Minari (A24)
• On the Rocks (A24/Apple+)
• Stillwater (Focus Features)
• The Trial of the Chicago 7 (Paramount)**
• Untitled David O. Russell Project aka Amsterdam (20th Century)

2021 BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY CONTENDERS

• Ammonite (Neon)
• Annette (Amazon)
• Barb and Star Go To Vista Del Mar (Lionsgate)
• C’mon C’mon (A24)
• Da 5 Bloods (Netflix)
• Everybody’s Talking About Jamie (20th Century)
• The French Dispatch (Searchlight)
• Herself (Amazon)
• I’m Your Woman (Amazon)
• Kajillionaire (A24)
• Land (Focus Features)
• Last Night in Soho (Focus Features)
• Mank (Netflix)
• Minari (A24)
• Never Rarely Sometimes Always (Focus Features)
• On the Rocks (A24/Apple+)
• Respect (MGM)
• The Roads Not Taken (Bleecker Street)
• Soul (Disney/Pixar)
• Stillwater (Focus Features)
• Tenet (Warner Bros)
• Those Who Wish Me Dead (Warner Bros)
• The Trial of the Chicago 7 (Paramount)
• The King of Staten Island (Paramount)
• Untitled David O. Russell Project aka Amsterdam (20th Century)
• Untitled Fred Hampton Film aka Jesus was my Homeboy (Warner Bros)
• Untitled Lila Neugebauer aka Red, White, Water (A24)
• Untitled Paul Thomas Anderson Film (Focus Features)

CURRENTLY WITHOUT DISTRIBUTION

• Breaking News in Yuba County
• Druk
• Harry Haft
• Supernova
• The United States v Billie Holliday

*The French Dispatch is currently in Original Screenplay but there is a possibility it is deemed adapted based on this section of a piece in The New Yorker (‘in a segment based on “The Events in May: A Paris Notebook,” Mavis Gallant’s two-part article from 1968.’)

**There is adaptation source for Aaron Sorkin’s The Trial of the Chicago 7 so it sits in Original until otherwise noted

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Erik Anderson

Erik Anderson is the founder/owner and Editor-in-Chief of AwardsWatch and has always loved all things Oscar, having watched the Academy Awards since he was in single digits; making lists, rankings and predictions throughout the show. This led him down the path to obsessing about awards. Much later, he found himself in film school and the film forums of GoldDerby, and then migrated over to the former Oscarwatch (now AwardsDaily), before breaking off to create AwardsWatch in 2013.

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), Hollywood Critics Association (HCA) 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.

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