Moonlight and Arrival emerged triumphant from the Writers Guild of America awards, with the former winning best original screenplay and the latter best adapted screenplay.

Moonlight, the heartrending tale of a gay man’s coming of age in Miami, is directed by Barry Jenkins and won the original screenplay award for Jenkins; however, because of a difference in eligibility rules it has been nominated for a best adapted screenplay Oscar, as it is based on an unpublished text by award-winning playwright Tarell Alvin McCraney.

At the Academy awards Moonlight will be competing against the WGA’s other major film laureate, Arrival, which took best adapted screenplay for Eric Heisserer, whose script was based on Nebula award-winning short story Story of Your Life by Ted Chiang.

A WGA award is considered a reliable predictor for Oscar results – but the fact that Moonlight will shift categories is likely to skew its bellwether potential. The films it defeated here – Hell or High Water, La La Land, Loving and Manchester by the Sea – will still consider themselves in with a decent chance.

The WGA also gives out a number of TV writing awards, with Atlanta winning best comedy series and best new series, and The People v OJ Simpson: American Crime Story taking best long-form adapted programme.

Oliver Stone, who received the Laurel award for screenwriting achievement, took aim at what he called the “military industrial money media security complex” in an anti-war acceptance speech. “In the 13 wars we’ve started over the last 30 years and the $14 trillion we’ve spent, and the hundreds of thousands of lives that have perished from this earth, remember that it wasn’t one leader, but a system, both Republican and Democrat ... It’s a system that has been perpetuated under the guise that these are just wars justifiable in the name of our flag that flies so proudly.”

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Full list of winners

Film

Best original screenplay: Moonlight

Best adapted screenplay: Arrival

Best documentary screenplay: Command and Control

TV, radio, new media and video games

Best comedy/variety sketch series: Saturday Night Live

Best comedy/variety talk series: Last Week Tonight With John Oliver

Best drama series: The Americans

Best children’s episode: Gortimer Gibbon’s Life on Normal Street (Mel v The Night Mare of Normal Street)

Best children’s long form: Once Upon a Sesame Street Christmas

Best daytime drama: General Hospital

Best on-air promotion (television, new media or radio): CBS On-Air Reel

Best TV news script – analysis, feature or commentary: CBS Sunday Morning Almanac

Best TV news script – regularly scheduled, bulletin or breaking report: Muhammad Ali: Remembering a Legend

Best television graphic art and animation: The Real History of Cinco de Mayo

Best comedy/variety special: Triumph’s Election Special

Outstanding achievement in video game writing: Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End

Best original short form new media: The Commute (The Party)

Best quiz and audience participation: Hollywood Game Night

Best radio documentary: Chernobyl: 30 Years Later

Best radio news script – regularly scheduled, bulletin or breaking report: World News This Week

Radio news script – analysis, feature or commentary: Morley Safer: A Journalist’s Life

Best animation: BoJack Horseman (Stop the Presses)

Best documentary script – current events: Frontline, The Choice & Inside Assad’s Syria

Best documentary script – other than current events: Jackie Robinson, Part One

Best adapted short form new media: Fear the Walking Dead

Best adapted long form: The People v OJ Simpson: American Crime Story

Best original long form: Confirmation

Best new series: Atlanta

Best comedy series: Atlanta

Best episodic comedy: Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (Kimmy Goes on a Play Date)

Best episodic drama: This Is Us (The Trip)

Humanitarian service: Richard Curtis

International screenwriting achievement: Abbas Kiarostami

Morgan Cox award: Dan Wilcox

Paul Selvin award: Susannah Grant

Screenwriting achievement: Oliver Stone

Animation writing award for lifetime achievement: Mike Judge

Television writing achievement: Aaron Sorkin