Oscars: Jordan Peele Becomes First Black Original Screenplay Winner

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Jordan Peele won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay for his film “Get Out,” making him the first black screenwriter to ever win the award.

Peele is just the fourth black screenwriter nominated for Best Original Screenplay, following Suzanne de Passe for “Lady Sings the Blues,” Spike Lee for “Do the Right Thing” and John Singleton for “Boyz n the Hood.”

“I want to dedicate this to all the people who raised my voice and let me make this movie,” Peele said upon accepting his Oscar.

Also Read: 'Get Out' Director Jordan Peele on Why He Changed That Ending

To clarify, Peele is the first winner in the original screenplay category. Barry Jenkins and Tarrell Alvin McCraney won in the Adapted Screenplay category last year, and Geoffrey Fletcher was the first African American to win a screenplay award for “Precious.” John Ridley also won for adapting “12 Years a Slave.”

“I knew enough working with directors to know that the director is first and foremost a storyteller,” Peele told TheWrap’s Steve Pond, saying he knew he had to direct after completing the first draft of “Get Out.” “I knew the movie would resonate, but I didn’t know that people would still be talking about it.”

“Get Out” is a hybrid of a horror and comedy about the awkward and tense drama spawning when a black man travels to meet his white girlfriend’s parents and family.

Peele is also nominated for an Oscar Best Director and is just the fifth black directing nominee. On Saturday, Peele won Best Director at the Film Independent Spirit awards, but he lost to Greta Gerwig for Best Screenplay.

Every Black Director Nominated for an Oscar, From John Singleton to Spike Lee (Photos)

Spike Lee became only the sixth black director to receive an Oscar nomination in the Academy's history for his work on "BlackKklansman." But so far, no black filmmaker has won in that category.
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John Singleton, "Boyz N the Hood" (1991) • Two years after Spike Lee was passed over for a nomination for "Do the Right Thing," John Singleton became the first African American to earn a Best Director nomination for his star-studded drama set in South Central L.A. That year, Jonathan Demme won the award for "The Silence of the Lambs."
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Lee Daniels, "Precious" (2009) • Eighteen years passed before a second African American filmmaker was recognized: Lee Daniels, for his gritty portrait of a young woman seeking to overcome a childhood of poverty and abuse. In another Oscar first, Kathryn Bigelow became the first female director to win the Oscar, for "The Hurt Locker."
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Steve McQueen, "12 Years a Slave" (2013) • British director Steve McQueen gritty drama about American slavery picked up nine nominations, including one for his directing. While the film won Best Picture (and McQueen earned a statuette as a producer), he lost the directing prize to "Gravity" filmmaker Alfonso Cuarón.
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Barry Jenkins, "Moonlight" (2016) • Jenkins' underdog indie pulled off a major upset, beating front-runner "La La Land" for Best Picture. But Damien Chazelle claimed the directing prize for the modern-day musical. (Jenkins did take home the statuette for Best Adapted Screenplay.)
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Jordan Peele, "Get Out" (2017) • Peele became the latest actor-turned-filmmaker to earn a Best Director nod, for his feature filmmaking debut. Peele won an Oscar for his original screenplay but Guillermo del Toro won Best Director for "The Shape of Water."
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Spike Lee, "BlackKklansman" (2018) • Despite wide acclaim for such films as 1989's "Do the Right Thing" and 1992's "Malcolm X," the pioneering filmmaker earned his first nomination decades into his career for this fact-based tale of a black undercover cop who infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan.
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Spike Lee became only the sixth black director to receive an Oscar nomination in the Academy's history for his work on "BlackKklansman." But so far, no black filmmaker has won in that category.

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Every Black Director Nominated for an Oscar, From John Singleton to Spike Lee (Photos)

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Every Black Director Nominated for an Oscar, From John Singleton to Spike Lee (Photos)

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