Best Screenplays: 1930s

Note: The Academy's screenplay categories were different in the 1930s. For instance, there was only one writing category at the 1929/1930 ceremony. Also, the Adapted Screenplay winners credited below are actually from the Best Screenplay Oscar category, and the Original Screenplay winners are from the Best Original Story Oscar category.

Best Adapted Screenplay:

1930: All Quiet on the Western Front (Maxwell Anderson, George
Abbott, Del Andrews, and C. Gardner Sullivan)

Oscar winner: The Big House (Frances Marion) ('29/'30)

Was this nominated?: Yes

1931: Little Caesar (Frances Faragoh and Robert N. Lee)

Oscar winner: Cimarron (Howard Estabrook) ('30/'31)

Was this nominated?: Yes

1932: Grand Hotel (Vicki Baum)

Oscar winner: Bad Girl (Edwin Burke) ('31/'32)

Was this nominated?: No

1933: Dinner at Eight (Frances Marion and Herman J. Mankiewicz)

Oscar winner: Little Women (Victor Heerman and Sarah Y. Mason) ('32/'33)

Was this nominated?: No

1934: It Happened One Night (Robert Riskin)

Oscar winner: It Happened One Night (Robert Riskin)

1935: The 39 Steps (Charles Bennett)

Oscar winner: The Informers (Dudley Nichols)

Was this nominated?: No

1936: Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (Robert Riskin)

Oscar winner: The Story of Louis Pasteur (Pierre Collings and Sheridan Gibney)

Was this nominated?: Yes

1937: The Awful Truth (Vina Delmar)

Oscar winner: The Life of Emile Zola (Heinz Herald, Geza Herczeg, and Norman Reilly Raine)

Was this nominated?: Yes

1938: Holiday (Donald Ogden Stewart and Sidney Buchman)

Oscar winner: Pygmalion (George Bernard Shaw, Ian Dalrymple, Cecil
Lewis, and W.P. Lipscomb)

Was this nominated?: No

1939: Gone with the Wind (Sidney Howard)

Oscar winner: Gone with the Wind (Sidney Howard)

Best Original Screenplay:

1930: A Propos de Nice (Jean Vigo)

Oscar winner: The Big House (Frances Marion) ('29/'30)

Was this nominated?: No

1931: City Lights (Charlie Chaplin)

Oscar winner: The Dawn Patrol (John Monk Saunders) ('30/'31)

Was this nominated?: No

1932: Shanghai Express (Jules Furthman and Harry Hervey)

Oscar winner: The Champ (Frances Marion) ('31/'32)

Was this nominated?: No

1933: King Kong (James Ashmore Creelman, Ruth Rose, Merian C.
Cooper, and Edgar Wallace)

Oscar winner: One Way Passage (Robert Lord) ('32/'33)

Was this nominated?: No

1934: Manhattan Melodrama (Oliver H.P. Garrett, Joseph L.
Mankiewicz, and Arthur Caesar)

Oscar winner: Manhattan Melodrama (Arthur Caesar)

1935: A Night at the Opera (George S. Kaufman, Morrie Ryskind,
and James Kevin McGuinness)

Oscar winner: The Scoundrel (Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur)

Was this nominated?: No

1936: Modern Times (Charlie Chaplin)

Oscar winner: The Story of Louis Pasteur (Pierre Collings and Sheridan Gibney)

Was this nominated?: No

1937: Black Legion (Abem Finkel, William Wister Haines, and Robert Lord)

Oscar winner: A Star is Born (William A. Wellman and Robert Carson)

Was this nominated?: Yes

1938: Grand Illusion (Charles Spaak and Jean Renoir)

Oscar winner: Boys Town (Eleanore Griffin and Dore Schary)

Was this nominated?: No

1939: The Roaring Twenties (Jerry Wald, Richard Macaulay, Robert
Rossen, and Mark Hellinger)

Oscar winner: Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (Lewis R. Foster)

Was this nominated?: No