The 2025 finalists for the USC Liberies Scripter Awards have been announced by USC libraries. The annual event is held to honor the authors of the most implemented of the year film And episodic serial adjustments, as well as the authors of the works on which they are based.
For example, on the movie page, recently Golden Globe’s best script winner Peter Straughan is nominated with Robert Harris, the author of “Conclave.” The finalist can also be the same person at both ends, with “Baby Reindeer” creator/star Richard Gadd is nominated to customize his game of the same name to Emmy winning hit Netflix series.
The prize has become a reliable predictor for which movie will win Best custom script Oscar, with “American Fiction” filmmaker Cord Jefferson To be the latest example. Other previous winners include “Women Talking”, “Call Me By Your Name”, “Moonlight”, “The Big Short” and “The Imitation Game”, all of which continued to win the Academy Award.
Last year TV Winner Will Smith, Showrunner Showrunner “SPY series” Slow horses “, based on the novel” Spook Street “by Mick Herron, also continued to win Emmy for outstanding writing for a drama series last fall, for the same season 3 episode” Negotiate with Tigers . “
The 2025 script election committee chose the finalists from a field with 42 film and 66 episodic series. Howard Rodman, USC Professor and Deputy President/Secretary for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, is chairman of the 2025 Committee.
The USC libraries will announce the winning writers and screenwriters at a black band ceremony on Saturday, February 22, 2025, in Town & Gown Ballroom at the University of South California.
See the full list of both the movie and the TV finalists below.
The finalist writers for film adaptation are in alphabetical order by movie title:
James Mangold and Jay Cocks for “A Complete Unknown” based on the Nonfiction book “Dylan Goes Electric! Newport, Seeger, Dylan and the night that shared the sixties” by Elijah Wald
Peter Straughan for “Conclave” based on the novel by Robert Harris
Ramell Ross and Joslyn Barnes for “Nickel Boys” based on the book “The Nickel Boys” by Colson Whitehead
Clint Bentley and Greg Kwedar (script and story) and Clarence Maclin and John “Divine G” Whitfield (story) for “Sing Sing” based on “Esquire” magazine “The Sing Sing Follies” by John H. Richardson (
Screenwriter Chris Sanders and novelist Peter Brown for “The Wild Robot”
The finalist writers for episodic series are in alphabetical order after series title:
Richard Gadd for the sixth episode of “Baby Reindeer”, based on his stage game of the same name
Steven Zaillian for “V Lucio”, the fifth episode of “Ripley”, based on “The Talented Mr. Ripley” by Patricia Highsmith
Joshua Zetumer for the section “The People in the Dirt” from “Say Nothing”, based on the Nonfiction book “Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland” by Patrick Radden Keefe
Rachel Kondo and Justin Marks for “Anjin”, the first episode of “Shōgun”, based on the novel by James Clavell
Will Smith for the section “Hello Goodbye”, from “Slow Horses”, based on the novel “Spook Street” by Mick Herron
