‘Succession’, ‘The Bear’ and ‘American Fiction’ win at the WGA Awards 2024

The Writers Guild of America (WGA) Awards 2024 was held at the Hollywood Palladium and New York’s Edison Ballroom, bringing together industry luminaries to recognize outstanding contributions to writing.

The event, held at the Hollywood Palladium for the West Coast edition and at New York’s Edison Ballroom for the East Coast ceremony, was hosted by Niecy Nash-Betts in Los Angeles and comedian Josh Gondelman in New York, and paid tribute to the resilience of writers, following the challenges posed by last year’s monumental Hollywood strikes.

Among the night’s standout winners was the acclaimed HBO drama Succession, which bid a final farewell after winning two awards for Best Drama Series and Best Drama Episode.

The winning episode, “Living+,” was penned by Georgia Pritchett and Will Arbery. Creator Jesse Armstrong, along with a cohort of the show’s writers, accepted the accolades.

Television witnessed other diverse winners, with HBO/Max leading the pack with five awards. Notable wins included FX’s The Bearclinching the Comedy Series award, Netflix’s Beef winning in the Limited Series category, and HBO’s The Last of Us being recognized as the Best New Series.

Netflix’s I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson caused a stir by winning the Comedy/Variety Sketch Series award, surprising many by besting the long-established Saturday Night Live.

For film, American Fiction, written by Cord Jefferson, emerged victorious in the Adapted Screenplay category, earning Jefferson both the adapted screenplay WGA Award and the Paul Sevlin Award, which is given to the script that “best embodies the spirit of the constitutional and civil rights and liberties which are indispensable to the survival of free writers everywhere and to whose defense Paul Selvin committed his professional life.”

Alexander Payne’s The Holdovers won writer David Hemingson the award for Best Original Screenplay, having been embroiled in plagiarism controversy on the eve of the Oscars.

Honorary awards were also bestowed, with David A. Goodman and Chris Keyser receiving the Morgan Cox Guild Service Award, and Walter Hill being honored with the Laurel Award for Screenwriting Achievement.