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Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay Rankings
Ranking the finest page-to-screen adaptations honored with the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. Explore how timeless novels, stage plays, memoirs, and comic books were translated into award-winning screenplays.
World Ranking
▲ Top 5
#1
The Godfather (Puzo/Coppola, 1972)
Mario Puzo and Francis Ford Coppola elevated Puzo's bestselling pulp novel into an operatic tragedy deconstructing American corporate capitalism and organized crime.
+67
#2
The Godfather Part II (Coppola/Puzo, 1974)
Coppola and Puzo expanded their mafia mythology through a dual-narrative structure contrasting young Vito's immigrant rise with Michael's moral decay.
+36
#3
Forrest Gump (Roth, 1994)
Eric Roth took Winston Groom's cynical novel and softened it into a fable of post-war American history seen through the eyes of an innocent Alabama man.
+27
#4
Casablanca (Epstein/Epstein/Koch, 1943)
Julius J. Epstein, Philip G. Epstein, and Howard Koch transformed the unproduced play 'Everybody Comes to Rick's' into cinema's definitive wartime romantic drama.
+24
#5
Schindler's List (Zaillian, 1993)
Steven Zaillian adapted Thomas Keneally's biographical novel 'Schindler's Ark' into a harrowing historical chronicle of survival during the Holocaust.
+24
▼ Bottom 5
#1
Around the World in 80 Days (Poe/Farrow/Perelman, 1956)
Adapted from Jules Verne's adventure novel, balancing globe-trotting Victorian spectacle with S.J. Perelman's characteristic literary humor.
-75
#2
Driving Miss Daisy (Uhry, 1989)
Alfred Uhry adapted his Pulitzer Prize-winning play tracking a twenty-five-year bond between an elderly Jewish widow and her Black chauffeur in the segregated South.
-69
#3
Gigi (Lerner, 1958)
Alan Jay Lerner adapted Colette's novella into a sparkling Lerner and Loewe musical romance celebrating the elegance and wit of Belle Époque Paris.
-40
#4
Cimarron (Estabrook, 1930)
Howard Estabrook translated Edna Ferber's sprawling frontier novel into an ambitious widescreen Western depicting Oklahoma boomtown development across four decades.
-31
#5
Women Talking (Polley, 2022)
Sarah Polley adapted Miriam Toews's novel into an articulate philosophical drama as women in an isolated religious colony debate whether to stay, forgive, or fight back.
-17
You should check out
Adventures in the Screen Trade: A Hollywood Life by William Goldman
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Story: Substance, Structure, Style and the Principles of Screenwriting by Robert McKee
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Making a Good Script Great by Linda Seger
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Oscars.org
Official Academy Awards Database: Writing Categories
Writers Guild of America
WGA 101 Greatest Screenplays in Film History
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All Items (98)
The Godfather (Puzo/Coppola, 1972)+67
The Godfather Part II (Coppola/Puzo, 1974)+36
Forrest Gump (Roth, 1994)+27
Casablanca (Epstein/Epstein/Koch, 1943)+24
Schindler's List (Zaillian, 1993)+24
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (Walsh/Boyens/Jackson, 2003)+18
No Country for Old Men (Coen/Coen, 2007)+15
The Silence of the Lambs (Tally, 1991)+9
To Kill a Mockingbird (Foote, 1962)+6
Gone with the Wind (Howard, 1939)+4
All About Eve (Mankiewicz, 1950)+4
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (Hauben/Goldman, 1975)+4
One Battle After Another (Anderson, 2025)+2
7th Heaven (Glazer, 1927)—
All Quiet on the Western Front (Abbott/Anderson/Andrews, 1929)—
Little Women (Heerman/Mason, 1933)—
It Happened One Night (Riskin, 1934)—
The Informer (Nichols, 1935)—
The Story of Louis Pasteur (Collings/Gibney, 1936)—
The Life of Emile Zola (Herald/Herczeg/Raine, 1937)—
Pygmalion (Shaw/Dalrymple/Lewis/Lipscomb, 1938)—
The Philadelphia Story (Stewart, 1940)—
Here Comes Mr. Jordan (Buchman/Miller, 1941)—
Mrs. Miniver (Froeschel/Hilton/West/Wimperis, 1942)—
The Lost Weekend (Brackett/Wilder, 1945)—
The Best Years of Our Lives (Sherwood, 1946)—
Miracle on 34th Street (Seaton, 1947)—
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (Huston, 1948)—
A Letter to Three Wives (Mankiewicz, 1949)—
A Place in the Sun (Brown/Wilson, 1951)—
The Bad and the Beautiful (Schnee, 1952)—
From Here to Eternity (Taradash, 1953)—
The Country Girl (Seaton, 1954)—
Marty (Chayefsky, 1955)—
The Bridge on the River Kwai (Foreman/Wilson/Boulle, 1957)—
Room at the Top (Paterson, 1959)—
Elmer Gantry (Brooks, 1960)—
Judgment at Nuremberg (Mann, 1961)—
Tom Jones (Osborne, 1963)—
Becket (Anhalt, 1964)—
Doctor Zhivago (Bolt, 1965)—
A Man for All Seasons (Bolt, 1966)—
In the Heat of the Night (Silliphant, 1967)—
The Lion in Winter (Goldman, 1968)—
Midnight Cowboy (Salt, 1969)—
M*A*S*H (Lardner, 1970)—
The French Connection (Tidyman, 1971)—
The Exorcist (Blatty, 1973)—
All the President's Men (Goldman, 1976)—
Julia (Sargent, 1977)—
Midnight Express (Stone, 1978)—
Kramer vs. Kramer (Benton, 1979)—
Ordinary People (Sargent, 1980)—
On Golden Pond (Thompson, 1981)—
Missing (Costa-Gavras/Stewart, 1982)—
Terms of Endearment (Brooks, 1983)—
Amadeus (Shaffer, 1984)—
Out of Africa (Luedtke, 1985)—
A Room with a View (Jhabvala, 1986)—
The Last Emperor (Peploe/Bertolucci, 1987)—
Dangerous Liaisons (Hampton, 1988)—
Dances with Wolves (Blake, 1990)—
Howards End (Jhabvala, 1992)—
Sense and Sensibility (Thompson, 1995)—
Sling Blade (Thornton, 1996)—
L.A. Confidential (Helgeland/Hanson, 1997)—
Gods and Monsters (Condon, 1998)—
The Cider House Rules (Irving, 1999)—
Traffic (Gaghan, 2000)—
A Beautiful Mind (Goldsman, 2001)—
The Pianist (Harwood, 2002)—
Sideways (Payne/Taylor, 2004)—
Brokeback Mountain (McMurtry/Ossana, 2005)—
The Departed (Monahan, 2006)—
Slumdog Millionaire (Beaufoy, 2008)—
Precious (Fletcher, 2009)—
The Social Network (Sorkin, 2010)—
The Descendants (Payne/Faxon/Rash, 2011)—
Argo (Terrio, 2012)—
12 Years a Slave (Ridley, 2013)—
The Imitation Game (Moore, 2014)—
The Big Short (Randolph/McKay, 2015)—
Moonlight (Jenkins/McCraney, 2016)—
Call Me by Your Name (Ivory, 2017)—
BlacKkKlansman (Wachtel/Rabinowitz/Willmott/Lee, 2018)—
Jojo Rabbit (Waititi, 2019)—
The Father (Hampton/Zeller, 2020)—
CODA (Heder, 2021)—
American Fiction (Jefferson, 2023)—
Conclave (Straughan, 2024)—
The Patriot (Kräly, 1928)-2
Bad Girl (Burke, 1931)-2
Going My Way (Butler/Cavett, 1944)-4
Women Talking (Polley, 2022)-17
Cimarron (Estabrook, 1930)-31
Gigi (Lerner, 1958)-40
Driving Miss Daisy (Uhry, 1989)-69
Around the World in 80 Days (Poe/Farrow/Perelman, 1956)-75