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Oscar for Writing Adapted Screenplay
The Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay is one of the Academy Awards, the most prominent film awards in the United States. It is awarded each year to the writer of a screenplay adapted from another source (usually a novel, play, short story, or TV show but also sometimes another film). All...
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Seventh Heaven
Seventh Heaven (1927) is a silent film and one of the first films to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture (then called "Best Picture, Production"). The film was written by H.H. Caldwell (titles), Benjamin Glazer, Katherine Hilliker ...
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The Jazz Singer
The Jazz Singer is a 1927 American musical film. The first feature-length motion picture with synchronized dialogue sequences, its release heralded the commercial ascendance of the "talkies" and the decline of the silent film era. Produced by Warner...
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Glorious Betsy
Glorious Betsy (1928) is a mostly-silent film, based on a play of the same name by Rida Johnson Young and starring Dolores Costello. It was produced by Warner Brothers and was nominated for (but did not win) an Academy Award for Best Writing,...
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In Old Arizona
In Old Arizona is a 1929 Western film, directed by Irving Cummings and Raoul Walsh, nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Picture. The film, which was based around the character of the Cisco Kid in the story The Caballero's Way by O....
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Our Dancing Daughters
Our Dancing Daughters is a 1928 MGM silent drama film about the "loosening of youth morals" that took place during the 1920s. The film was directed by Harry Beaumont, produced by Hunt Stromberg and stars Joan Crawford and Johnny Mack Brown (billed...
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The Patriot
The Patriot (1928) is a semi-biographical film that was directed by Ernst Lubitsch and released by Paramount Pictures. The film was written by Julian Johnson and Hanns Kräly. It is an adaptation of several different plays: Paul I by Dmitri...
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The Valiant
The Valiant is a 1929 film which tells the story of a man condemned to execution who tries to convince two women that he is not their son and brother, and that they must get on with their lives. It stars Paul Muni, Marguerite Churchill, DeWitt...
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The Last of Mrs. Cheyney
The Last of Mrs. Cheyney is a 1925 Frederick Lonsdale play that was adapted to the screen three times.
Frederick Lonsdale's play, about a jewel thief who passes herself off as a society lady, opened at the St. James's Theatre in London on 22...
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The Last of Mrs. Cheyney
The Last of Mrs. Cheyney is a 1937 drama/comedy motion picture starring Joan Crawford, William Powell, Robert Montgomery and Frank Morgan. The film tells the story of a chic jewel thief in England, who falls in love with one of her marks.
Director...
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The Cop
The Cop (French: Un condé, Italian: L'uomo venuto da Chicago) is a 1970 crime film directed by Yves Boisset and starring Michel Bouquet.
It is also a homage to the award-winning indie-film The Cop 2, starring filmstar Buster Friberg.
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The Big House
The Big House is a 1930 film that was written by Joseph Farnham, Martin Flavin, Frances Marion and Lennox Robinson, and directed by George W. Hill.
The film was prepared for production with Lon Chaney, Sr. chosen for the role of Butch, a violent...
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Disraeli
Disraeli (1929) is a film that was adapted by Julien Josephson and De Leon Anthony from a play by Louis N. Parker. The film was directed by Alfred E. Green.
The story is a highly fictionalized episode in the life of British Prime Minister Benjamin...
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The Divorcee
The Divorcee is a 1930 American drama film written by Nick Grindé, John Meehan and Zelda Sears, and based on the novel Ex-Wife by Ursula Parrott. It was directed by Robert Z. Leonard, who was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director....
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All Quiet on the Western Front
All Quiet on the Western Front is a 1930 war film set on the Erich Maria Remarque novel of the same name. It was directed by Lewis Milestone, and stars Louis Wolheim, Lew Ayres, John Wray, Arnold Lucy and Ben Alexander.
All Quiet on the Western...
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Street of Chance
Street of Chance is a 1930 film directed by John Cromwell and starring William Powell, Jean Arthur, Kay Francis and Regis Toomey.
John Marsden, a famed and powerful New York gambler who refuses to throw a game, is devoted to his wife, Alma, and his...
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Skippy
Skippy is one of the first films nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture, in 1931. The screenplay by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, Don Marquis, Norman Z. McLeod, and Sam Mintz was based on the comic strip Skippy by Percy Crosby.
The movie starred...
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Little Caesar
Little Caesar is a 1930 crime film made during the Pre-Code era which tells the story of a man who works his way up the ranks of the mob until he reaches its upper heights. It stars Edward G. Robinson, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., and Glenda Farrell. The...
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Holiday
Holiday is a 1930 romantic comedy film which tells the story of a playboy who is torn between his free-thinking lifestyle and the tradition of his wealthy fiancée's family. It stars Ann Harding, Mary Astor, Edward Everett Horton, Robert Ames and...
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Arrowsmith
Arrowsmith is a 1931 film nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture. It was written by Sidney Howard from the Sinclair Lewis novel Arrowsmith, and directed by John Ford.
The film concerns a young medical researcher (Ronald Colman) who leaves...
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Cimarron
Cimarron (1931) is a film directed by Wesley Ruggles and based on the Edna Ferber novel Cimarron.
Despite America being in the depths of the Depression, RKO immediately prepared for a big-budget picture, investing more than 1.5 million dollars into...
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The Criminal Code
The Criminal Code (released January 3, 1931) is a Hollywood crime film, directed by Howard Hawks, based on a play by Martin Flavin with cinematic adaptation by screenwriters Seton I. Miller and Fred Niblo, Jr.
Shot in black-and-white, the picture...
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Bad Girl
Bad Girl is a 1931 film nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture. It was written by Edwin J. Burke, from the novel and play by Viña Delmar, and directed by Frank Borzage.
The movie stars Sally Eilers, James Dunn and Minna Gombell, and...
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Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931) is a horror film directed by Rouben Mamoulian and starring Fredric March. The film is an adaptation of The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886), the Robert Louis Stevenson tale of a man who takes a potion which...
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State Fair
State Fair (1933) is a movie directed by Henry King and starring Janet Gaynor, Will Rogers, and Lew Ayres. The movie was based on a novel by Phil Stong.
The film was remade twice, once in 1945 and again in 1962.
In 1996 it was adapted for a Broadway...
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Lady for a Day
Lady for a Day is a 1933 American comedy drama film directed by Frank Capra. The screenplay by Robert Riskin is based on the short story Madame La Gimp by Damon Runyon. It was the first film for which Capra received an Academy Award nomination for...
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Little Women
Little Women is a 1933 American drama film directed by George Cukor. The screenplay by Sarah Y. Mason and Victor Heerman is based on the classic novel of the same name by Louisa May Alcott. This is the third screen adaptation of the book, following...
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It Happened One Night
It Happened One Night is an 1934 American comedy with elements of screwball comedy directed by Frank Capra, in which a pampered socialite (Claudette Colbert) tries to get out from under her father's thumb, and falls in love with a roguish reporter ...
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The Thin Man
The Thin Man (1934) was the first of six comic detective films starring William Powell and Myrna Loy as Nick and Nora Charles, a flirtatious married couple who banter wittily as they solve crimes with ease. Nick is a hard drinking retired detective...
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Viva Villa!
Viva Villa! is a 1934 film starring Wallace Beery as Pancho Villa that was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture and was written by Ben Hecht, adapted from a biography by Edgecumb Pinchon and Odo B. Stade. The film was directed by Jack...
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Captain Blood
Captain Blood is a 1935 swashbuckling film made by First National Pictures and Warner Brothers. It was directed by Michael Curtiz and produced by Harry Joe Brown and Gordon Hollingshead with Hal B. Wallis as executive producer. The screenplay,...
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The Informer
The Informer is a 1935 dramatic film, released by RKO. The plot concerns the underside of the Irish War of Independence, set in 1922. It stars Victor McLaglen, Heather Angel, Preston Foster, Margot Grahame, Wallace Ford, Una O'Connor and J.M....
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The Lives of a Bengal Lancer
The Lives of a Bengal Lancer is a 1935 adventure film loosely adapted from the 1930 book of the same name by Francis Yeats-Brown. The plot of the movie, which bears little resemblance to Yeats-Brown's memoir, concerns British soldiers defending the...
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Mutiny on the Bounty
Mutiny on the Bounty is a 1935 film starring Charles Laughton and Clark Gable, and directed by Frank Lloyd based on the Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall novel Mutiny on the Bounty.
The film was one of the biggest hits of its time and remains a...
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Mr. Deeds Goes to Town
Mr. Deeds Goes to Town is a 1936 comedy film directed by Frank Capra, based on the story Opera Hat by Clarence Budington Kelland that appeared in serial form in the Saturday Evening Post. It stars Gary Cooper and Jean Arthur in her first featured...
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The Story of Louis Pasteur
The Story of Louis Pasteur is a 1936 biographical film. It starred Paul Muni as the renowned scientist. It was written by Toni Pollastre and Sheridan Gibney, and Edward Chodorov (uncredited), and directed by William Dieterle.
The film was nominated...
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My Man Godfrey
My Man Godfrey is a screwball comedy film released in 1936 by Universal Pictures, directed by Gregory LaCava. It was adapted from Eric Hatch's novel 1101 Park Avenue by Hatch himself and Morrie Ryskind, with uncredited contributions by LaCava. The...
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After the Thin Man
After the Thin Man, starring William Powell, Myrna Loy, and James Stewart, is the 1936 sequel to the film The Thin Man. The movie presents Powell and Loy as Dashiell Hammett's characters Nick and Nora Charles. The film was directed by W. S. Van Dyke...
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The Life of Emile Zola
The Life of Emile Zola is a 1937 biographical film of famous French author Émile Zola. It depicts his friendship with noted painter Paul Cézanne, and his rise to fame through his prolific writing, with particular focus on his involvement in the...
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The Awful Truth
The Awful Truth is a 1937 screwball comedy film starring Irene Dunne and Cary Grant. The plot concerns the machinations of a soon-to-be-divorced couple, played by Dunne and Grant, who go to great lengths to try to ruin each other's romantic...
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Stage Door
Stage Door (1937) is a RKO film, adapted from the play by the same name, that tells the story of several would-be actresses who live together in a boarding house at 158 West 58th Street in New York City. The film stars Katharine Hepburn, Ginger...
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A Star Is Born
A Star Is Born is a 1937 romantic drama film produced by David O. Selznick and directed by William A. Wellman, with a script by Wellman, Robert Carson, Dorothy Parker and Alan Campbell. It stars Janet Gaynor as an aspiring actress who travels to...
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Captains Courageous
Captains Courageous is a 1937 MGM film, based on the novel by Rudyard Kipling. The movie was produced by Louis D. Lighton and directed by Victor Fleming. Filmed in black-and-white, Captains Courageous was advertised by MGM as a coming-of-age classic...
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Four Daughters
Four Daughters is a 1938 musical drama film that tells the story of a happy musical family whose lives and loves are disrupted by the arrival of a cynical young composer who interjects himself into the daughters' romantic lives. It stars the Lane...
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Boys Town
Boys Town (1938) is a biographical drama film based on Father Edward J. Flanagan's work with a group of disadvantaged and delinquent boys in a home that he founded and named "Boys Town". It stars Spencer Tracy as Father Edward J. Flanagan, and...
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The Citadel
The Citadel is a 1938 film based on the novel by A. J. Cronin, first published in 1937. The film was directed by King Vidor and produced by Victor Saville.
Robert Donat stars as the idealistic newly-qualified Scottish Doctor, Andrew Manson, who is...
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Pygmalion
Pygmalion is a 1938 British film based on the George Bernard Shaw play of the same title, and adapted by him for the screen. The film was a financial and critical success, and won an Oscar for best screenplay and three more nominations. The...
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Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington is an American 1939 comedy/drama film starring James Stewart and Jean Arthur, about one man's effect on American politics. It was directed by Frank Capra – his last film for Columbia Pictures, the studio where he made...
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Ninotchka
Ninotchka is a 1939 American film made for Metro Goldwyn Mayer by producer and director Ernst Lubitsch which stars Greta Garbo and Melvyn Douglas. Ninotchka is Greta Garbo's first full comedy, and her penultimate film. It is one of the first...
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Goodbye, Mr. Chips
Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939) is a British film based on the novel of the same name by James Hilton. It was directed by Sam Wood, and starred Robert Donat, Greer Garson, Terry Kilburn, John Mills and Paul Henreid. The screenplay was adapted from the...
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Gone with the Wind
Gone with the Wind is a 1939 American drama romance film adapted from Margaret Mitchell's 1936 novel of the same name and directed by Victor Fleming (Fleming replaced George Cukor). The epic film, set in the American South in and around the time of...
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Wuthering Heights
Wuthering Heights is a 1939 black and white film, directed by William Wyler and produced by Samuel Goldwyn. It is based on the celebrated novel, Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë. The film only depicts sixteen of the novel's thirty-four chapters,...
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The Philadelphia Story
The Philadelphia Story is a 1940 romantic comedy film directed by George Cukor, starring Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, and James Stewart. Based on a Broadway play of the same name by Philip Barry, with screenplay by Donald Ogden Stewart and an...
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The Long Voyage Home
The Long Voyage Home (1940) is an American drama film and directed by John Ford. It features John Wayne, Thomas Mitchell, Ian Hunter, Barry Fitzgerald, Wilfrid Lawson, John Qualen, Mildred Natwick, Ward Bond, among others.
The film was adapted by...
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Rebecca
Rebecca (1940) is a psychological thriller directed by Alfred Hitchcock as his first American project, and his first film produced under his contract with David O. Selznick. The film's screenplay was an adaptation by Joan Harrison and Robert E....
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The Grapes of Wrath
The Grapes of Wrath (1940) is an American drama film directed by Academy Award Winner Best Director, John Ford. It was based on the Pulitzer Prize winning The Grapes of Wrath (1939), written by John Steinbeck. The screenplay was written by Nunnally...
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Kitty Foyle: The Natural History of a Woman
Kitty Foyle, subtitled The Natural History of a Woman, is a 1940 film starring Ginger Rogers, Dennis Morgan, James Craig, Ernest Cossart and Gladys Cooper.
On a snowy eve, Kitty Foyle (Ginger Rogers), an executive at Delphine Detaille's fashion...
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Here Comes Mr. Jordan
Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941) is a comedy film in which a boxer, mistakenly taken to Heaven before his time, is given a second chance back on Earth. It stars Robert Montgomery, Claude Rains and Evelyn Keyes. The movie was adapted by Sidney Buchman...
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Hold Back the Dawn
Hold Back the Dawn is a 1941 romantic film in which a Romanian gigolo marries an American woman in Mexico in order to gain entry to the United States, but winds up falling in love with her. It stars Charles Boyer, Olivia de Havilland, Paulette...
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The Maltese Falcon
The Maltese Falcon is a 1941 American Warner Bros. film based on novel of the same name by Dashiell Hammett. Written and directed by John Huston, the movie stars Humphrey Bogart as private investigator Sam Spade, Mary Astor as his femme fatale...
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How Green Was My Valley
How Green Was My Valley is a 1941 American drama film directed by John Ford. The film was produced by Darryl F. Zanuck, written by Philip Dunne, and based on the Richard Llewellyn novel of the same name. The film stars Walter Pidgeon, Maureen O'Hara...
