Sinners and One Battle After Another dominated the feature categories at the 78th Annual Writers Guild Awards on Sunday (March 8) with wins in the top two contests as awards season heads into its final week.
Both were expected to win and duly delivered in the original and adapted screenplay categories, respectively. The films have towered over awards season and hail from Warner Bros, the studio whose films earned more than $4bn at the global box office in 2025 after a string of number one debuts and yet faces the most uncertain future following the recent $110bn merger agreement with Paramount.
Ryan Coogler’s Sinners will face off against fellow WGA nominee Marty Supreme, Blue Moon, and It Was Just An Accident and Sentimental Value – both of which were excluded per WGA eligibility rules – at next Sunday’s (March 15) 98th annual Oscars.
Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another, based loosely on Thomas Pynchon’s 1990 novel Vineland, goes up against the same field at the Oscars as it did in Sunday’s WGA Awards. Mstyslav Chernov’s 2,000 Meters To Andriivka won the WGA’s documentary category.
The WGA Awards typically takes place over simultaneous East and West Coast ceremonies however due to an ongoing strike involving the West Coast chapter, the ceremony only took place in Manhattan.
Both the WGA’s East and West Coast chapters are negotiating together in contract renewal talks with the studios and those sessions are scheduled to commence on March 16.
Late night talk show host Stephen Colbert, collecting the career achievement award, regaled the audience with a smattering of anti-Trump jokes that were cut from his CBS show, The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, which is being discontinued on May 21 after Paramount-owned CBS cited financial reasons. The Paramount hierarchy is said to be close to Trump, whom Colbert has often criticised in his broadcasts.
Feature film winners
Original Screenplay
Black Bag, David Koepp; Focus Features
If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, Mary Bronstein; A24
Marty Supreme, Ronald Bronstein & Josh Safdie; A24
Sinners, Ryan Coogler; Warner Bros.
Weapons, Zach Cregger; Warner Bros.
Adapted Screenplay
Bugonia, Will Tracy. Based on the Film Save The Green Planet; Focus Features
Frankenstein, Guillermo del Toro. Based on Frankenstein by Mary Shelley; Netflix
Hamnet, Chloe Zhao & Maggie O’Farrell. Based on the novel by O’Farrell; Focus Features
One Battle After Another, Paul Thomas Anderson. Inspired by the novel Vineland by Thomas Pynchon; Warner Bros.
Train Dreams, Clint Bentley & Greg Kwedar. Based on the novella by Denis Johnson; Netflix
Documentary Screenplay
2,000 Meters To Andriivka, Mstyslav Chernov; Frontline Features
Becoming Led Zeppelin, Bernard MacMahon & Allison McGourty; Sony Pictures Classics
White With Fear, Andrew Goldberg; Area23A.
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