| Year | Film | Writers | |
|---|
| 2009 |
| Slumdog Millionaire | Simon Beaufoy | |
| 2008 |
| No Country for Old Men | Joel Coen, Ethan Coen | |
| 2007 |
| The Departed | William Monahan | |
| 2006 |
| Brokeback Mountain | Larry McMurtry, Diana Ossana | |
| 2005 |
| Sideways | Alexander Payne & Jim Taylor | |
| 2004 |
| The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King | Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens & Peter Jackson | |
| 2003 |
| The Pianist | Ronald Harwood | |
| 2002 |
| A Beautiful Mind | Akiva Goldsman | |
| 2001 |
| Traffic | Stephen Gaghan | |
| 2000 |
| The Cider House Rules | John Irving | |
| 1999 |
| Gods and Monsters | Bill Condon | |
| 1998 |
| L.A. Confidential | Brian Helgeland, Curtis Hanson | |
| 1997 |
| Sling Blade | Billy Bob Thornton | |
| 1996 |
| Sense and Sensibility | Emma Thompson | |
| 1995 |
| Forrest Gump | Eric Roth | |
| 1994 |
| Schindler's List | Steven Zaillian | |
| 1993 |
| Howards End | Ruth Prawer Jhabvala | |
| 1992 |
| The Silence of the Lambs | Ted Tally | |
| 1991 |
| Dances With Wolves | Michael Blake | |
| 1990 |
| Driving Miss Daisy | Alfred Uhry | |
| 1989 |
| Dangerous Liaisons | Christopher Hampton | |
| 1988 |
| The Last Emperor | Mark Peploe, Bernardo Bertolucci | |
| 1987 |
| A Room with a View | Ruth Prawer Jhabvala | |
| 1986 |
| Out of Africa | Kurt Luedtke | |
| 1985 |
| Amadeus | Peter Shaffer | |
| 1984 |
| Terms of Endearment | James L. Brooks | |
| 1983 |
| Missing | Costa | |
| 1982 |
| On Golden Pond | Ernest Thompson | |
| 1981 |
| Ordinary People | Alvin Sargent | |
| 1980 |
| Kramer vs. Kramer | Robert Benton | |
| 1979 |
| Midnight Express | Oliver Stone | |
| 1978 |
| Julia | Alvin Sargent | |
| 1977 |
| All the President's Men | William Goldman | |
| 1976 |
| One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest | Frank Pierson | |
| 1975 |
| The Godfather Part II | Robert Towne | |
| 1974 |
| The Exorcist | William Peter Blatty | |
| 1973 |
| The Godfather | Mario Puzo, Francis Ford Coppola | |
| 1972 |
| The French Connection | Ernest Tidyman | |
| 1971 |
| M*A*S*H | Ring Lardner, Jr. | |
| 1970 |
| Midnight Cowboy | Waldo Salt | |
| 1969 |
| The Lion in Winter | James Goldman | |
| 1968 |
| In the Heat of the Night | Stirling Silliphant | |
| 1967 |
| A Man for All Seasons | Robert Bolt | |
| 1966 |
| Doctor Zhivago | Robert Bolt | |
| 1965 |
| Becket | Edward Anhalt | |
| 1964 |
| Tom Jones | John Osborne | |
| 1963 |
| To Kill a Mockingbird | Horton Foote | |
| 1962 |
| Judgment at Nuremberg | Abby Mann | |
| 1961 |
| Elmer Gantry | Richard Brooks | |
| 1960 |
| Room at the Top | Neil Paterson | |
| 1959 |
| Gigi | Alan Jay Lerner | |
| 1958 |
| The Bridge on the River Kwai | Michael Wilson, Carl Foreman, Pierre Boulle | |
| 1957 |
| Around the World in 80 Days | James Poe, John Farrow, S.J. Perelman | |
| 1956 |
| Marty | Paddy Chayefsky | |
| 1955 |
| The Country Girl | George Seaton | |
| 1954 |
| From Here to Eternity | Daniel Taradash | |
| 1953 |
| The Bad and the Beautiful | Charles Schnee | |
| 1952 |
| A Place in the Sun | Michael Wilson, Harry Brown | |
| 1951 |
| All about Eve | Joseph L. Mankiewicz | |
| 1950 |
| A Letter to Three Wives | Joseph L. Mankiewicz | |
| 1949 |
| The Treasure of the Sierra Madre | John Huston | |
| 1948 |
| Miracle on 34th Street | Valentine Davies | |
| 1947 |
| The Best Years of Our Lives | Robert E. Sherwood | |
| 1946 |
| The Lost Weekend | Charles Brackett, Billy Wilder | |
| 1945 |
| Going My Way | Leo McCarey | |
| 1944 |
| Casablanca | Philip Epstein, Julius J. Epstein, Howard Koch | |
| 1943 |
| Mrs. Miniver | Julius J. Epstein, Philip G. Epstein, Howard Koch | |
| 1942 |
| Here Comes Mr. Jordan | Harry Segall | |
| 1941 |
| The Philadelphia Story | Donald Ogden Stewart | |
| 1940 |
| Gone with the Wind | Sidney Howard | |
| 1939 |
| Pygmalion | George Bernard Shaw, W. P. Lipscomb, Cecil Lewis, Ian Dalrymple | |
| 1938 |
| The Life of Emile Zola | Norman Reilly Raine, Heinz Herald, Geza Herczeg | |
| 1937 |
| The Story of Louis Pasteur | Pierre Collings, Sheridan Gibney | |
| 1936 |
| The Informer | Dudley Nichols | |
| 1935 |
| It Happened One Night | Robert Riskin | |
| 1934 |
| Little Women | Victor Heerman, Sarah Y. Mason | |
| 1933 |
| Bad Girl | Edwin Burke | |
| 1932 |
| Cimarron | Frances Marion | |
| 1931 |
| The Big House | Frances Marion | |
| 1930 |
| The Patriot | Hans Kraly | |
| 1929 |
| 7th Heaven | Benjamin Glazer | |