Best of 2007: Original Screenplay

It's impossible to follow a commemorative post, written in the aftermath of such a premature and uncanny death, and not feel complicit in some enormous cultural process of turning around and moving on. But, with final respects to those who actually knew Heath Ledger, and with due acknowledgment that my onlooker's sorrow isn't anything like their intimate grief, I of course am moving on: moving on, at least, to keep celebrating the same art form that he sustained and celebrated, which is, after all, the root and reason for the unexpectedly emotional claim that yesterday's news had on me, and on so many of us.

So: I don't agree with the perennial axiom that a great movie starts with a great script. Not all great movies have great scripts; most scripts are rewritten and retro-fitted during filming; it's impossible for a filmgoer to parse the screenwriter's labor from spontaneous improvisation, or from the re-architecture of editing, or the other happy accidents of filming. I'm more likely to love a movie for its cinematography or its editing than for its script—but I do, of course, still thrill to the artistry of a great screenplay. And from the best of what I can tell, even in relation to one nominee that doesn't even have a credited script, the arc, the words, the sequencing, and the structure of these five films fully warrant our warmest admiration.