The Grand Budapest Hotel and The Imitation Game were named the best original and adapted screenplays of 2014 on Saturday night from the Writers Guild of America, which handed out awards at simultaneous ceremonies in Los Angeles and New York. Wes Anderson’s stylish comedy beat a lineup consisting of Boyhood, Foxcatcher, Nightcrawler and Whiplash, while Graham Moore’s screenplay for the drama about mathematician Alan Turing beat American Sniper, Gone Girl, Guardians of the Galaxy and Wild.
Although it had won three other major guild awards — the Directors Guild of America and Producers Guild of America awards and Screen Actors Guild’s ensemble prize — Birdman was not eligible to make it a sweep. Because of WGA rules restricting its awards to films that are made under the guild’s Minimum Basic Agreement or the agreements of several affiliated international guilds, Birdman was ineligible for a Writers Guild Award, as was the Oscar-nominated adapted screenplay for The Theory of Everything. True Detective won two major TV awards, one for best drama series and one for best new series. Louie won the award for comedy series, while an individual episode of that show also won for the best comedy episode. An episode of The Good Wife won the award for a drama episode.
Olive Kitteridge won the award for an adapted limited series, while Deliverance Creek won the award for original limited series. Last Week Tonight With John Oliver won the award for comedy/variety series, while the Golden Globe Awards beat the Tonys and the Spirit Awards as best comedy/variety special. In other awards, General Hospital won for the best daytime drama and an episode of The Simpsons won for animation. TV documentary awards went to two reports from Frontline and a Diane Sawyer special on Nelson Mandela.
The feature-film documentary award went to The Internet’s Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz. A number of honorary awards were also given out. Shonda Rhimes was given the Paddy Chayevsky Laurel Award for Television Writing Achievement, the late Harold Ramis the Laurel Award for Screenwriting Achievement, Margaret Nagle the Paul Selvin Award, Jeff Melvoin the Norman Cox Award, Pedro Almodovar the Jean Renoir Award for Screenwriting Achievement, Len Uhley the AWC Animation Writing Award and Ben Affleck the Valentine Davies Award for his humanitarian work.