eternal sunshine of the spotless mind movie poster

Joel and Ethan Coen’s No Country for Old Men closed the top five. South Korean record-breaking feature film script Parasite, by Bong Joon-ho and Han Jin-won, made the top 5 by telling the story of a poor family struggling to make ends meet while trying to find ways to one-up the rich and powerful.

With fast-paced dialogue and a critical look at the culture of start-ups, the screenplay was selected as the third best in the 21st century. Based on a real story, the film chronicles the creation of Facebook, and, most importantly, the paths that Mark Zuckerberg (played by Jesse Einsenberg) took in order to make the idea come to life. RELATED: How Writing a Screenplay Helped Emma Thompson Get Through Her Divorce from Kenneth BranaghĪaron Sorkin’s The Social Network was also remembered by the WGA. The sci-fi drama follows a man who, after going through a bad break-up, decides he wants to submit himself to a medical procedure to forget his girlfriend ever existed. Runner-up to Best Screenplay was Charlie Kaufman’s Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, which is frequently remembered as one of the best films of the last couple of decades. The high-concept story blends horror elements with social commentary and racism, and it made history when Peele became the first Black writer to ever win an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. The horror movie by director and screenwriter Jordan Peele was considered the best of the last 20 years by the WGA.

The best example of this is 2017’s Get Out topping the list. The winners were voted by Guild members that valued craft over genre, meaning that screenplays for comedy and horror – two genres that are frequently neglected in Awards ceremonies – were standing on equal footing. The entity, which dedicates itself to recognizing script writers' talents across several countries and media, celebrated the way that scriptwriting has been evolving over the past 20-plus years. The Writers Guild of America has unveiled today a list of what they consider to be the 101 Greatest Screenplays of the 21st century.

Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind movie poster