by The Deadline Team

Birdman’s win tonight arrives after key wins at the SAG (best ensemble), DGA and PGA awards. While Birdman is nominated for best original screenplay at the Oscars, it’s not in the running at this Saturday’s Writers Guild Awards.  Gone Girl, however, did land a WGA adapted screenplay nom, but was overlooked by the Academy in regards to writing. Tonight’s Final Draft ceremony was hosted by Night at the Museum co-scribes and The State comedy alums Thomas Lennon & Robert Ben Garant.  The Final Draft Hall of Fame Awards went to its first writing team: Scott Alexander & Larry Karaszewski whose Big Eyes from the Weinstein Co., about the life of 1950s pop painter Margaret Keane, was in the awards conversation this season.

The nominees and winners of the Screenwriters Choice Awards in each category are:

Best Original Screenplay

Birdman – Alejandro González Iñárritu, Nicolás Giacobone, Alexander Dinelaris,  Armando Bo (winner)
Boyhood – Richard Linklater
The Grand Budapest Hotel – Wes Anderson & Hugo Guinness
Interstellar – Christopher Nolan & Jonathan Nolan
Nightcrawler – Dan Gilroy

Best Adapted Screenplay

American Sniper – Jason Dean Hall
Gone Girl – Gillian Flynn (winner)
Guardians of the Galaxy – James Gunn & Nicole Perlman
The Imitation Game – Graham Moore
The Theory of Everything – Anthony McCarten

Best Television Drama

Downton Abbey – Julian Fellowes
Fargo – Noah Hawley
Game of Thrones – David Benioff & D.B. Weiss
House of Cards – Beau Willimon
True Detective – Nic Pizzolatto (winner)

Best Television Comedy

The Big Bang Theory – Chuck Lorre & Bill Prady (winner)
Louie – Louis C.K.
Modern Family – Steven Levitan & Christopher Lloyd
Orange is the New Black – Jenji Kohan
Veep – Armando Iannucci

Awards for the Big Break Screenwriting Contest, designed to spotlight the undiscovered talent of exceptional aspiring screenwriters, were also presented. Winners and finalists are awarded over $80,000 in cash and prizes, and the grand prize winners are flown to Los Angeles for the awards show and brought to meetings with top industry professionals.

Grand Prize winners:

Feature – 13.1 by Chad Rhiness
TV – The Blacklist “William Henry Booker (No. 58)” by Christopher Iannacone

Feature Film winners, by genre:

Action/Adventure – Flesh & Blood by Josh Cobb
Comedy/Rom-Com – 13.1 by Chad Rhiness
Drama – 10 Angels by Peter Wulff
Family/Animated – Larry, Lord of Darkness by Jeff Hand
Period/Historical/War – The End-of-Summer Guest by John Orlock
Sci-Fi/Fantasy – Man Alive by Joseph Greenberg
Thriller/Horror – The Web by Sven Mund

Television winners:

Half-Hour Spec – Brooklyn Nine-Nine “The Subway Sniffer” by Michael Salomon
Half-Hour Pilot – How I Got Hanged “First Last Words”by Ty Freer
Hour-Long Spec – The Blacklist “William Henry Booker (No. 58)” by Christopher Iannacone
Hour-Long Pilot – After The Merge by Derek Asaff

All 11 Big Break winners will participate in the first-ever Final Draft/New York Film Academy Fellowship in Writing for Film & Television, a 12-week master class – one for film writers and one for television writers – held on the Burbank campus of the New York Film Academy. Previous winners from The Big Break Screenwriting contest include 2010 winner Larry Brenner, whose script Bethlehem sold in a six-figure deal to Universal. 2012 Big Break Contest grand prize winner Craig Houchin’s script Ludlow is in development at Katonah Pictures, while 2010 co-winner Adam Perlman landed a spot on the writing staff on HBO’s Newsroom.