The 2025 finalists for the USC Libraries Scripter Awards have been introduced by the USC Libraries. The annual occasion is held in honor of the writers of the 12 months’s most completed movie and episodic collection diversifications, in addition to the authors of the works on which they’re primarily based.
For instance, on the movie facet, latest Golden Globes Greatest Screenplay winner Peter Straughan is nominated alongside Robert Harris, the writer of “Conclave.” The finalist can be the identical individual on each ends, with “Child Reindeer” creator/star Richard Gadd being nominated for adapting his play of the identical identify into the Emmy-winning hit Netflix collection.
The award has turn into a trusty predictor for what movie will win the Greatest Tailored Screenplay Oscar, with “American Fiction” filmmaker Wire Jefferson being the newest instance. Different previous winners embody “Girls Speaking,” “Name Me by Your Identify,” “Moonlight,” “The Huge Quick,” and “The Imitation Recreation,” which all went on to win the Academy Award.
Final 12 months’s TV winner Will Smith, showrunner of the Apple TV+ spy collection “Gradual Horses,” primarily based on the novel “Spook Avenue” by Mick Herron, additionally went on to win the Emmy for Excellent Writing for a Drama Sequence final fall, for a similar Season 3 episode “Negotiating with Tigers.”
The 2025 Scripter choice committee chosen the finalists from a subject of 42 movie and 66 episodic collection diversifications. Howard Rodman, USC professor and Vice President/Secretary of the Academy of Movement Image Arts and Sciences, chairs the 2025 committee.
The USC Libraries will announce the successful authors and screenwriters at a black-tie ceremony on Saturday, Feb. 22, 2025, within the City & Robe ballroom on the College of Southern California.
See the complete checklist of each the movie and TV finalists beneath.
The finalist writers for movie adaptation are, in alphabetical order by movie title:
James Mangold and Jay Cocks for “A Full Unknown” primarily based on the nonfiction ebook “Dylan Goes Electrical! Newport, Seeger, Dylan, and the Evening That Break up the Sixties” by Elijah Wald
Peter Straughan for “Conclave” primarily based on the novel by Robert Harris
RaMell Ross and Joslyn Barnes for “Nickel Boys” primarily based on the ebook “The Nickel Boys” by Colson Whitehead
Clint Bentley and Greg Kwedar (screenplay and story) and Clarence Maclin and John “Divine G” Whitfield (story) for “Sing Sing” primarily based on the “Esquire” journal article “The Sing Sing Follies” by John H. Richardson
Screenwriter Chris Sanders and novelist Peter Brown for “The Wild Robotic”
The finalist writers for episodic collection are, in alphabetical order by collection title:
Richard Gadd for the sixth episode of “Child Reindeer,” primarily based on his stage play of the identical identify
Steven Zaillian for “V Lucio,” the fifth episode of “Ripley,” primarily based on “The Proficient Mr. Ripley” by Patricia Highsmith
Joshua Zetumer for the episode “The Folks within the Grime” from “Say Nothing,” primarily based on the nonfiction ebook “Say Nothing: A True Story of Homicide and Reminiscence in Northern Eire” by Patrick Radden Keefe
Rachel Kondo and Justin Marks for “Anjin,” the primary episode of “Shōgun,” primarily based on the novel by James Clavell
Will Smith for the episode “Hey Goodbye,” from “Gradual Horses,” primarily based on the novel “Spook Avenue” by Mick Herron