Academy Award
for Best Story
The Academy Award for Best
Story was the Academy Award that was the predecessor to the Academy Award for
Writing Original Screenplay which was introduced in 1940.
1928 Underworld - Ben Hecht
The Last Command - Lajos Biro
The Patent Leather Kid - Rupert Hughes
1929 None given
1930 None given
1931 The Dawn Patrol - John 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
1932 The Champ - Frances Marion
Lady and Gent - Grover Jones, William McNutt
Star Witness - Lucien Hubbard
What Price Hollywood - Adela St. John
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 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 Commandini
1937 A Star Is Born - Robert Carson, William Wellman
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 Foster
Bachelor Mother - Felix Jackson
Love Affair - Mildred Cram, Leo McCarey
Ninotchka - Melchior Lengyel
Young Mr. Lincoln - Lamar Trotti
1940 Arise, My Love -
Benjamin Glazer, John Toldy
Comrade X - Walter Reisch
Edison, the Man - Hugo Butler, Dore Schary
My Favorite Wife - Leo McCarey, Bella Spewack, Samuel Spewack
The Westerner - Stuart 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 The Invaders (The 49th Parallel) - 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 Booth
The Affairs of Susan - Laszlo Gorog, 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 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 - Georges Chaperot, Rene Wheeler
It Happened on Fifth Avenue - Herbert 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
The Louisiana Story - Robert Flaherty, Francis Flaherty
The Naked City - Marvin Wald
Red River - Borden Chase
The Red Shoes - Emeric Pressburger
1949 Stratton Story - Douglas Morrow
Come to the Stable - Clare Luce
It Happens Every Spring - Valentine Davies, Shirley Smith
Sands of Iwo Jima - Harry Brown
White Heat - Virginia Kellog
1950 Panic in the Streets -
Edna Anhalt, Edward Anhalt
Bitter Rice - Giuseppe De Santis, Carlo Lizzani
The Gunfighter - William Bowers, Andre de Toth
Mystery Street - Leonard Spigelglass
When Willie Comes Marching Home - Sy Gomberg
1951 Seven Days to Noon - James Bernard, Paul Dehn
The Bullfighter and the Lady - Bud Boetticher, Ray Nazarro
The Frogmen - Oscar Millard
Here Comes the Groom - Liam O'Brian, Robert Riskin
Teresa -Alfred Hayes, Stewart Stern
1952 The Greatest Show on Earth - Frank Cavett, Frederic Frank, Theodore St.
John
My Son John - Leo McCarey
The Narrow Margin - Martin Goldsmith, Jack Leonard
The Pride of Saint Louis - Guy Trosper
The Sniper - Edward Anhalt, Edna Anhalt
1953 Roman Holiday - Ian McLellan Hunter, Dalton Trumbo
Above and Beyond - Beirne Lay
The Captain's Paradise - Alec Coppel
Hondo - Louis L'Amour
Little Fugitive - Ray Ashley, Morris Engel, Ruth Orkin
1954 Broken Lance - Philip Yordan
Bread, Love and Dreams - Ettore Margadonna
Forbidden Games - François Boyer
Night People - Jed Harris, Tom Reed
There's No Business Like Show Business - Lamar Trotti
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 - Jean Marsan, Jacques Perret, Raoul Ploquin, Henry
Troyat, Henri Verneuil
Strategic Air Command - Beirne Lay
1956 The Brave One - Dalton Trumbo
The Eddie Duchin Story - Leo Katcher
High Society - Edward Burnds, Elwood Ullman
The Proud and the Beautiful - Jean-Paul Sartre
Umberto D - Cesare Zavattini