The USC Libraries have named the 2026 finalists for his or her thirty eighth annual Scripter Awards, which honor the 12 months’s most achieved diversifications of the written phrase for the display. The awards, which go to 1 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 turned 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 facet, the Scripter Award has been a severe bellwether for the Oscars, having predicted 4 out of 5 of the previous couple of Finest 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 Mild” into the PBS sequence “Wolf Corridor: The Mirror and the Mild.”
One huge change with the Scripter Awards this 12 months is that, of their concentrate on honoring the written phrase as a supply of inspiration for display storytellers, solely works tailored from books or guide sequence, novellas, brief tales, graphic novels, performs, or journal articles are eligible. Video video games and characters originating in beforehand revealed works are not thought-about eligible supply materials, so movies like “Wake Up Useless Man” and “Bugonia” weren’t within the operating for the movie award.
The 2026 Scripter choice committee chosen the finalists from a discipline of 43 movie and 64 tv diversifications. 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 College of Cinematic Arts.
The USC Libraries will announce the successful 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” based mostly on the novel “Frankenstein; or, the Trendy Prometheus” by Mary Shelley
Chloe Zhao and Maggie O’Farrell for “Hamnet” based mostly on O’Farrell’s novel of the identical identify
Paul Thomas Anderson for “One Battle After One other” based mostly on the novel “Vineland” by Thomas Pynchon
Ira Sachs for “Peter Hujar’s Day” based mostly on the guide of the identical identify by Linda Rosenkrantz
Clint Bentley and Greg Kwedar for “Practice Goals” based mostly 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 Advised),” from “Darkish Winds,” based mostly on the novels “Dancehall of the Useless” and “The Sinister Pig” by Tony Hillerman
Mike Makowsky for the episode “Future of the Republic,” from “Loss of life by Lightning,” based mostly on Candice Millard’s nonfiction guide “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,” based mostly on the novel “The Keeper of Misplaced Causes” by Jussi Adler-Olsen
Will Smith for the episode “Scars,” from “Gradual Horses,” based mostly on the novel “London Guidelines” by Mick Herron
Peter Straughan for the sequence “Wolf Corridor: The Mirror and the Mild,” based mostly on the novel “The Mirror and the Mild” by Hilary Mantel