Split Years and the Screenplay Nomination

One of the of the things Gravity will have to overcome is its lack of screenplay nomination. That’s not particularly surprising for an effects-driven film, a mood piece. Films with very little dialogue often don’t get acknowledged for screenplay, like Tree of Life. When it comes to winners, though, in all of Oscar history, only once did a film win Best Picture in a split year without a screenplay nomination. Of course, this is all moot if Gravity wins Best Picture and Best Director. This rule only applies for the rare splits, which have, without exception (unless you count last year), been mostly surprises. I wanted to take a look at the splits and how they divided with Screenplay over the years.  Turns out, in every split year except one, both films that won Picture or Director had a Screenplay nomination, or a screenplay win.  One of the things I noticed looking back was that Best Pictures winners in a split were more likely to win in the screenplay category. Films that won director and screenplay and not picture happened, just not as often.

Let’s build a chart, shall we?

The DGA Awards
won DGA | won Oscar

*film nominated/+ won Best Picture at the Oscars

You can count last year if you’d like because it still applies, but me, I can’t count last year simply because it was forced. The voters didn’t choose to split the vote as Argo was way in the lead long before the Oscars were held. But even still, screenplay noms for both films.

2012

2005

2002

2000

1998

1989

1981

1972

1967

1956

1953

1952

1950

1949

1940

1937

1937

1937