Oscar favorites ‘Women Talking’ and ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ have won key screenplay awards — but they haven’t faced off yet

Joyce Eng
·4 min read
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“Women Talking” was winning a whole lot this weekend. Sarah Polley won the USC Scripter prize for her screenplay on Saturday, the same day that she and the cast were honored with the Robert Altman Award at the Independent Spirit Awards. She capped off her weekend with a Best Adapted Screenplay victory at Sunday’s Writers Guild of America Awards, a key win to burnish her Oscar hopes. But is it enough?

Though “Women Talking” has been the adapted screenplay frontrunner all season, it has been increasingly vulnerable after its rocky performance that resulted in just two Oscar nominations for its script and Best Picture. If the adapted screenplay category were stronger, it probably would’ve fallen out of the top spot by now. But after its weekend wins, it’ll likely remain there, where it has 17/5 odds ahead of the surging No. 2, “All Quiet on the Western Front,” which is at 37/10. “Top Gun: Maverick,” “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery” and “Living” round out the quintet, all at 9/2.

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What makes the “Women Talking”-“All Quiet” showdown interesting is that these two films have not faced off against each other yet at a top precursor. “Women Talking” won Critics Choice, Scripter and WGA without “All Quiet” in the fields (the war epic was ineligible at WGA). And “All Quiet,” penned by Edward Berger, Lesley Paterson and Ian Stokell, won BAFTA without “Women Talking” in the field after the drama was blanked completely by the Brits. “Women Talking” was nominated in the Golden Globes’ catch-all screenplay category, won by original screenplay contender “The Banshees of Inisherin,” but “All Quiet” was AWOL, so they haven’t even lost together before.

SEE WGA Awards: ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once,’ ‘Women Talking’ win — Oscar next?

That the top two will meet for the first time at the Oscars is unusual, but it speaks to how soft the category is and the late-breaking momentum “All Quiet” has accrued that led to nine Oscar nominations and seven BAFTA wins. Would it have gotten some of these precursor nominations for its screenplay had it broken out when it premiered on Netflix in October? Probably.

As it stands now, each film has its pros and cons. Polley’s script, adapted from Miriam Toews‘ novel of the same name, is the most writerly of the lineup and she has a solid combo with Critics Choice, Scripter and WGA wins on top of the all-important Best Picture nomination. Only three films have won adapted screenplay without a Best Picture nomination, most recently 1998’s “Gods and Monsters.” But “Women Talking” is clearly not the strongest Best Picture nominee in the pack and would be the first film to win this category with just two nominations since 1996’s “Sling Blade.”

With nine bids and the entire membership voting for winners, “All Quiet” seemingly has the across-the-board support that could carry it to the podium. Sometimes it comes down to the stronger film in close races. But “All Quiet” would be an atypical screenplay champ since war films seldom win these categories, as they’re usually seen as technical achievements. The 1930 adaptation of Erich Maria Remarque‘s anti-war novel, which won Best Picture and Best Director for Lewis Milestone, lost the then-single Best Writing category to “The Big House.” And the current German-language adaptation would be the first non-English language film to win adapted.

So can “Women Talking” hang on? It’s done what it’s needed with its last-gasp wins (and during voting to boot), but maybe it hasn’t met its match yet.

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