Quentin Tarantino's 'Django Unchained' won the original screenplay Oscar while Ben Affleck's Iranian hostage thriller 'Argo' took adapted screenplay honours at the 85th Academy Awards.
'Argo', which is screenwriter Chris Terrio's dramatisation of the rescue of six US diplomats from Tehran during the 1979 Iran hostage crisis, had won numerous writing prizes leading up to the Oscars, including the Golden Globe and awards from the Writers Guild and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association.
'Django Unchained', like Tarantino's previous film 'Inglourious Basterds', was crafted as a revenge-themed genre film. Where 'Basterds' tackled the Holocaust, 'Django' examined America's past with slavery in the guise of the story of a freed slave partnering with a bounty hunter to rescue his wife from the clutches of a brutal plantation owner.
The film has been a huge commercial hit, grossing more than USD 360 million worldwide.
"It's such an honour to get up this year because both in the original and adapted categories, the writing is just fantastic," Tarantino said from the stage.
