Nebula Award for Best Script

Nebula Award for Best Script
Nebula Award for Best Script
Awarded for	The best science fiction or fantasy movie or television episode script released in the prior calendar year
Presented by	Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association
First awarded	1974
Last awarded	2009
Website	sfwa.org/nebula-awards/

The Nebula Award for Best Script was given each year by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA) for science fiction or fantasy scripts for movies or television episodes. Awards are also given out for published literary works in the novel, novella, novelette, and short story categories. The Nebula Award for Best Script was awarded annually from 1974 through 1978, and from 2000 through 2009. It was presented under several names; in 1974, 1975, and 1977 the award was for Best Dramatic Presentation, while in 1976 the award was for Best Dramatic Writing.^[1] The award was discontinued in 2010 and replaced with Ray Bradbury Nebula Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation; this award was not originally a Nebula but was made one retroactively in 2019, and is presented at the Nebula Awards Ceremony and follows Nebula rules and procedures.^[2] The Nebula Awards have been described as one of "the most important of the American science fiction awards" and "the science-fiction and fantasy equivalent" of the Emmy Awards.^[3]^[4]

Selection process

Nebula Award nominees and winners are chosen by members of the SFWA, though the authors of the nominees do not need to be a member. Works are nominated each year between November 15 and February 15 by published authors who are members of the organization, and the six works that receive the most nominations then form the final ballot, with additional nominees possible in the case of ties. Members may then vote on the ballot throughout March, and the final results are presented at the Nebula Awards ceremony in May. Authors are not permitted to nominate their own works, and ties in the final vote are broken, if possible, by the number of nominations the works received.^[1] Beginning with the 2009 awards, the rules were changed to the current format. Prior to then, the eligibility period for nominations was defined as one year after the publication date of the work, which allowed the possibility for works to be nominated in the calendar year after their publication and then reach the final ballot in the calendar year after that. Works were added to a preliminary ballot for the year if they had ten or more nominations, which were then voted on to create a final ballot, to which the SFWA organizing panel was also allowed to add an additional work.^[5]

Award statistics

During the 15 nomination years, 14 awards for Best Script have been given, including the special award given to Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope in 1978 but not including 1977, since no nominee was given the award. No winner was declared that year as "no award" received the highest number of votes.^[6] With three awards The Lord of the Rings film trilogy earned the most awards or nominations of any franchise. The Christopher Nolan Batman movies, Battlestar Galactica, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Doctor Who franchises have each had two nominations, but no wins. Hayao Miyazaki, Christopher Nolan, Joss Whedon, and The Lord of the Rings screenwriters have had the most nominations, with three each.

Winners and nominees

In the following table, the years correspond to the date of the ceremony, rather than when the work was first released. Entries with a blue background and an asterisk (*) next to the writer's name have won the award; those with a white background are the other nominees on the shortlist. Entries with a gray background and a plus sign (+) mark a year when "no award" was selected as the winner.

* Winners and joint winners + No winner selected

Winners and nominees
Year	Writer(s)	Work	Publisher	Ref.
1974	Stanley R. Greenberg (script), Harry Harrison (original novel)*	Soylent Green	Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer	^[7]
	Michael Crichton	Westworld	Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer	^[7]
	Bruce Jay Friedman	Steambath	PBS	^[7]
	Brian Moore (script, original novel)	Catholics	ITV	^[7]
1975	Woody Allen*	Sleeper	United Artists	^[8]
	Christopher Isherwood and Don Bachardy (script), Mary Shelley (original novel)	Frankenstein: The True Story	NBC	^[8]
	René Laloux and Roland Topor (script), Stefan Wul (original novel)	Fantastic Planet	Argos Films	^[8]
1976	Mel Brooks and Gene Wilder (script), Mary Shelley (original novel)*	Young Frankenstein	United Artists	^[9]
	John Carpenter and Dan O'Bannon	Dark Star	Jack H. Harris Enterprises	^[9]
	L. Q. Jones (script) Harlan Ellison (original novella)	A Boy and His Dog	LQ/JAF	^[9]
	William Harrison (script, original story)	Rollerball	United Artists	^[9]
1977	(no award)+			^[10]
	Harlan Ellison	Harlan! Harlan Ellison Reads Harlan Ellison	Alternative World Recordings	^[10]
	David Zelag Goodman (script), William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson (original novel)	Logan's Run	United Artists	^[10]
	Paul Mayersberg (script), Walter Tevis (original novel)	The Man Who Fell to Earth	Columbia Pictures	^[10]
1978	George Lucas*	Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope^[a]	20th Century Fox	^[11]
2000	M. Night Shyamalan*	The Sixth Sense	Hollywood Pictures	^[12]
	Robert J. Avrech (script), Jane Yolen (original novel)	The Devil's Arithmetic	Showtime Networks	^[12]
	Brad Bird and Tim McCanlies (script), Ted Hughes (original novel)	The Iron Giant	Warner Bros.	^[12]
	John Millerman	The Uranus Experiment: Part 2	Private Black Label	^[12]
	Larry and Andy Wachowski	The Matrix	Warner Bros.	^[12]
2001	David Howard and Robert Gordon*	Galaxy Quest	DreamWorks	^[13]
	Frank Darabont (script), Stephen King (original novel)	The Green Mile	Warner Bros.	^[13]
	Hayao Miyazaki (script) and Neil Gaiman (English translation)	Princess Mononoke	Studio Ghibli/Miramax Films	^[13]
	Charlie Kaufman	Being John Malkovich	Propaganda Films	^[13]
	M. Night Shyamalan	Unbreakable	Touchstone Pictures	^[13]
	Kevin Smith	Dogma	View Askew Productions	^[13]
2002	James Schamus, Kuo Jung Tsai, and Hui-Ling Wang (script), Wang Dulu (original novel)*	Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon	Sony Pictures Classics	^[14]
	Ethan and Joel Coen	O Brother, Where Art Thou?	Touchstone Pictures	^[14]
	Tom DeSanto and Bryan Singer (story), David Hayter (screenplay)	X-Men	20th Century Fox	^[14]
	Joss Whedon	Buffy the Vampire Slayer: "The Body"	Fox Television Studios/Mutant Enemy Productions	^[14]
2003	Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, and Peter Jackson (script), J. R. R. Tolkien (original novel)*	The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring	New Line Cinema	^[15]
	Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio	Shrek	DreamWorks	^[15]
	Michael Taylor (script), Stephen King (original concept)	The Dead Zone: "Unreasonable Doubt"	DreamWorks	^[15]
	Joss Whedon	Buffy the Vampire Slayer: "Once More, With Feeling"	Warner Bros.	^[15]
2004	Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, Stephen Sinclair, and Peter Jackson (script), J. R. R. Tolkien (original novel)*	The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers	New Line Cinema	^[16]
	Scott Frank and Jon Cohen (script), Philip K. Dick (original story)	Minority Report	20th Century Fox/DreamWorks	^[16]
	David A. Goodman	Futurama: "Where No Fan Has Gone Before"	Fox Broadcasting Company	^[16]
	Hayao Miyazaki (script), Cindy Davis Hewitt, and Donald H. Hewitt (English translation)	Spirited Away	Studio Ghibli/The Walt Disney Company	^[16]
	Andrew Stanton, Bob Peterson, and David Reynolds	Finding Nemo	Pixar/The Walt Disney Company	^[16]
2005	Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, and Peter Jackson (script), J. R. R. Tolkien (original novel)*	The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King	New Line Cinema	^[17]
	Brad Bird	The Incredibles	Pixar/The Walt Disney Company	^[17]
	J. Mackye Gruber and Eric Bress	The Butterfly Effect	New Line Cinema	^[17]
	Charlie Kaufman & Michel Gondry	Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind	Focus Features	^[17]
2006	Joss Whedon*	Serenity	Universal Studios/Mutant Enemy Productions	^[18]
2006	Carla Robinson, Bradley Thompson, and David Weddle	Battlestar Galactica: "Act of Contrition/You Can't Go Home Again"	Sci-Fi Channel	^[18]
2007	Hayao Miyazaki (script), Cindy Davis Hewitt, and Donald H. Hewitt (English translation)	Howl's Moving Castle	Studio Ghibli/The Walt Disney Company	^[19]
	Christopher Nolan and David S. Goyer	Batman Begins	Warner Bros.	^[19]
	Michael Taylor	Battlestar Galactica: "Unfinished Business"	Sci-Fi Channel	^[19]
	Steven Moffat	Doctor Who: "The Girl in the Fireplace"	BBC Cymru Wales/BBC One	^[19]
2008	Guillermo del Toro*	Pan's Labyrinth	Picturehouse	^[20]
	Alfonso Cuarón, Timothy J. Sexton, David Arata, Mark Fergus, and Hawk Ostby (script), P. D. James (original novel)	Children of Men	Universal Studios	^[20]
	Steven Moffat	Doctor Who: "Blink"	BBC Cymru Wales/BBC One	^[20]
	Christopher Nolan and Jonathan Nolan (script), Christopher Priest (original novel)	The Prestige	Touchstone Pictures	^[20]
	Larry and Andy Wachowski (script), David Lloyd (original graphic novel)	V for Vendetta	Warner Bros.	^[20]
	Marc Scott Zicree and Michael Reaves	Star Trek: New Voyages: "World Enough and Time"	Cawley Entertainment Company/The Magic Time Company	^[20]
2009	Andrew Stanton, Jim Reardon and Pete Docter*	WALL-E	Pixar/The Walt Disney Company	^[21]
	Christopher Nolan, Jonathan Nolan, and David S. Goyer	The Dark Knight	Warner Bros.	^[21]
	Brad Wright	Stargate Atlantis: "The Shrine"	Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer	^[21]