Awards Season geeks look to industry guild nominations as being the most telling tea leaves of what films and works will ultimately receive Academy Awards nominations.
Of all the industry guilds, the Writers is the biggest wild card.
Many annual screenplay contenders that are eligible for the Oscars are often ineligible for the WGA due to the guild’s specific, arcane rules.
Consequently, Oscar script contenders such as The Power of the Dog, The Lost Daughter, Drive My Car, and even Spider-Man: No Way Home did not receive WGA nominations due to ineligibility.
Of those, Jane Campion‘s The Power of the Dog script is virtually guaranteed an Academy nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay, meaning one of the five finalists here would have to be snubbed.
Similarly in the Original Screenplay category, Kenneth Branagh‘s Belfast was ineligible for the WGA but is certain to be up for Oscar.
Here is the full list of 2021 WGA nominees. Trophies will be handed out at a ceremony held on Sunday March 20, 2022, one week before the Academy Awards.
WRITERS GUILD OF AMERICA NOMINEES
for 2021 Screenplays
Original Screenplay
– Being the Ricardos, by Aaron Sorkin
– Don’t Look Up, by Adam McKay; story by David Sirota
– The French Dispatch and thee Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun, by Wes Anderson; story by Wes Anderson & Roman Coppola & Hugo Guinness & Jason Schwartzman
– King Richard, by Zach Baylin
– Licorice Pizza, by Paul Thomas Anderson
Adapted Screenplay
– CODA, by Siân Heder (based on a previous screenplay)
– Dune, by Jon Spaihts, Denis Villeneuve, Eric Roth (based on the novel)
– Nightmare Alley, by Guillermo del Toro, Kim Morgan (based on the novel)
– Tick, Tick…Boom!, by Steven Levenson (based on the musical)
– West Side Story, by Tony Kushner (based on the musical)
Documentary Screenplay
– Becoming Cousteau, by Mark Monroe & Pax Wasserman
– Exposing Muybridge, by Marc Shaffer
– Like a Rolling Stone: The Life & Times of Ben Fong-Torres, by Suzanne Joe Kai
Click on links below for other major Critics Group Awards and Guild Nominees that have been announced so far for the 2021 / 22 season:
Producers Guild of America Nominees 2021
Screen Actors Guild Nominees 2021
American Film Institute Top Ten 2021
Los Angeles Film Critics Assocation 2021
New York Film Critics Circle 2021
National Board of Review 2021