Alternative Oscars: The Nominees & Winners For Every Category

13. Best Adapted Screenplay

WINNER: Arrival

Adapting Ted Chiang's mind-melting sci-fi story into a movie script must've been an enormous challenge, but Eric Heisserer did a marvelous job translating his abstract ideas to the cinematic medium.

Refreshingly refusing to talk down to its audience while exploring the complexities of language and the way the brain behaves in relation to it, all while loading up an Earth-shattering, devastating plot twist for the third act, Arrival's script is the perfect blueprint for director Denis Villeneuve and his fantastic cast to deliver an undeniable classic.

RUNNERS-UP:

2. Silence

3. Moonlight

4. Fences

5. Hidden Figures