From Sentimental Value to Marty Supreme, the five nominees represent some of the most original writing in recent memory

Best Original Screenplay 2026: A Race With a Clear Leader and Genuine Depth

The 2026 Best Original Screenplay Oscar race is among the most discussed of the season — and for good reason. Five films representing wildly different traditions of filmmaking and writing are competing for a single prize, with Ryan Coogler’s Sinners holding a commanding lead in the forecasts. But the nominees themselves tell a more complex story about what kind of original writing the Academy is capable of recognizing when it expands its vision.

Sinners: A Record-Setting Original

Ryan Coogler’s Sinners received 16 Oscar nominations — the most of any film in history, breaking the previous record of 14. The film is set in 1930s Mississippi and uses the framework of a Southern Gothic horror film to examine the co-optation of Black music and culture by white commercial interests. Its nominations include Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, Best Actor (Michael B. Jordan), Best Cinematography, and numerous technical categories. Most forecasters predict Sinners to win Original Screenplay. If it does, Coogler will become only the second Black writer to win in this category, following Jordan Peele’s Get Out win in 2018. The screenplay’s ambition — fusing genre entertainment with a pointed examination of American racial economics — represents a type of original writing that the Academy has historically undervalued in Genre films.

Sentimental Value: International Writing at Its Best

Joachim Trier and Eskil Vogt’s Sentimental Value is the Norwegian entry that has performed remarkably well in an American awards race dominated by English-language films. Their screenplay, for a film about a filmmaker father reconnecting with his children, explores the relationship between art, memory, and family obligation with the restraint and emotional precision that has characterized Trier’s entire filmography. The film is also nominated for International Feature Film, Best Supporting Actor (Stellan Skarsgard), and multiple additional categories.

Marty Supreme and the Safdie Voice

Ronald Bronstein and Josh Safdie wrote Marty Supreme, a portrait of real-life table tennis prodigy Marty Reisman set in the New York underground sports world. The Safdie brothers’ writing voice — relentless, anxiety-inducing, deeply empathetic — has been praised since Good Time and Uncut Gems. This film represents their most formally ambitious screenplay to date, and its presence in Original Screenplay reflects the Academy’s increasing comfort with difficult, kinetic storytelling.

The Panahi Contribution

It Was Just an Accident, by Iranian director Jafar Panahi and collaborators Nader Saivar, Shadmehr Rastin, and Mehdi Mahmoudian, adds a dimension to the race that is both political and artistic. Panahi, who has been banned from filmmaking by the Iranian government, continues to produce work that arrives through international channels. His inclusion in the Oscar conversation carries an implicit endorsement of filmmaking under political repression — a statement the Academy does not make explicitly but makes nonetheless through its nominations. The PEN America organization has extensively documented the situation of writers and filmmakers working under government censorship in Iran and elsewhere.

Sorry, Baby and the Case for Independent Voice

Eva Victor’s Sorry, Baby rounds out the nominated five, having won Best Screenplay at the Spirit Awards two weeks before the Oscar ceremony. Its presence in the Oscar nominees — achieved without a DGA feature film nomination — reflects genuine enthusiasm within the Academy’s writers branch for Victor’s debut voice. The film’s approach to sexual assault as subject matter, handled with humor and without exploitation, is the kind of writing that does not fit easily into any existing category.

What This Race Means for the Future of Original Screenwriting

The 2026 Original Screenplay nominees collectively represent a broad answer to the question of what original writing for film looks like in the mid-2020s. Genre film with political ambition. International family drama. Underground sports portrait. Dissident cinema. Debut independent voice. If the Oscars are meant, in part, to document what American and global cinema values in a given year, this particular ballot makes a reasonable case for the vitality of the form. You can track final odds at Gold Derby, which aggregates predictions from dozens of industry professionals and film critics. With voting closing March 5, the final outcome will depend on which of these five extraordinary screenplays resonates most deeply with a voting body of roughly 10,000 Academy members. Coogler remains the strong favorite. But the other four nominees have nothing to be apologetic about.