Which 1940 film won the first Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay?

The Great McGinty won the first Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, honoring its writer Preston Sturges.

The 1940 political satire was Sturges’s first film as a director. It follows a corrupt political operator whose rise depends on election fraud and patronage, giving the comedy a sharply cynical view of American politics. Sturges originally wrote the story in 1933 and eventually sold it to Paramount for just $10 on the condition that he direct it.

The screenplay prize was presented at the 13th Academy Awards in 1941, which honored films released during 1940. This was the first ceremony to award a separate Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, distinct from Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium.

Viewers sometimes confuse the winner with celebrated 1940 films such as Rebecca or The Philadelphia Story. Those films were major Oscar contenders, but The Great McGinty established Sturges as the inaugural winner in the original-screenplay category.