“One Battle After Another, written by Paul Thomas Anderson and inspired by Thomas Pynchon’s 1990 novel “Vineland,” has won the 38th annual USC Libraries Scripter Award, an honor that goes to the best page-to-screen adaptations of the year. The ceremony took place on Saturday evening on the USC campus.
Because the Scripter Awards honor both the writer of the screenplay and the author of the original work from which the film or TV show was adapted, the prize officially went jointly to Anderson and Pynchon. Anderson accepted the award on video. The famously private Pynchon did not attend.
“One Battle” is a loose adaptation of Pynchon’s novel, focusing on the book’s father-daughter dynamic but with the time period and all of the characters’ names changed. Anderson also turned Pynchon’s novel “Inherent Vice” into a film, released in 2014.
The film’s win came in a fiercely competitive category that contained three of its newly-minted Oscar competitors for Best Adapted Screenplay: “Frankenstein,” “Hamnet,” and “Train Dreams,” plus the indie “Peter Hujar’s Day.”
In the 38 years since the Scripter Awards began in 1988, its winner has matched the Oscar winner for Best Adapted Screenplay 17 times. Almost half of those times came in an eight-year stretch between 2011 and 2018, which was followed by four years in which the awards did not match. Over the last three years, though, the Scripter winner — “Women Talking” in 2023, “American Fiction” in 2024 and “Conclave” last year — has gone on to receive the Oscar.
In the Scripter television series category, the winners was Netflix’s “Death By Lightning,” the historical drama based on the non-fiction book “Destiny of the Republic,” by Candice Millard. The limited series, chronicling the election and assassination of President James Garfied, was adapted by Mike Makowsky.
In his acceptance speech, Makowsky explained that he only picked up Millard’s book when he was looking for a third book to buy at a Barnes and Noble “buy two, get one free” sale table.
Also at the ceremony, novelist Michael Connelly was given the USC Libraries Literary Achievement Award. The award was presented by actor Titus Welliver, who played Detective Harry Bosch, one of Connelly’s most memorable characters, on the TV series “Bosch” and “Bosch: Legacy.”
The ceremony took place on the USC campus in Town and Gown, a ballroom adjacent to the Doheny Library, the traditional site of the Scripters.
Scripter finalists and winners are chosen by a committee chaired by Howard A. Rodman and onsisting of Writers Guild of America Members, Academy Award-winning and -nominated screenwriters, authors, film and television industry executives, faculty and select members of the Friends of the USC Libraries. The gala presentation is an annual fundraiser for USC Libraries.
Here are the list of finalists in the two Scripter categories:
Film
“Frankenstein”
Written by Guillermo del Toro, based on the novel “Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus” by Mary Shelley
“Hamnet”
Written by Chloe Zhao and Maggie O’Farrell, based on the novel of the same name by Maggie O’Farrell
*WINNER: “One Battle After Another”
Written by Paul Thomas Anderson, inspired by the novel “Vineland” by Thomas Pynchon
“Peter Hujar’s Day”
Written by Ira Sachs, based on the book of the same name by Linda Rosenkrantz
“Train Dreams”
Written by Clint Bentley and Greg Kwedar, based on the novella of the same name by Denis Johnson
Television
“Dark Winds,” episode: “Ábidoo’niidę́ę́ (What He Had Been Told)”
Written by Max Hurwitz and Billy Luther from the Tony Hillerman novels “Dancehall of the Dead” and “The Sinister Pig”
*WINNER: “Death by Lighting,” episode: “Destiny of the Republic”
Written by Mike Makowsky, based on the Candice Millard nonfiction book “Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President”
“Dept. Q,” untitled first episode
Written by Chadni Lakhani and Scott Frank from the Jussi Adler-Olsen novel “The Keeper of Lost Causes”
“Slow Horses,” episode: “Scars”
Written by Will Smith and based on the novel “London Rules” by Mick Herron
“Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light,” entire series, written by Peter Straughan and based on the novel “The Mirror and the Light” by Hilary Mantel