Oscars 2023: Best Adapted Screenplay Predictions
Marcus Jones
We keep updating these predictions through the awards season, so keep checking IndieWire for all our 2023 Oscar picks. Final voting is March 2 through 7, 2023. The 95th Oscars telecast will be broadcast on Sunday, March 12 and air live on ABC at 8:00 p.m. ET/ 5:00 p.m. PT.
See IndieWire’s previous Oscars Predictions for this category and more here.
The State of the Race
It took some time to get there, but “Women Talking” has finally built up plenty of momentum this awards season, right as Oscar voters are turning in their final ballots. The Best Picture nominee helmed by writer-director Sarah Polley spent the first weekend of March collecting trophies at the Independent Spirit Awards, the USC Scripter Awards, and Writers Guild of America Awards — the latter two for its screenplay, adapted from Miriam Toews’ 2018 novel.
Polley, who was nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay once before, for her directorial debut “Away from Her” (2007), now stands the best chance of winning the Oscar 15 years after that initial recognition. The only script that stands in her way is BAFTA winner “All Quiet on the Western Front,” which itself took 16 years to get produced. The Netflix WWI drama written by Ian Stokell and Lesley Paterson unexpectedly dominated at the UK awards show, also winning Best Director and Best Picture, while “Women Talking” was completely shut out of the four nomination categories it was longlisted for.
Still, the international bloc counts for about a third of Oscar voters, so even if Polley does not have all their support, her guild wins show the “Women Talking” screenplay — a story based on true events about Mennonite women deciding on whether to leave or stay and fight the perpetrators of sexual violence within their colony — has many fans.
Screenwriters Kazuo Ishiguro and Rian Johnson are both well-respected within the filmmaking community, but neither of their respective films, “Living” and “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery,” scored a Best Picture nomination, meaning, realistically, less voters are giving their movies a chance.
Meanwhile, “Top Gun: Maverick” has statistically been seen by the most people, grossing over a billion dollars at the worldwide box office, but its awards campaign has been seriously downplaying its script, even pulling it from Scripters contention.
All in all, in a year where female filmmakers were shut out of the Best Director category, it’s notable that it seems all but certain that a woman will still win the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar.
Nominees are listed below in order of likelihood they will win.
Contenders:
Sarah Polley (“Women Talking”)
Lesley Paterson and Ian Stokell (“All Quiet on the Western Front”)
Kazuo Ishiguro (“Living”)
Rian Johnson (“Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery”)
Ehren Kruger, Christopher McQuarrie, and Eric Warren Singer (“Top Gun: Maverick”)
