NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Writing in a Motion Picture

Last updated February 24, 2025

This article lists the winners and nominees for the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Writing in a Motion Picture. The award was first presented in 2008.

Winners and nominees

For each year in the tables below, the winner is listed first and highlighted in bold.

2000s

Year	Director(s)	Film
2008	Rick Famuyiwa, Michael Genet	Talk to Me
	Steven Zaillian	American Gangster
	Richard LaGravenese	Freedom Writers
	Robert Eisele	The Great Debaters
	John Sayles	Honeydripper
2009	Jenny Lumet	Rachel Getting Married
	Darnell Martin	Cadillac Records
	Patrik-Ian Polk, John R. Gordon	Noah's Arc: Jumping the Broom
	Paris Qualles	A Raisin in the Sun
	Gina Prince-Bythewood	The Secret Life of Bees

2010s

Year	Director(s)	Film
2010	Geoffrey S. Fletcher	Precious
	Tyler Perry	I Can Do Bad All by Myself
	Anthony Peckham	Invictus
	Reggie Rock Bythewood, Cheo Hodari Coker	Notorious
	John Lee Hancock	The Blind Side
2011	Michael Elliot	Just Wright
	Mary King, Jonathan Watters, Cheryl Edwards, Joe Shrapnel, Marko King, Anna Waterhouse	Frankie and Alice
	Tyler Perry	Why Did I Get Married Too?
	Michael C. Martin	Brooklyn's Finest
	Rodrigo García	Mother and Child
2012	Ann Peacock	The First Grader
	Alrick Brown	Kinyarwanda
	Dee Rees	Pariah
	Elizabeth Hunter, Arlene ilibbs	Jumping The Broom
	Tate Taylor	The Help
2013	Elizabeth Hunter	Abducted: The Carlina White Story
	John Gatins	Flight
	John Ridley, Aaron McGruder	Red Tails
	Keith Merryman, David A. Newman	Think Like A Man
	Ol Parker	The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
2014	John Ridley	12 Years a Slave
	Alfonso Cuarón, Jonás Cuarón	Gravity
	Ryan Coogler	Fruitvale Station
	Danny Strong	The Butler
	Brian Helgeland	42
2015	Misan Sagay	Belle
	Chris Rock	Top Five
	Justin Simien	Dear White People
	Margaret Nagle	The Good Lie
	Richard Wenk	The Equalizer
2016	Ryan Coogler and Aaron Covington	Creed
	Andrea Berloff and Jonathan Herman and Alan Wenkus	Straight Outta Compton
	Christopher Cleveland, Bettina Gilois, and Grant Thompson	McFarland USA
	Rick Famuyiwa	Dope
2017	Barry Jenkins	Moonlight
	Adam Mansbach	Barry
	Nate Parker	The Birth of a Nation
	Jeff Nichols	Loving
	Richard Tanne	Southside With You
2018	Jordan Peele	Get Out
	Kenya Barris and Tracy Oliver	Girls Trip
	Mark Boal	Detroit
	Emily V. Gordon and Kumail Nanjiani	The Big Sick
	Dee Rees and Virgil Williams	Mudbound
2019	Ryan Coogler and Joe Robert Cole	Black Panther
	Peter Chiarelli and Adele Lim	Crazy Rich Asians
	Barry Jenkins	If Beale Street Could Talk
	Boots Riley	Sorry to Bother You
	Charlie Wachtel, David Rabinowitz, Kevin Willmott and Spike Lee	BlacKkKlansman

2020s

Year	Director(s)	Film
2020	Jordan Peele	Us
	Doug Atchison	Brian Banks
	Chinonye Chukwu	Clemency
	Destin Daniel Cretton	Just Mercy
	Kasi Lemmons Gregory Allen Howard ^[1] (screenwriter)	Harriet
2021	Radha Blank	The Forty-Year-Old Version
	David E. Talbert	Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey
	Kemp Powers	One Night in Miami...
	Lee Isaac Chung	Minari
	Pete Docter , Kemp Powers , Mike Jones	Soul
2022	Shaka King, Will Berson, Kenny Lucas, Keith Lucas	Judas and the Black Messiah
	Janicza Bravo and Jeremy O. Harris	Zola
	Jeymes Samuel and Boaz Yakin	The Harder They Fall
	Virgil Williams	A Journal for Jordan
	Win Rosenfeld, Nia DaCosta, and Jordan Peele	Candyman
2023	Ryan Coogler	Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
	Charles Murray	The Devil You Know
	Dana Stevens, Maria Bello	The Woman King
	Jordan Peele	Nope
	Krystin Ver Linden	Alice
2024	Cord Jefferson	American Fiction
	A.V. Rockwell	A Thousand and One
	Juel Taylor, Tony Rettenmaier	They Cloned Tyrone
	Maggie Betts, Doug Wright	The Burial
	Marcus Gardley	The Color Purple
2025	RaMell Ross, Joslyn Barnes	Nickel Boys
	Barry Jenkins	The Fire Inside
	Steve McQueen	Blitz
	Titus Kaphar	Exhibiting Forgiveness
	Virgil Williams, Malcolm Washington	The Piano Lesson

Multiple wins and nominations

Wins

3 wins

Ryan Coogler

2 wins

Jordan Peele

Nominations

3 nominations

2 nominations

References

↑ Howard, Katherine Schaffstall, Annie; Schaffstall, Katherine; Howard, Annie (2020-02-22). "NAACP Image Awards: Lizzo Named Entertainer of the Year; 'Just Mercy,' 'Black-ish' Among Top Winners". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 2023-05-09.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

External links

NAACP Image Awards official site

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[1] Howard, Katherine Schaffstall, Annie; Schaffstall, Katherine; Howard, Annie (2020-02-22). "NAACP Image Awards: Lizzo Named Entertainer of the Year; 'Just Mercy,' 'Black-ish' Among Top Winners". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 2023-05-09.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

[1]

v t e NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Writing in a Motion Picture
2000s	Doug Atchison (2006) Michael Genet and Rick Famuyiwa (2007) Jenny Lumet (2008) Geoffrey S. Fletcher (2019)
2010s	Michael Elliot (2010) Ann Peacock (2011) Elizabeth Hunter (2012) John Ridley (2013) Misan Sagay (2014) Lawrence Hill and Clement Virgo (2015) Barry Jenkins and Aaron Covington (2016) Jordan Peele (2017) Ryan Coogler and Joe Robert Cole (2018) Jordan Peele (2019)
2020s	Radha Blank (2020) Shaka King, Will Berson, Kenny and Keith Lucas (2021) Ryan Coogler (2022) Cord Jefferson (2023) RaMell Ross and Joslyn Barnes (2024)