2018 Oscar Predictions: Best Original Screenplay

Click here to view our 2019 Oscar predictions.

Heading toward the wire, the race for Original Screenplay is extremely competitive. But WGA winner Jordan Peele, the rookie auteur behind  “Get Out” (Universal), the year’s most audacious, expectation-defying movie, is in the lead.

Here’s the timeline: the Sundance Film Festival broke out brainy genre-bender “Get Out,” the sleeper of 2017, as well as Kumail Nanjiani and Emily V. Gordon’s husband-and-wife true romance “The Big Sick” (Amazon Studios/Lionsgate), which became an summer indie hit and scored a WGA nomination.

The fall film festivals brought a slew of name contenders, from Guillermo del Toro’s WGA-nominated “The Shape of Water” and Martin McDonagh’s BAFTA-winner “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” (not eligible for the WGA) to Greta Gerwig’s WGA-nominated “Lady Bird.”

While Gerwig and Peele may not be in the running for Best Director (Guillermo del Toro is the frontrunner), they are duking it out for this win. Peele scores points for originality for his outrageously imagined racial thriller. Who else could have pulled it off?

Frontrunners:

Jordan Peele (“Get Out”)
Greta Gerwig (“Lady Bird”)

Contenders:

Guillermo del Toro and Vanessa Taylor
 (“The Shape of Water”)
Martin McDonagh
 (“Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri”)
Kumail Nanjiani and Emily V. Gordon (“The Big Sick”)’

Stay on top of the latest film and TV news! Sign up for our film and TV email newsletter here.