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Milk and Slumdog Win 2009 Writers Guild Awards

by Alex Billington
February 8, 2009

The winners of the 2009 Writers Guild Awards were announced last night at the Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles. This year's winners fall right in line with everyone's expectations and are the last of the guild awards that are probable an indication of what's to come with the Oscars on February 22nd. The WGA winners have matched Oscar winners in the original screenplay category in 9 of the last 14 years, including last year's wins by Diablo Cody for Juno. In the adapted screenplay race, the WGA winner has gone on to an Oscar 10 times in the last 14 years, including Joel and Ethan Coen's No Country for Old Men last year.

Full list of nominees and winners can be found below. Winners are highlighted in BOLD.

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Burn After Reading - Written by Joel Coen & Ethan Coen
Milk - Written by Dustin Lance Black
Vicky Cristina Barcelona - Written by Woody Allen
The Visitor - Written by Tom McCarthy
The Wrestler - Written by Robert Siegel

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - Screenplay by Eric Roth
The Dark Knight - Screenplay by Jonathan Nolan & Christopher Nolan
Doubt - Screenplay by John Patrick Shanley
Frost/Nixon - Screenplay by Peter Morgan
Slumdog Millionaire - Screenplay by Simon Beaufoy

DOCUMENTARY SCREENPLAY
Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story - Written by Stefan Forbes & Noland Walker
Chicago 10 - Written by Brett Morgen
Fuel - Written by Johnny O'Hara
Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson - Screenplay by Alex Gibney
Waltz with Bashir - Written by Ari Folman

Feature films eligible for a Writers Guild Award were released in 2008 and produced under the jurisdiction of Writers Guilds of America, East and West or affiliate guilds in Australia, Canada, Great Britain, Ireland, and New Zealand. There were 255 films eligible for nomination in the categories of Original Screenplay (155) and Adapted Screenplay (100). Documentaries eligible for a Writers Guild Award featured an on-screen writing credit and were exhibited theatrically in Los Angeles or New York for one week.

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Nikhil Hariharan

Woot, love both films a lot great news. I would have liked to see Gonzo win the documentary category, but i have yet to see Waltz with Bashir so...
joe

Alright, we get it. Slumdog Millionaire was a good movie, but it did not deserve best adapted screenplay. Each one of those nominees were, in my mind, much more deserving. At this point it is just riding on its name and hype.
dave13

I did not see Doubt or Ben Button, but I did see the others for adapted screenplay. And Slumdog Millionare was certainly a better screenplay than The Dark Knight (mind you, I loved that movie) and Frost/Nixon, which was also a very well done film. I feel like all the Slumdog haters saw it after hype started to surround it, and their expectations weren't met, b/c its not the kind of film you are expecting to see. It's something original. And damn good! hahaha.
Tim "Cloverfield"

My vote would have been for Peter Morgan for Frost/Nixon