Woody Allen’s Oscar-winning screenplay for Annie Hall has been voted the funniest ever written, by the Writers Guild of America.
The organisation assembled a list of the 101 funniest scripts and announced the awards after panel discussions and clips at an event in Hollywood, presented by Rob Reiner.
Allen’s romantic comedy, in which he stars opposite an Oscar-winning Diane Keaton, beat competition from Some Like It Hot, Groundhog Day, Airplane! and Tootsie, which made up the rest of the top five.
The highest-placed new script on the list was Kristen Wiig and Annie Mummolo’s Oscar-nominated Bridesmaids, at number 16. Other newer titles included Borat (29), The Hangover (30), Shaun of the Dead (50), Anchorman (54), Wedding Crashers (59) and Little Miss Sunshine (64).
The oldest script on the list is 1925’s The Gold Rush (94), which was written and directed by Charlie Chaplin. There was also another silent film on the list, 1926’s The General (56).
As well as Annie Hall, Allen also had six other scripts included: Sleeper, Bananas, Take the Money and Run, Broadway Danny Rose, Love and Death, and Manhattan. The next most featured screenwriter was Harold Ramis with five (including Ghostbusters and Caddyshack) followed by Preston Sturges with four (including The Lady Eve and Sullivan’s Travels).
The top 20 is as follows:
- Annie Hall
- Some Like It Hot
- Groundhog Day
- Airplane!
- Tootsie
- Young Frankenstein
- Dr Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
- Blazing Saddles
- Monty Python and the Holy Grail
- National Lampoon’s Animal House
- This is Spinal Tap
- The Producers
- The Big Lebowski
- Ghostbusters
- When Harry Met Sally
- Bridesmaids
- Duck Soup
- There’s Something About Mary
- The Jerk
- A Fish Called Wanda
