1940 | The Great McGinty | Preston Sturges |
| 1941 | Citizen Kane | Herman Mankiewicz, Orson Welles |
| 1942 | Woman of the Year | Michael Kanin, Ring Lardner Jr. |
| 1943 | Princess O’Rourke | Norman Krasna |
| 1944 | Wilson | Lamar Trotti |
| 1945 | Marie-Louise | Richard Schweizer |
| 1946 | The Seventh Veil | Muriel Box, Sydney Box |
| 1947 | The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer | Sidney Sheldon |
| 1949 | Battleground | Robert Pirosh |
| 1950 | Sunset Boulevard | Charles Brackett, D.M. Marshman, Jr., Billy Wilder |
| 1951 | An American in Paris | Alan Jay Lerner |
| 1952 | The Lavender Hill Mob | T.E.B. Clarke |
| 1953 | Titanic | Charles Brackett, Richard Breen, Walter Reisch |
| 1954 | On the Waterfront | Budd Schulberg |
| 1955 | Interrupted Melody | Sonya Levien, William Ludwig |
| 1956 | The Red Balloon | Albert Lamorisse |
| 1957 | Designing Woman | George Wells |
| 1958 | The Defiant Ones | Nathan E. Douglas, Harold Jacob Smith |
| 1959 | Pillow Talk | Clarence Greene, Maurice Richlin, Russell Rouse, Stanley Shapiro |
| 1960 | The Apartment | I.A.L. Diamond, Billy Wilder |
| 1961 | Splendor in the Grass | William Inge |
| 1962 | Divorce, Italian Style | Ennio de Concini, Pietro Germi, Alfredo Giannetti |
| 1963 | How the West Was Won | James Webb |
| 1964 | Father Goose | Peter Stone, Frank Tarloff |
| 1965 | Darling | Frederic Raphael |
| 1966 | A Man and a Woman | Claude Lelouch, Pierre Uytterhoeven |
| 1967 | Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner | William Rose |
| 1968 | The Producers | Mel Brooks |
| 1969 | Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid | William Goldman |
| 1970 | Patton | Francis Ford Coppola, Edmund H. North |
| 1971 | The Hospital | Paddy Chayefsky |
| 1972 | The Candidate | Jeremy Larner |
| 1973 | The Sting | David S. Ward |
| 1974 | Chinatown | Robert Towne |
| 1975 | Dog Day Afternoon | Frank Pierson |
| 1976 | Network | Paddy Chayefsky |
| 1977 | Annie Hall | Woody Allen, Marshall Brickman |
| 1978 | Coming Home | Robert C. Jones, Waldo Salt andNancy Dowd |
| 1979 | Breaking Away | Steve Tesich |
| 1980 | Melvin and Howard | Bo Goldman |
| 1981 | Chariots of Fire | Colin Welland |
| 1982 | Gandhi | John Briley |
| 1983 | Tender Mercies | Horton Foote |
| 1984 | Places in the Heart | Robert Benton |
| 1985 | Witness | William Kelley, Earl Wallace and Pamela Wallace |
| 1986 | Hannah and Her Sisters | Woody Allen |
| 1987 | Moonstruck | John Patrick Shanley |
| 1988 | Rain Man | Ronald Bass, Barry Morrow |
| 1989 | Dead Poets Society | Tom Schulman |
| 1990 | Ghost | Bruce Joel Rubin |
| 1991 | Thelma & Louise | Callie Khouri |
| 1992 | The Crying Game | Neil Jordan |
| 1993 | The Piano | Jane Campion |
| 1994 | Pulp Fiction | Quentin Tarantino and Roger Avary |
| 1995 | The Usual Suspects | Christopher McQuarrie |
| 1996 | Fargo | Joel & Ethan Coen |
| 1997 | Good Will Hunting | Ben Affleck, Matt Damon |
| 1998 | Shakespeare in Love | Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard |
| 1999 | American Beauty | Alan Ball |
| 2000 | Almost Famous | Cameron Crowe |
| 2001 | Gosford Park | Julian Fellowes |
| 2002 | Talk to Her | Pedro Almodóvar |
| 2003 | Lost in Translation | Sofia Coppola |
| 2004 | Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind | Pierre Bismuth, Michel Gondry and Charlie Kaufman |
| 2005 | Crash | Paul Haggis and Bobby Moresco |
| 2006 | Little Miss Sunshine | Michael Arndt |
| 2007 | Juno | Diablo Cody |
| 2008 | Milk | Dustin Lance Black |
| 2009 | The Hurt Locker | Mark Boal |