23 Great Movies the Oscars Couldn’t Help but Recognize
Every year when the Oscar nominations are announced, I have fun keeping an eye out for a particularly rare phenomenon: the “lone screenplay” nominee—that is, a movie that’s recognized only in the category of Best Original Screenplay or Best Adapted Screenplay. While every member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences gets to vote on each of the winners, nominees are chosen by specific branches composed of industry professionals. AMPAS’ screenwriter group is often responsible for elevating riveting films that might otherwise have been ignored.
Typically, these films are small-scale works, and therefore unlikely to be nominated for Oscars in technical categories such as Best Production Design. Many of the 23 movies I’m highlighting today marked an exciting feature debut for a new filmmaker, or a long-awaited breakthrough for a more experimental type of storyteller. If you curated a film festival of “lone screenplay” nominees, you’d have a program filled with crowd-pleasers. Here are some of the best examples from this century’s Oscar nominations:
Ghost World (2001)
Terry Zwigoff’s adaptation of the 1997 graphic novel by Daniel Clowes, a seminal Gen X text, retained the book’s wry, detached spirit, gave Scarlett Johansson one of her first significant film roles, and generated serious awards buzz for its stars Thora Birch and Steve Buscemi. In the end, the screenplay (by Zwigoff and Clowes) was nominated, a worthy acknowledgement for a tricky piece of storytelling. Ghost World’s narrative thrives on the detachment of its disaffected teen characters, who drift aimlessly from subplot to subplot; Zwigoff and Clowes’s screenplay channels that atmosphere without sacrificing any pathos.
Where to watch: Apple TV and Amazon Prime
The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)
To date, this Oscar nomination remains the only one of Owen Wilson’s career; he co-wrote the film with Wes Anderson (the pair also wrote and ), and it, an acrid comedy about a family of “geniuses” who have grown estranged and embittered, is impeccably designed, beautifully shot, and still one of Anderson’s greatest achievements. Between its pointed jabs are wallops of deep-seated emotion.
