Ranking Academy Awards for Best Adapted Screenplay
by luke-a-mcgowan | created - 04 Apr 2015 | updated - 05 Mar 2016 | PublicAll of the Academy Awards for Best Adapted Screenplay, ranked from Best to Worst. This is based on memorability, quotability, justice to source material, depth of character, and the satisfaction I felt at the end of the story.
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1. Casablanca (1942)
PG | 102 min | Drama, Romance, War
A cynical expatriate American cafe owner struggles to decide whether or not to help his former lover and her fugitive husband escape the Nazis in French Morocco.
Director: Michael Curtiz | Stars: Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Paul Henreid, Claude Rains
Votes: 606,302 | Gross: $1.02M
Best Line: "We'll always have Paris"
2. The Big Short (2015)
R | 130 min | Biography, Comedy, Drama
In 2006-2007 a group of investors bet against the United States mortgage market. In their research, they discover how flawed and corrupt the market is.
Director: Adam McKay | Stars: Christian Bale, Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling, Brad Pitt
Votes: 484,984 | Gross: $70.26M
Best Line: "Truth is like poetry. Most people *beep* hate poetry."
3. The Social Network (2010)
PG-13 | 120 min | Biography, Drama
As Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg creates the social networking site that would become known as Facebook, he is sued by the twins who claimed he stole their idea and by the co-founder who was later squeezed out of the business.
Director: David Fincher | Stars: Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, Justin Timberlake, Rooney Mara
Votes: 759,168 | Gross: $96.96M
Best Line: You are probably going to be a very successful computer person. But you're going to go through life thinking that girls don't like you because you're a nerd. And I want you to know, from the bottom of my heart, that that won't be true. It'll be because you're an *beep*
4. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
PG-13 | 201 min | Action, Adventure, Drama
Gandalf and Aragorn lead the World of Men against Sauron's army to draw his gaze from Frodo and Sam as they approach Mount Doom with the One Ring.
Director: Peter Jackson | Stars: Elijah Wood, Viggo Mortensen, Ian McKellen, Orlando Bloom
Votes: 1,980,389 | Gross: $377.85M
Best Line: Shields shall be shaken, spears shall be splintered. A sword day, a red day, ere the sun rises! Ride now, ride, ride to ruin, and the world's ending!
5. The Godfather (1972)
R | 175 min | Crime, Drama
The aging patriarch of an organized crime dynasty transfers control of his clandestine empire to his reluctant son.
Director: Francis Ford Coppola | Stars: Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan, Diane Keaton
Votes: 2,013,902 | Gross: $134.97M
Best Line: You talk about vengeance. Is vengeance going to bring your son back to you? Or my boy to me?
6. 12 Years a Slave (2013)
R | 134 min | Biography, Drama, History
In the antebellum United States, Solomon Northup, a free Black man from upstate New York, is abducted and sold into slavery.
Director: Steve McQueen | Stars: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Kenneth Williams, Michael Fassbender, Brad Pitt
Votes: 741,585 | Gross: $56.67M
Best Line: I will survive! I will not fall into despair! I will keep myself hardy, til freedom is opportune!
7. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
R | 118 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
A young F.B.I. cadet must receive the help of an incarcerated and manipulative cannibal killer to help catch another serial killer, a madman who skins his victims.
Director: Jonathan Demme | Stars: Jodie Foster, Anthony Hopkins, Scott Glenn, Ted Levine
Votes: 1,549,190 | Gross: $130.74M
Best Line: A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti.
8. Slumdog Millionaire (2008)
R | 120 min | Crime, Drama, Romance
A teenager from the slums of Mumbai becomes a contestant on the show 'Kaun Banega Crorepati?' When interrogated under suspicion of cheating, he revisits his past, revealing how he had all the answers.
Directors: Danny Boyle, Loveleen Tandan | Stars: Dev Patel, Freida Pinto, Saurabh Shukla, Anil Kapoor
Votes: 878,104 | Gross: $141.32M
Best Line: If it wasn't for Rama and Allah, I'd still have a mother.
9. Argo (2012)
R | 120 min | Biography, Drama, History
Acting under the cover of a Hollywood producer scouting a location for a science fiction film, a CIA agent launches a dangerous operation to rescue six Americans in Tehran during the U.S. hostage crisis in Iran in 1979.
Director: Ben Affleck | Stars: Ben Affleck, Bryan Cranston, John Goodman, Alan Arkin
Votes: 639,323 | Gross: $136.03M
Best Line: Argo **** yourself
10. L.A. Confidential (1997)
R | 138 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
As corruption grows in 1950s Los Angeles, three policemen - one strait-laced, one brutal, and one sleazy - investigate a series of murders with their own brand of justice.
Director: Curtis Hanson | Stars: Kevin Spacey, Russell Crowe, Guy Pearce, Kim Basinger
Votes: 618,142 | Gross: $64.62M
Best Line: Rollo was a purse snatcher. My father ran into him off duty, and he shot my father six times and got away clean. No one even knew who he was. I just made the name up to give him some personality... Rollo Tamasi is the reason I became a cop. I wanted to catch the guys who thought they could get away with it. It's supposed to be about justice. Then somewhere along the way, I lost sight of that..
11. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)
R | 133 min | Drama
In the Fall of 1963, a Korean War veteran and criminal pleads insanity and is admitted to a mental institution, where he rallies up the scared patients against the tyrannical nurse.
Director: Milos Forman | Stars: Jack Nicholson, Louise Fletcher, Michael Berryman, Peter Brocco
Votes: 1,072,903 | Gross: $112.00M
Best Line: But I tried, didn't I? Goddamnit, at least I did that.
12. To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
Approved | 129 min | Crime, Drama
Atticus Finch, a widowed lawyer in Depression-era Alabama, defends a Black man against an undeserved rape charge, and tries to educate his young children against prejudice.
Director: Robert Mulligan | Stars: Gregory Peck, John Megna, Frank Overton, Rosemary Murphy
Votes: 333,021
Best Line: Now I am confident that you gentlemen will review, without passion, the evidence that you have heard, come to a decision and restore this man to his family. In the name of GOD, do your duty.
13. The Imitation Game (2014)
PG-13 | 114 min | Biography, Drama, Thriller
During World War II, the English mathematical genius Alan Turing tries to crack the German Enigma code with help from fellow mathematicians while attempting to come to terms with his troubled private life.
Director: Morten Tyldum | Stars: Benedict Cumberbatch, Keira Knightley, Matthew Goode, Allen Leech
Votes: 825,417 | Gross: $91.13M
Best Line: Hardest time to lie to somebody is when they're expecting to be lied to.
14. Sling Blade (1996)
R | 135 min | Drama
Karl Childers, a simple man hospitalized since his childhood murder of his mother and her lover, is released to start a new life in a small town.
Director: Billy Bob Thornton | Stars: Billy Bob Thornton, Dwight Yoakam, J.T. Walsh, John Ritter
Votes: 98,837 | Gross: $24.48M
Best Line: You've been real square dealin' with me. The Bible says two men ort not lay together. But I'll bet you the Good Lord wouldn't send nobody like you to Hades. Some folks calls it Hell, I call it Hades.
15. Forrest Gump (1994)
PG-13 | 142 min | Drama, Romance
The history of the United States from the 1950s to the '70s unfolds from the perspective of an Alabama man with an IQ of 75, who yearns to be reunited with his childhood sweetheart.
Director: Robert Zemeckis | Stars: Tom Hanks, Robin Wright, Gary Sinise, Sally Field
Votes: 2,258,711 | Gross: $330.25M
Should've won: The Shawshank Redemption
16. The Departed (2006)
R | 151 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
An undercover cop and a mole in the police attempt to identify each other while infiltrating an Irish gang in South Boston.
Director: Martin Scorsese | Stars: Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson, Mark Wahlberg
Votes: 1,423,063 | Gross: $132.38M
Should've won: Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan
17. Terms of Endearment (1983)
PG | 132 min | Comedy, Drama
Follows hard-to-please Aurora looking for love and her daughter's family problems.
Director: James L. Brooks | Stars: Shirley MacLaine, Debra Winger, Jack Nicholson, Danny DeVito
Votes: 65,513 | Gross: $108.42M
Best Line: "I thought it was going to be hard but I think it went really well, don't you?"
18. Sideways (2004)
R | 127 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
Two men reaching middle age with not much to show but disappointment embark on a week-long road trip through California's wine country, just as one is about to take a trip down the aisle.
Director: Alexander Payne | Stars: Paul Giamatti, Thomas Haden Church, Virginia Madsen, Sandra Oh
Votes: 204,373 | Gross: $71.50M
Should've won: Million Dollar Baby
19. All the President's Men (1976)
PG | 138 min | Drama, History, Thriller
"The Washington Post" reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein uncover the details of the Watergate scandal that leads to President Richard Nixon's resignation.
Director: Alan J. Pakula | Stars: Dustin Hoffman, Robert Redford, Jack Warden, Martin Balsam
Votes: 126,112 | Gross: $70.60M
Best Line: "I can't do the reporting for my reporters, which means I have to trust them. And I hate trusting anybody. Run that baby."
20. The Godfather Part II (1974)
R | 202 min | Crime, Drama
The early life and career of Vito Corleone in 1920s New York City is portrayed, while his son, Michael, expands and tightens his grip on the family crime syndicate.
Director: Francis Ford Coppola | Stars: Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Robert Duvall, Diane Keaton
Votes: 1,364,998 | Gross: $57.30M
Best Line: "You break my heart Fredo."
21. No Country for Old Men (2007)
R | 122 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
Violence and mayhem ensue after a hunter stumbles upon the aftermath of a drug deal gone wrong and over two million dollars in cash near the Rio Grande.
Directors: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen | Stars: Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin, Woody Harrelson
Votes: 1,060,957 | Gross: $74.28M
Should've won: There Will Be Blood
22. The Descendants (2011)
R | 115 min | Comedy, Drama
A land baron tries to reconnect with his two daughters after his wife is seriously injured in a boating accident.
Director: Alexander Payne | Stars: George Clooney, Shailene Woodley, Amara Miller, Nick Krause
Votes: 251,874 | Gross: $82.58M
Should've won: Moneyball
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