‘Shogun,’ ‘Hacks,’ ‘Anora,’ ‘Nickel Boys’ Land Top Honors at Writers Guild Awards 2025 (Full Winners List) – Variety

“Shōgun” dominated with three wins at the Writers Guild Awards on Saturday evening — including best drama, while “Hacks” scored two on the TV side, including best comedy. In film, “Anora” and “Nickel Boys” scored big wins, giving both entries a bit more momentum as Oscar voting ends on Tuesday. “Anora,” coming off Critics Choice, DGA and PGA wins for best picture last weekend, picked up the original screenplay prize for Sean Baker. “Nickel Boys,” which has two Oscar noms, won the WGA award for RaMell Ross and Joslyn Barnes.
“Shōgun” was the night’s big winner, picking up prizes for best drama, best new series and best drama episode. On the comedy side, “Hacks” also scored a double play, landing best comedy and best comedy episode. In the limited field, “The Penguin” scored the series win.

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Meanwhile, it was the first WGA noms and wins for Baker, Ross and Barnes. The Writers Guild Awards are underway in both Los Angeles and New York, as the WGA recognizes the best of 2024’s writing in television and film. This year’s annual event bicoastal event is being at the Beverly Hilton for the West Coast edition and at New York’s Edison Ballroom for the East Coast ceremony.

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HBO/Max led the night with six wins, led by the “Hacks” honors, as well as with “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver,” “The Great Lillian Hall” and “Nikki Glaser: Someday You’ll Die.” FX/Hulu was next, with three wins, all for “Shōgun.”
In Los Angeles, Joel Kim Booster hosted this year’s event, while in the East, comedian Roy Wood Jr. served as host.
“I say this seriously: It is a pleasure to return to this post for a second time as we celebrate our nation’s final Black History Month,” Wood, a second-time host, said at the top of his monologue. The comedian went on to take further clear shots at the new presidential administration: “It’s crazy out there. Zuckerberg owns Instagram. Trump owns Zuckerberg. Then Elon bought both of them. Then Putin got the whole set. White people buying white people, that’s progress.”
Wood noted the resilience of the entertainment industry, saying, “We’re here. We survived till ’25. That’s pretty cool.”
“We survived the pandemic, we survived the strikes, we survived the fires… We also survived being forced to know who Justin Baldoni is,” Wood said. “I will be honest with you, I’m still not sure who Justin Baldoni is. I stay out of the white people business. We have survived the mergers and mergers on top of mergers happening, all these mergers. Fox bought Tubi, there’s Freevee, there’s Mubi — they all seem like STDs? ‘I got a Fubo on my Peacock!’”

Among the honorary awards, “Breaking Bad” creator Vince Gilligan was tapped to receive the Paddy Chayefsky Laurel Award for Television Writing Achievement, while the late David Lynch was honored with the Laurel Award for Screenwriting Achievement. Also, RaMell Ross and Joslyn Barnes received the Paul Sevlin Award, “presented to that member whose script best embodies the spirit of the constitutional and civil rights and liberties which are indispensable to the survival of free writers everywhere.”
In his speech, Ross lamented the current drive by the Trump administration to roll back decades of Civil Rights advances. “The imagination is the most powerful form of resistance,” he said from the stage in L.A. “Let’s take courage from one another.”
Later, in his speech, Gilligan — the writer behind ultimate antihero Walter White — suggested that given the current political environment, Hollywood needed to write more good guys. “For decades we made the bad guys too sexy,” he said. “Fictional bad guys stopped being the cautionary affairs that they were. They became aspirational. So maybe what the world needs now are some good, old fashioned, Greatest Generation types who give more than they take.”
In New York, Scott Frank was set to be presented with the Ian McLellan Hunter Award for Career Achievement by Marielle Heller, while Bill Lawrence was to be presented with the Herb Sargent Award for Comedy Excellence. Kathy McGee was selected to be honored with the Richard B. Jablow Award for Devoted Service to the Guild by Penelope Koechl.
Among key nominations, Oscar original screenplay nominees Sean Baker (“Anora”) and Jesse Eisenberg (“A Real Pain”) are in the hunt, alongside Justin Kuritzkes for “Challengers,” Alex Garland for “Civil War” and Megan Park for “My Old Ass.” All are first-time WGA nominees. In adapted screenplay, Oscar-nominated “A Complete Unknown” (James Mangold and Jay Cocks) and “Nickel Boys” (RaMell Ross and Joslyn Barnes) are joined by Richard Linklater and Glen Powell for “Hit Man,” Denis Villeneuve and Jon Spaihts for “Dune: Part Two” and Winnie Holzman and Dana Fox for “Wicked.”
On the television side, FX’s epic adaptation of James Clavell’s “Shōgun,” Netflix’s political thriller “The Diplomat,” and three Prime Video entries — “The Boys,” “Fallout,” and “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” — led drama, while comedy nominees included ABC’s “Abbott Elementary,” FX’s “The Bear” and “What We Do in the Shadows,” and HBO/Max’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and Emmy winner “Hacks.”

The limited series category included HBO/Max’s “The Penguin” and “True Detective: Night Country,” Apple TV+’s courtroom drama “Presumed Innocent,” Netflix’s “Ripley” and Hulu’s political thriller “Say Nothing.”
Presenters appearing at this year’s L.A. awards show included Jordan Firstman, Edwin Lee Gibson, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Adele Lim, Justine Lupe, Kyle MacLachlan, Joe Manganiello, Rhea Seehorn, Kiernan Shipka, Lisa Ann Walter, Cedric Yarbrough, and more. Presenters in New York include Jesse Eisenberg, Rosie Perez, Michael McKean, Cory Michael Smith, DeWanda Wise, Ronny Chieng, Adriana Diaz, Meredith Scardino, Cole Escola, Bridget Moynahan, Anette O’Toole and Michael Zegen.
Here are this year’s winners, bolded and noted among the nominees for each category.
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Source: https://variety.com/2025/film/awards/writers-guild-wga-awards-2025-winners-list-1236309307/