Oscars 2027: Women Screenwriters Face a Two-Name Field

Women account for roughly 13% of Best Original Screenplay winners since 1940 — and the 2027 Oscar race currently offers only two realistic female contenders across both screenplay categories. Both sit in Best Adapted Screenplay: Rashida Jones, for The Invite (co-written with Will McCormack), and Léa Le Dimna, for All of a Sudden (co-written with director Ryusuke Hamaguchi). No woman currently ranks as a viable frontrunner in Best Original Screenplay.

What happened in 2026?

Last cycle produced a near-shutout. Among the 10 Best Picture nominees at the 2026 Oscars, only one film with female screenwriters also earned a screenplay nomination: Hamnet, written by Maggie O'Farrell and Chloé Zhao, competed in Best Adapted Screenplay and lost to One Battle After Another.

The contrast with recent seasons is stark. The 2024 race featured Greta Gerwig's Barbie in adapted, plus Celine Song's Past Lives and Justine Triet's Anatomy of a Fall in original. Triet won that category with co-writer Arthur Harari. Emerald Fennell's Saltburn drew awards attention but missed a screenplay nomination. One cycle later, Coralie Fargeat's The Substance landed an Original Screenplay nod.

That bump coincided with the Academy's decade-long preference for writer-directors. At least one director held a writing credit on each of the last 10 Best Picture winners: One Battle After Another, Anora, Oppenheimer, Everything Everywhere All at Once, CODA, Nomadland, Parasite, Green Book, The Shape of Water and Moonlight.

How deep does the historical gap run?

The numbers frame the deficit. Women have taken about 13% of Original Screenplay wins since the Academy created that distinct award in 1940; earlier writing awards used different categories, and Frances Marion won a general writing award for The Big House at the 1930 ceremony. In adapted, the figure drops to an estimated 9%.

Women have shared in Best Picture success regardless. Chloé Zhao won Best Picture in 2021 and earned an adapted nomination, though The Father took the screenplay prize. Further back, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King won Best Adapted Screenplay for a team including Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens.

The 1990s marked the peak. Callie Khouri won in 1992 for Ridley Scott's Thelma & Louise. Jane Campion won in 1994 for The Piano, which she directed. Diablo Cody followed in 2008 for Jason Reitman's Juno. Adapted winners include Ruth Prawer Jhabvala (Howards End, 1993), Emma Thompson (Sense and Sensibility, 1996) and Diana Ossana, who shared the 2006 award with Larry McMurtry for Brokeback Mountain.

Who could still break through?

The long list of female hopefuls is longer than the frontrunner list suggests:

• Adapted: Being Heumann (Siân Heder and Rebekah Taussig), Sense and Sensibility (Diana Reid), Late Fame (Samy Burch), Wicker (Eleanor Wilson with co-director Alex Huston Fischer)
• Original: Josephine (Beth de Araújo), The Liberation (Noa Berman-Herzberg with director Guy Nattiv), Digger (Sabina Berman with director Alejandro Iñárritu and others), plus Wilson's Wicker

The director picture remains thinner. The Invite's Olivia Wilde holds the best nomination shot if her summer-release hit sustains its buzz, while Josephine's Beth de Araújo and Being Heumann's Siân Heder form a tiny auteur cohort.

Does the Best Picture field tell the wider story?

It does. With the exception of The Invite and All of a Sudden, every current Best Picture favorite comes from a man or male writing team — The Odyssey, Project Hail Mary, La Bola Negra, Wild Horse Nine, The Debut among them — suggesting a constricted marketplace moving away from stories created by and about women.

Television offers a counterpoint. In 2026, Liz Meriwether's Furious, Zoe Kazan's East of Eden, Debora Cahn's The Diplomat and Widow's Bay creator and Emmy winner Katie Dippold all made their mark — a killer year for women that film has yet to match.