Academy Award for Best Story

The Academy Award for Best Story was an Academy Award given from the beginning of the Academy Awards until 1957, when it was eliminated in favor of the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay.

1930s

• 1930/1931: The Dawn Patrol – John Monk Saunders
  • Doorway to Hell – Rowland Brown
  • Laughter – Harry D'Arrast, Douglas Doty, Donald Stewart
  • The Public Enemy – John Bright, Kubec Glasmon
  • Smart Money – Lucien Hubbard, Joseph Jackson
• 1931/1932: The Champ – Frances Marion
  • Lady and Gent – Grover Jones, William Slavens McNutt
  • The Star Witness – Lucien Hubbard
  • What Price Hollywood? – Adela Rogers St. Johns, Jane Murfin
• 1932/1933: One Way Passage – Robert Lord
  • The Prizefighter and the Lady – Frances Marion
  • Rasputin and the Empress – Charles MacArthur
• 1934: Manhattan Melodrama – Arthur Caesar
  • Hide-Out – Mauri Grashin
  • The Richest Girl in the World – Norman Krasna
• 1935: The Scoundrel – Ben Hecht, Charles MacArthur
  • Broadway Melody of 1936 – Moss Hart
  • The Gay Deception – Stephen Morehouse Avery, Don Hartman
  • Write in Candidate: G Men – Gregory Rogers (pseudonym of Darryl F. Zanuck)
• 1936: The Story of Louis Pasteur – Pierre Collings, Sheridan Gibney
  • Fury – Norman Krasna
  • The Great Ziegfeld – William McGuire
  • San Francisco – Robert Hopkins
  • Three Smart Girls – Adele Comandini
• 1937: A Star Is Born – Robert Carson, William Wellman
  

  A Star Is Born – winner of the Academy Award for Best Story in 1937
  • Black Legion – Robert Lord
  • In Old Chicago – Niven Busch
  • The Life of Emile Zola – Heinz Herald, Geza Herczeg
  • One Hundred Men and a Girl – Hans Kraly
• 1938: Boys Town – Eleanore Griffin, Dore Schary
  • Alexander's Ragtime Band – Irving Berlin
  • Angels with Dirty Faces – Rowland Brown
  • Blockade – John Howard Lawson
  • Mad About Music – Marcella Burke, Frederick Kohner
  • Test Pilot – Frank Wead
• 1939: Mr. Smith Goes to Washington – Lewis R. Foster
  • Bachelor Mother - Felix Jackson
  • Love Affair – Mildred Cram, Leo McCarey
  • Ninotchka – Melchior Lengyel
  • Young Mr. Lincoln – Lamar Trotti

1940s

• 1940: Arise, My Love – Benjamin Glazer, John Toldy
  • Comrade X – Walter Reisch
  • Edison, the Man – Hugo Butler, Dore Schary
  • My Favorite Wife – Leo McCarey, Samuel Spewack and Bella Spewack
  • The Westerner – Stuart N. Lake
• 1941: Here Comes Mr. Jordan – Harry Segall
  • Ball of Fire – Thomas Monroe, Billy Wilder
  • The Lady Eve – Monckton Hoffe
  • Meet John Doe – Richard Connell, Robert Presnell
  • Night Train to Munich – Gordon Wellesley
• 1942: 49th Parallel (The Invaders) – Emeric Pressburger
  • Holiday Inn – Irving Berlin
  • The Pride of the Yankees – Paul Gallico
  • The Talk of the Town – Sidney Harmon
  • Yankee Doodle Dandy – Robert Buckner
• 1943: The Human Comedy – William Saroyan
  • Action in the North Atlantic – Guy Gilpatric
  • Destination Tokyo – Steve Fisher
  • The More the Merrier – Frank Ross, Robert Russell
  • Shadow of a Doubt – Gordon McDonell
• 1944: Going My Way – Leo McCarey
  • A Guy Named Joe – David Boehm, Chandler Sprague
  • Lifeboat – John Steinbeck
  • None Shall Escape – Alfred Neumann, Joseph Than
  • The Sullivans – Edward Doherty, Jules Schermer
• 1945: The House on 92nd St. – Charles G. Booth
  • The Affairs of Susan – László Görög, Thomas Monroe
  • A Medal for Benny – John Steinbeck, Jack Wagner
  • Objective, Burma! – Alvah Bessie
  • A Song to Remember – Ernst Marischka
• 1946: Vacation from Marriage – Clemence Dane
  • The Dark Mirror – Vladimir Solomonovich Pozner
  • The Strange Love of Martha Ivers – Jack Patrick
  • The Stranger – Victor Trivas
  • To Each His Own – Charles Brackett
• 1947: Miracle on 34th Street – Valentine Davies
  • A Cage of Nightingales (French: La Cage aux rossignols) – Georges Chaperot, René Wheeler
  • It Happened on Fifth Avenue – Herbert Clyde Lewis, Frederick Stephani
  • Kiss of Death – Eleazar Lipsky
  • Smash-Up, the Story of a Woman – Frank Cavett, Dorothy Parker
• 1948: The Search – Richard Schweizer, David Wechsler
  • Louisiana Story – Robert J. Flaherty, Frances H. Flaherty
  • The Naked City – Malvin Wald
  • Red River – Borden Chase
  • The Red Shoes – Emeric Pressburger
• 1949: The Stratton Story – Douglas Morrow
  • Come to the Stable – Clare Boothe Luce
  • It Happens Every Spring – Valentine Davies, Shirley Smith
  • Sands of Iwo Jima – Harry Brown
  • White Heat – Virginia Kellogg

1950s

• 1950: Panic in the Streets – Edna Anhalt, Edward Anhalt
  • Bitter Rice – Giuseppe De Santis, Carlo Lizzani
  • The Gunfighter – William Bowers, André de Toth
  • Mystery Street – Leonard Spigelgass
  • When Willie Comes Marching Home – Sy Gomberg
• 1951: Seven Days to Noon – James Bernard, Paul Dehn^[1]
  • Bullfighter and the Lady – Budd Boetticher, Ray Nazarro
  • The Frogmen – Oscar Millard
  • Here Comes the Groom – Liam O'Brien, Robert Riskin
  • Teresa – Alfred Hayes, Stewart Stern
• 1952: The Greatest Show on Earth – Frank Cavett, Fredric M. Frank, Theodore St. John
  • My Son John – Leo McCarey
  • The Narrow Margin – Martin Goldsmith, Jack Leonard
  • The Pride of St. Louis – Guy Trosper
  • The Sniper – Edward Anhalt, Edna Anhalt
• 1953: Roman Holiday – Dalton Trumbo (Note: The screen credit and award was originally credited to Ian McLellan Hunter, who was a front for Trumbo. On December 15, 1992, the Board of Governors voted to retroactively attribute the award to Trumbo. Hunter's name was removed. Although Trumbo had died some years earlier, he had been alive in 1954 and this is not considered a posthumous award)
  • Above and Beyond – Beirne Lay, Jr.
  • The Captain's Paradise – Alec Coppel
  • Hondo – Louis L'Amour (Note: Originally announced on February 15, 1954 as a nominee in this category. On February 17, 1954, letters from the producer and nominee questioned its inclusion in the category, as it was based on the short story, "The Gift of Cochise", by the nominee, Mr. L'Amour, published in Collier's magazine on July 5, 1952. By waiver, the title of the short story was not included in the film's credits. The nomination was withdrawn, and only four nominees were included on the final ballot. The Academy thanked Mr. L'Amour and despite this incident, offered him a membership in the Academy.)
  • Little Fugitive – Ray Ashley, Morris Engel, Ruth Orkin
• 1954: Broken Lance – Philip Yordan
  • Bread, Love and Dreams (Italian: Pane, amore e fantasia) – Ettore Margadonna
  • Forbidden Games (French: Jeux interdits) – François Boyer
  • Night People – Jed Harris, (Tom Reed)
  • There's No Business Like Show Business – Lamar Trotti (posthumous nomination)
• 1955: Love Me or Leave Me – Daniel Fuchs
  • The Private War of Major Benson – Joe Connelly, Bob Mosher
  • Rebel Without a Cause – Nicholas Ray
  • The Sheep Has Five Legs (French: Le Mouton à cinq pattes) – Jean Marsan, Henri Troyat, Jacques Perret, Henri Verneuil, Raoul Ploquin
  • Strategic Air Command – Beirne Lay, Jr.
• 1956: The Brave One – Robert Rich (aka Dalton Trumbo) (Note: The name of the writer credited with authorship, Robert Rich, turned out to be an alias for Trumbo, who was being blacklisted at that time. On May 2, 1975, then-Academy president Walter Mirisch presented the Award to Trumbo.)
  • The Eddy Duchin Story – Leo Katcher
  • High Society – Edward Bernds, Elwood Ullman (Note: The authors of this Bowery Boys film respectfully withdrew their own names and the nomination. They were aware that voters had probably mistaken their film with the 1956 MGM musical of the same name starring Bing Crosby, Grace Kelly and Frank Sinatra which was based on The Philadelphia Story. This nomination was not included on the final ballot.)
  • The Proud and the Beautiful (French: Les Orgueilleux) – Jean-Paul Sartre
  • Umberto D. – Cesare Zavattini

References