Independent Spirit Award for Best First Screenplay

Independent Spirit Award for Best First Screenplay
Independent Spirit Award for Best First Screenplay
Awarded for	Best First Screenplay
Country	United States
Presented by	Film Independent
First award	1994
Currently held by	Sean Wang for Dìdi (2024)
Website	www.filmindependent.org

Last updated March 05, 2025

The Independent Spirit Award for Best First Screenplay is one of the annual awards given by the Film Independent, a non-profit organization dedicated to independent film and independent filmmakers. It was first presented in 1994 with David O. Russell being the first recipient of the award for Spanking the Monkey , a film he also directed.

Winners and nominees

1990s

Year	Recipient(s)	Film
1994 ^[1]	David O. Russell	Spanking the Monkey
	Paul Zehrer	Blessing
	Kevin Smith	Clerks
	James Bosley	Fun
	Tom Noonan	What Happened Was
1995	Paul Auster	Smoke
	Harmony Korine	Kids
	James Gray	Little Odessa
	Steve McLean	Postcards from America
	Kelly Reichardt	River of Grass
1996 ^[2]	Joseph Tropiano and Stanley Tucci	Big Night
	Suzan-Lori Parks	Girl 6
	Lisa Krueger	Manny & Lo
	Michael Scott Myers	The Whole Wide World
	Steve Buscemi	Trees Lounge
1997	Neil LaBute	In the Company of Men
	Steven Schwartz	Critical Care
	Paul Thomas Anderson	Hard Eight
	Miguel Arteta	Star Maps
	Daniel Harris	The Bible and Gun Club
1998	Darren Aronofsky	Pi
	Lisa Cholodenko	High Art
	Matthew Weiss	Niagara, Niagara
	Tamara Jenkins	Slums of Beverly Hills
	Sherman Alexie	Smoke Signals
1999 ^[3]	Charlie Kaufman	Being John Malkovich
	Kimberly Peirce and Andy Bienen	Boys Don't Cry
	Anne Rapp	Cookie's Fortune
	Tod Williams	The Adventures of Sebastian Cole
	John Roach and Mary Sweeney	The Straight Story

2000s

Year	Recipient(s)	Film
2000 ^[4]	Gina Prince-Bythewood	Love & Basketball
	Ben Younger	Boiler Room
	David Gordon Green	George Washington
	Jordan Walker-Pearlman	The Visit
	Ross Klavan and Michael McGruther	Tigerland
2001 ^[5]	Daniel Clowes and Terry Zwigoff	Ghost World
	Richard Kelly	Donnie Darko
	John Cameron Mitchell	Hedwig and the Angry Inch
	Stephen M. Ryder, Michael Cuesta and Gerald Cuesta	L.I.E.
	Jennifer Jason Leigh and Alan Cumming	The Anniversary Party
2002	Erin Cressida Wilson	Secretary
	Laura Cahill	Hysterical Blindness
	Burr Steers	Igby Goes Down
	Neil Burger	Interview with the Assassin
	Heather Juergensen and Jennifer Westfeldt	Kissing Jessica Stein
2003 ^[6]	Tom McCarthy	The Station Agent
	Karen Moncrieff	Blue Car
	Patty Jenkins	Monster
	Peter Sollett and Eva Vives	Raising Victor Vargas
	Catherine Hardwicke and Nikki Reed	Thirteen
2004	Joshua Marston	Maria Full of Grace
	Rodney Evans	Brother to Brother
	Zach Braff	Garden State
	Shane Carruth	Primer
	Mario de la Vega	Robbing Peter
2005	Duncan Tucker	Transamerica
	Kenneth Hanes	Fixing Frank
	Angus MacLachlan	Junebug
	Miranda July	Me and You and Everyone We Know
	Sabina Murray	The Beautiful Country
2006 ^[7]	Michael Arndt	Little Miss Sunshine
	Dito Montiel	A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints
	Gabrielle Zevin	Conversations with Other Women
	Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden	Half Nelson
	Goran Dukić	Wristcutters: A Love Story
2007 ^[8]	Diablo Cody	Juno
	Jeffrey Blitz	Rocket Science
	Zoe Cassavetes	Broken English
	Kelly Masterson	Before the Devil Knows You're Dead
	John Orloff	A Mighty Heart
2008	Dustin Lance Black	Milk ^[9]
	Lance Hammer	Ballast
	Courtney Hunt	Frozen River ^[10]
	Jonathan Levine	The Wackness
	Jenny Lumet	Rachel Getting Married
2009	Geoffrey Fletcher	Precious ^[11]
	Sophie Barthes	Cold Souls
	Scott Cooper	Crazy Heart
	Cherien Dabis	Amreeka
	Tom Ford and David Scearce	A Single Man

2010s

Year	Recipient(s)	Film
2010 ^[12]	Lena Dunham	Tiny Furniture
	Robert Glaudini	Jack Goes Boating
	Nik Fackler	Lovely, Still
	Dana Adam Shapiro and Evan M. Wiener	Monogamy
	Diane Bell	Obselidia
2011	Will Reiser	50/50
	Mike Cahill and Brit Marling	Another Earth
	J. C. Chandor	Margin Call ^[13]
	Patrick deWitt	Terri
	Phil Johnston	Cedar Rapids
2012	Derek Connolly	Safety Not Guaranteed
	Rama Burshtein	Fill the Void
	Christopher D. Ford	Robot & Frank
	Rashida Jones and Will McCormack	Celeste and Jesse Forever
	Jonathan Lisecki	Gayby
2013	Bob Nelson	Nebraska
	Lake Bell	In a World...
	Joseph Gordon-Levitt	Don Jon
	Jill Soloway	Afternoon Delight
	Michael Starrbury	The Inevitable Defeat of Mister & Pete
2014 ^[14]	Justin Simien	Dear White People
	Desiree Akhavan	Appropriate Behavior
	Sara Colangelo	Little Accidents
	Justin Lader	The One I Love
	Anja Marquardt	She's Lost Control
2015	Emma Donoghue	Room ^[15]
	Jesse Andrews	Me and Earl and the Dying Girl
	Jonas Carpignano	Mediterranea
	Marielle Heller	The Diary of a Teenage Girl
	John Magary; Russell Harbaugh and Myna Joseph (story by)	The Mend
2016 ^[16]	Robert Eggers	The Witch
	Chris Kelly	Other People
	Adam Mansbach	Barry
	Stella Meghie	Jean of the Joneses
	Craig Shilowich	Christine
2017 ^[17]	Emily V. Gordon and Kumail Nanjiani	The Big Sick
	Kris Avedisian, Kyle Espeleta (story by), and Jesse Wakeman (story by)	Donald Cried
	Ingrid Jungermann	Women Who Kill
	Kogonada	Columbus
	David Branson Smith & Matt Spicer	Ingrid Goes West
2018	Bo Burnham	Eighth Grade
	Christina Choe	Nancy
	Cory Finley	Thoroughbreds
	Jennifer Fox	The Tale
	Laurie & Quinn Shephard	Blame
2019 ^[18]	Fredrica Bailey and Stefon Bristol	See You Yesterday
	Hannah Bos and Paul Thureen	Driveways
	Bridget Savage Cole and Danielle Krudy	Blow the Man Down
	Jocelyn Deboer and Dawn Luebbe	Greener Grass
	James Montague and Craig W. Sanger	The Vast of Night

2020s

Year	Recipient(s)	Film
2020 ^[19]	Andy Siara	Palm Springs
	Kitty Green	The Assistant
	Noah Hutton	Lapsis
	Channing Godfrey Peoples	Miss Juneteenth
	James Sweeney	Straight Up
2021 ^[20]	Michael Sarnoski and Vanessa Block	Pig
	Sheldon D. Brown and Matthew Fifer	Cicada
	Lyle Mitchell Corbine Jr.	Wild Indian
	Shatara Michelle Ford	Test Pattern
	Fran Kranz	Mass
2022 ^[21]	John Patton Ford	Emily the Criminal
	Joel Kim Booster	Fire Island
	Jamie Dack and Audrey Findlay, story by Jamie Dack	Palm Trees and Power Lines
	K.D. Dávila	Emergency
	Sarah DeLappe, story by Kristen Roupenian	Bodies Bodies Bodies
2023 ^[22]	Samy Burch; story by Samy Burch and Alex Mechanik	May December
	Tomás Gómez Bustillo	Chronicles of a Wandering Saint
	Laurel Parmet	The Starling Girl
	Noah Galvin, Molly Gordon, Nick Lieberman, and Ben Platt	Theater Camp
	Alejandro Rojas and Juan Sebastián Vásquez	Upon Entry
2024	Sean Wang	Dìdi
	Joanna Arnow	The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed
	Annie Baker	Janet Planet
	India Donaldson	Good One
	Julio Torres	Problemista

References

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.

[1] Ten Groundbreaking Film Independent Spirit Awards Wins - Film Independent

[2] Stanley Tucci · Conversatory of Theatre Arts · Purchase College

[3] Being John Malkovich - Awards - IMDb

[4] "Love and Basketball" (New Line Cinema, 2000)|Library of Congress

[5] Ghost World (2001) - MUBI

[6] Ten Groundbreaking Film Independent Spirit Awards Wins - Film Independent

[7] 14 Big Facts About 'Little Miss Sunshine' - Mental Floss

[8] JUNO|Alamo Drafthouse Cinema

[9] PRIDE Film Series: MILK (2008) Seattle Gay Scene|Your Daily Gay in Seattle

[10] Frozen River (2008) - MUBI

[11] Precious - Awards - IMDb

[12] Tiny Furniture - Philadelphia Film Society

[13] J.C. Chandor - Awards - IMDb

[14] Justin Simien '05 wins Independent Spirit Award || Best First Screenplay|Chapman Newsroom

[15] Room - Awards - IMDb

[16] Robert Eggers Wins Independent Spirit First Screenplay Award|IndieWire

[17] 'The Big Sick' Wins Indie Spirit Award || Best First Screenplay|IndieWire

[18] Film Independent Spirit Awards 2020:See the winners list|EW.com

[19] 2021 Independent Spirit Awards Winner's List|IndieWire

[20] Galuppo, Mia (March 6, 2022). "Spirit Awards: 'The Lost Daughter,' 'Reservation Dogs' Win Big as Ukraine Fuels Onstage Remarks". The Hollywood Reporter . Retrieved March 6, 2022.

[21] Davis, Clayton (November 22, 2022). "Independent Spirit Awards Nominations: 'Everything Everywhere' Leads With Eight Noms". Variety . Retrieved November 22, 2022.

[22] "Film Independent Spirit Awards (2024)". IMDb. Retrieved 2024-02-25.

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v t e Independent Spirit Awards
Current categories	Best Film Best Director Best Lead Performance Best Supporting Performance Best Breakthrough Performance Best Cinematography Best Editing Best Documentary Feature Best First Feature Best International Film Best Screenplay Best First Screenplay Best New Scripted Series Best Lead Performance in a New Scripted Series Best Supporting Performance in a New Scripted Series John Cassavetes Award Robert Altman Award
Retired categories	Best Male Lead Best Female Lead Best Supporting Male Best Supporting Female Best Male Performance in a New Scripted Series Best Female Performance in a New Scripted Series
Ceremonies	1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 (years are of film release; ceremonies are the following year)

v t e Independent Spirit Award for Best First Screenplay
1990s	David O. Russell (1994) Paul Auster (1995) Joseph Tropiano and Stanley Tucci (1996) Neil LaBute (1997) Darren Aronofsky (1998) Charlie Kaufman (1999)
2000s	Gina Prince-Bythewood (2000) Daniel Clowes (2001) Erin Cressida Wilson (2002) Tom McCarthy (2003) Joshua Marston (2004) Duncan Tucker (2005) Michael Arndt (2006) Diablo Cody (2007) Dustin Lance Black (2008) Geoffrey S. Fletcher (2009)
2010s	Lena Dunham (2010) Will Reiser (2011) Derek Connolly (2012) Bob Nelson (2013) Justin Simien (2014) Emma Donoghue (2015) Robert Eggers (2016) Emily V. Gordon and Kumail Nanjiani (2017) Bo Burnham (2018) Fredrica Bailey and Stefon Bristol (2019)
2020s	Andy Siara (2020) Michael Sarnoski and Vanessa Block (2021) John Patton Ford (2022) Samy Burch and Alex Mechanik (2023) Sean Wang (2024)