The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced its nominees for the 98th annual Oscars last week, and, as usual, it was packed with some of 2025’s best adaptations. 

While “Sinners,” starring Michael B. Jordan nabbed the most nominations this year—16—a loose adaptation of a Thomas Pynchon novel was close behind with 13 nods. “One Battle After Another,” starring Leonardo DiCaprio and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, is inspired by the 1990 novel “Vineland” about a wacky cast of characters navigating the Reagan-era war on drugs. 

The film is up for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing, Best Original Score, Best Production Design and Best Sound. Acting nods include Best Actor for DiCaprio, Best Supporting Actor for Benicio del Toro and Sean Penn, and Best Supporting Actress for Teyana Taylor. 

And, new this year, “One Battle After the Another” picked up a nomination in the debut category of Best Casting for casting director Cassandra Kulukundis. 

Of course, at Booked & Screened, we’re especially interested in the Best Adapted Screenplay category. In addition to the Best Director category, Anderson is nominated for adapting “One Battle After Another.” Despite 14 Academy Award nominations over his career—including Best Adapted Screenplay for “There Will Be Blood” and “Inherent Vice,” Thomas has never won a single Oscar. 

Tied for third most nominations this year is “Frankenstein,” based on Mary Shelley’s famed gothic monster novel. This marks director Guillermo del Toro’s first nomination in the Best Adapted Screenplay category. He was previously nominated in the Best Original Screenplay category for 2018’s “The Shape of Water.”

“Frankenstein” also picked up nods for Best Picture, Best Cinematography, Best Production Design, Best Costume Design, Best Makeup and Hairstyling, Best Original Score and Best Sound. Jacob Elordi received his first Oscar nomination—Best Supporting Actor. 

Could Shelley’s 1818 novel receive Oscars buzz two years in a row? The book is also the inspiration for filmmaker Maggie Gyllenhaal’s upcoming “The Bride!” starring Christian Bale and Jessie Buckley. 

Maggie O’Farrell’s bestselling “Hamnet” was the inspiration for the Chloé Zhao-directed drama of the same name. Both were nominated for adapting the novel into a screenplay. (This one is sort of a double adaptation, telling a fictional account of William Shakespeare’s son, Hamnet, the inspiration for his famed tragedy, “Hamlet.”)

Zhao previously received a Best Adapted Screenplay nod for “Nomadland,” and while the film won Best Picture and Best Director in 2021, it did not pick up the screenplay award. 

“Hamnet” overall had eight nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director for Zhao, Best Casting, Best Costume Design, Best Production Design and Best Original Score. Buckley received her first Best Actress nod for her turn as the bard’s wife, Agnes Shakespeare. 

Next among the Best Adapted Screenplay nominees is “Train Dreams,” adapted by Clint Bentley and Greg Kwedar from the Denis Johnson novella of the same name. The screenwriting duo were nominated in the same category last year for “Sing Sing.”

The film also received nominations for Best Picture, Best Cinematography and Best Original Song. 

The final film in the Best Adapted Screenplay category is Yorgos Lanthimos’ “Bugonia” starring Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons. The film is adapted from the 2003 South Korean film “Save the Green Planet!” Alas, neither are based on any written works. 

Other adaptations that received Oscar nods this year are “Little Amélie or the Character of Rain” (Animated Feature Film), the Japanese drama “Kokuho” (Makeup and Hairstyling), the Cinderella inspired “The Ugly Stepsister” and “The Lost Bus” (Visual Effects), based on the novel “Paradise” (Makeup and Hairstyling) by Lizzie Johnson. “Jurassic World Rebirth” (Visual Effects), while not directly adapted from a novel, is part of the dinosaur franchise based on the Michael Crichton books. 

Check out our full list of this year’s Oscars nominations here!

About the writer

Danielle Haynes is the co-founder and co-editor of Booked & Screened, covering book-to-screen adaptations, film and TV development. Every year, the writer makes it her mission to watch every single Oscar-nominated film before the ceremony. Every year she fails.