LOS ANGELES — Twisty noir “Nightmare Alley” by Guillermo del Toro and Kim Morgan, eco-satire “Don’t Look Up” from Adam McKay and documentary “Like a Rolling Stone: The Life & Times of Ben Fong-Torres” by Suzanne Joe Kai are among the nominees for the 2022 Writers Guild Awards, the guild announced Thursday.
The annual screenwriting awards, to be held virtually March 20, honor the best screenplays of the year in three categories: original, adapted and documentary.
Several familiar faces received nominations in the original screenplay category, including Aaron Sorkin, who nabbed his 14th career WGA nod for his look at the personal and professional lives of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz in “Being the Ricardos.”
He’s up against four other men: Previous nominees McKay (“Don’t Look Up”), Wes Anderson (“The French Dispatch”) and Paul Thomas Anderson (“Licorice Pizza”) and first-time nominee Zach Baylin (“King Richard”).
In the adapted-screenplay category, “Nightmare Alley” pair Del Toro and Morgan are joined by writer-director Siân Heder (“CODA”), Steven Levenson (“Tick, Tick... Boom!”), Tony Kushner (“West Side Story”) based on the original stage play, and the “Dune” team of Eric Roth, Jon Spaihts and Denis Villeneuve. Morgan, Spaihts and Villeneuve are first-time nominees.
Several of the season’s prime contenders — including the Netflix dramas “The Power of the Dog” and “The Lost Daughter,” scripted by Jane Campion and Maggie Gyllenhaal, respectively — were deemed ineligible for nominations by WGA rules.
In the nonfiction race, Liz Garbus’ Jacques Cousteau documentary “Becoming Cousteau” landed nods for Mark Monroe, a previous winner for “The Cove” and “The Dissident,” and Pax Wassermann.
The film will compete with two other biographical documentaries: Marc Shaffer’s “Exposing Muybridge,” about pioneering photographer Eadweard Muybridge, and writer-director Kai’s “Like a Rolling Stone,” chronicling the life of trailblazing journalist Fong-Torres.
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