Unofficial Academy Awards Discussion Board

None of these would have been on my list of nominees for the year, but I went with The Favourite, with the most memorable dialogue. Roma would be my only other thought.

I will never understand the praise for First Reformed.

My nominees would have been Eighth Grade, Shoplifters, Game Night, Private Life, and Blockers.

Not Roma in which the screenplay served mainly as background, with some scattered points of character drama.

The Favourite may have had some interesting developments and some snappy dialogue...it never really comes together as a compelling piece of drama. Though, it's fun.

First Reformed is the one where the ambitions come realized - intelligent substantive tragic drama.

I had First Reformed on my screenplay shortlist for the year, but I voted for The Favourite here. I'm not sure which one is "better", but I find myself thinking about The Favourite a lot more. I'm not really bothered by Paul Schrader revisiting old themes and plots in First Reformed, because a lot of his career, in my opinion, has riffed on similar themes--I think Hardcore, in some ways, borrows even more heavily from Taxi Driver than First Reformed does, and he's always gone back tot hat general idea of men coming apart at the seams. (It probably also helped that I hadn't seen Taxi Driver in so long that I had forgotten many of the details, although I have watched it since.)

The other three had no business at all being nominated.

Considering good taste of the writer's branch over the past two years in picking Manchester by the Sea and Get Out over La La Land and Three Billboards..., I thought that The Favourite would win over Green Book. Unfortunately, I think I misread the outcomes of the previous two races. Manchester by the Sea's victory over La La Land probably has more to do with a lack of enthusiasm for La La Land than anything else while Get Out's victory over Three Billboards... probably has a lot to do with the fact that it's a high concept script (which usually do well) and in what I can only assume was at least a three-way race anything can happen. It's hard to imagine this race as anything but The Favourite vs. Green Book, although it's possible that Roma and Vice had their fans as well.

The Favourite was one of the best films of the year and would have been as fine a winner this decade as any. Green Book's biggest failing IMO is its screenplay which fails to really pin down what it's saying with these two people who become friends. Green Book has had many comparisons to Driving Miss Daisy but at least that film builds to an earned emotional catharsis. Green Book is at best pleasant and worst really unsatisfying. The branch screwed up.

First Reformed would be second. Even if it does rehash a journey that Paul Schrader has already taken us down, it's still a strong, full, strange journey.

I agree pretty much with what Precious said.

Although they both had disappointing endings, I agree that The Favourite was the best-written original screenplay with First Reformed a solid second.

As much as I liked Green Book as a whole, I didn't think its writing was as strong as its direction or its two central performances. It was a bit formulaic with its "this happened" and then "that happened" narrative, but I think its It's a Wonderful Life-style ending was the year's most satisfying in an era where happy endings aside from sappy rom-coms are hard to find. The most we can generally expect is bittersweet.

Roma was a visual feast, but its screenplay was at the service of its style instead of the other way around. Vice was not the total disaster I thought it would be, but I didn't find anything remotely award worthy in it.

It's hard to come up with alternatives to the last two, but I would cite Isle of Dogs and Searching as two very inventive original screenplays that were worth considering.

Its still unbelievable that Green Book won over The Favourite.

For me personally The Favourite was best of the year and the best of the nominees and it was a very strong year for original screenplays, not that one could tell from the nominees.

The second best was easily Paul Schrader for First Reformed, though one must acknowledge Mister Tee's brilliant comparison between First Reformed and Taxi Driver - never occurred to me when I watched First Reformed so it will be interesting to keep Tee's observations in mind on a second viewing.

The other three have no business being nominated in this category. Roma is largely a memory piece of sorts and its screenplay is pretty patchy stuff. Green Book is a run of the mill treatment of a potentially more interesting story we didn't get to see. The two lead actors brought more to it than the screenplay deserved. Vice is just awful - gimmicky, broad with zero insights into its subject matter.

My personal favourites (some of which were not eligible) were Happy as Lazzaro, Peterloo, Shoplifters & The Heiresses. All these screenplays work beautifully in conjunction with the director vision.

Third in our series of second-guessing this year's winners in the top eight categories plus cinematography.