The USC Libraries have named the 2026 finalists for his or her thirty eighth annual Scripter Awards, which honor the 12 months’s most completed variations of the written phrase for the display. The awards, which go to at least one movie and one tv sequence, acknowledge each the authors of the unique works and the screenwriters who tailored them.
Moreover, creator Michael Connelly, accountable for the novels that grew to become hit tv sequence like “Bosch” and “The Lincoln Lawyer,” will settle for the USC Libraries Literary Achievement Award on the Scripter ceremony for his contributions to the artwork of thriller storytelling, each on the web page and on the display.
On the movie aspect, the Scripter Award has been a severe bellwether for the Oscars, having predicted 4 out of 5 of the previous couple of Greatest Tailored Screenplay award winners. Screenwriter Peter Straughan, who received the movie award in 2025 for “Conclave” alongside novelist Robert Harris, is nominated once more this 12 months for the TV award for his work adapting Hilary Mantel’s novel “The Mirror and the Gentle” into the PBS sequence “Wolf Corridor: The Mirror and the Gentle.”
One distinctive ingredient to the Scripter Awards is that, of their concentrate on honoring the written phrase as a supply of inspiration for display storytellers, solely works tailored from books or e-book sequence, novellas, quick tales, graphic novels, performs, or journal articles are eligible. The principles have modified this 12 months for online game variations like “The Final of Us” and “Fallout” to now not be eligible. Characters originating in beforehand revealed works are additionally not thought-about eligible supply materials, so movies like “Wake Up Lifeless Man” and “Bugonia” weren’t within the working for the movie award.
The 2026 Scripter choice committee chosen the finalists from a subject of 43 movie and 64 tv variations. USC professor Howard Rodman, a former president of the Writers Guild of America, West, chairs the committee, which incorporates journalists, authors, screenwriters, producers, and Elizabeth Daley, dean of the USC Faculty of Cinematic Arts.
The USC Libraries will announce the profitable authors and screenwriters at a black-tie ceremony on Saturday, Jan. 24, 2026, within the City & Robe ballroom on the College of Southern California.
The finalist writers for movie adaptation are, in alphabetical order by movie title:
Guillermo del Toro for “Frankenstein” primarily based on the novel “Frankenstein; or, the Trendy Prometheus” by Mary Shelley
Chloe Zhao and Maggie O’Farrell for “Hamnet” primarily based on O’Farrell’s novel of the identical identify
Paul Thomas Anderson for “One Battle After One other” primarily based on the novel “Vineland” by Thomas Pynchon
Ira Sachs for “Peter Hujar’s Day” primarily based on the e-book of the identical identify by Linda Rosenkrantz
Clint Bentley and Greg Kwedar for “Prepare Goals” primarily based on the novella of the identical identify by Denis Johnson
The finalist writers for episodic sequence are, in alphabetical order by sequence title:
Max Hurwitz and Billy Luther for the episode “Ábidoo’niidę́ę́ (What He Had Been Instructed),” from “Darkish Winds,” primarily based on the novels “Dancehall of the Lifeless” and “The Sinister Pig” by Tony Hillerman
Mike Makowsky for the episode “Future of the Republic,” from “Loss of life by Lightning,” primarily based on Candice Millard’s nonfiction e-book “Future of the Republic: A Story of Insanity, Drugs, and the Homicide of a President”
Chandni Lakhani and Scott Frank for the untitled first episode of “Dept. Q,” primarily based on the novel “The Keeper of Misplaced Causes” by Jussi Adler-Olsen
Will Smith for the episode “Scars,” from “Gradual Horses,” primarily based on the novel “London Guidelines” by Mick Herron
Peter Straughan for the sequence “Wolf Corridor: The Mirror and the Gentle,” primarily based on the novel “The Mirror and the Gentle” by Hilary Mantel
