8 New Awards Categories That Would Make The Oscars Better
5. Best Original Story
This title did exist a long time ago, and has since been modified to become Best Original Screenplay. While these two descriptors can be both sides of the same coin, sometimes an original story and original narrative need their own categories.
Look at this years nominations for Best Original Screenplay, and you might be inclined to agree that they are all unique. But it's a film like Parasite that has a legitimately unique story that couldn't be directly imitated again by other films.
The central idea for this award is to praise the fictional side of creativity; films that are inspired by abstract thoughts instead of attaching them self to a cultural landmark or time in history.
Even Quentin Tarantino's alternate-history mark Once Upon a Time... while twisting history to create an alternate reality, borrow facts and times from historical events. The film is great; but it circles too much around real life events to be truly called original. Even with the "twist" ending.
If nothing else, writers might be inspired to steer away from remakes, sequels and re-castings if they know they can get an Oscar if they come up with an original idea.