(From top) Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, Francis Ford and Sofia Coppola, and Quentin Tarantino with Uma Thurman

It is the most underrated yet the most incisive of categories at the Oscars. While the popular section (actor, actress, picture and director) winners are mostly predictable and the honorary and animation awards almost known beforehand, it is the writing statuettes that not only spring a surprise or two but encourage many a fledgling film-maker to dream bigger. With three days to go for the big night, Metro looks back at the power of the pen as recognised by the Academy?

Historical evolution: It all started out in 1927 as two categories: Best Writing Adaptation and Best Original Story. It came down to a single award for Best Writing Achievement in subsequent years, with writers being nominated for all of their work that year, rather than for a specific film. It returned to the original model before the term screenplay was used for the first time in 1935. With two categories now ? Best Original Story and Best Screenplay ? films went on to win two writing nominations at one ceremony. Then a third category, Best Original Screenplay, was added in 1940 for eight years when it was again curtailed to just two. Till 1957, it kept swinging to and fro between two and three categories before the modern division into ?original? and ?adapted? screenplays was finally implemented.

Original work: Of the 76 films that have won Best Picture Oscars till date, only 21 of them have been original screenplays. The clear master of the Original Screenplay category is Woody Allen who has been nominated in the same category 13 times, winning only twice for Annie Hall (1977) and Hannah And Her Sisters (1986).

Another champion was Federico Fellini who won five of his eight nominations for his original work including La Strada (1954), La Dolce Vita (1960) and 8 1/2 (1963) but never managed to win in this category. Bergman, the other auteur, won four of his five writing nominations for Wild Strawberries (1959), Through a Glass Darkly (1962), Autumn Sonata (1978) and Fanny & Alexander (1983). He also didn?t find his name in the envelope.

Francis Ford Coppola won for Patton (1970), and Billy Wilder for Sunset Boulevard (1950) and The Apartment (1960). Recent winners include Sofia Coppola (Lost in Translation), Pedro Almod?var (Talk To Her), Julian Fellowes (Gosford Park), Cameron Crowe (Almost Famous), Alan Ball (American Beauty), Ben Affleck and Matt Damon (Good Will Hunting), Coen brothers (Fargo), Jane Campion (The Piano), and Callie Khouri (Thelma & Louise).

But if there?s one original screenplay that stands out in the 76 years of the Oscars, it has to be Pulp Fiction (1994) by Roger Avary and Quentin Tarantino. Broken down into chapters, the screenplay broke every rule in the book and bizarre as it may seem, one of the characters (played by John Travolta) walked out in the last shot having died in the middle of the film.

Adapted art: As many as 40 of the 76 Oscar-winning Best Pictures are adapted from novels, stories or short stories, or even remade from other films and 12 of them from stage plays or musicals. Interestingly, On The Waterfront was adapted from a newspaper article, Marty from a television show and Lawrence of Arabia from various writings.

Billy Wilder won seven nominations for his adapted work, winning the honour only for The Lost Weekend (1945) and losing out for such classics as Sabrina (1954) and Some Like It Hot (1959). John Huston bagged six nominations but won just once for The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948). Francis Ford Coppola won for both The Godfather (1972) and The Godfather, Part II (1974) but could only manage a nomination for Apocalypse Now (1979).

Recent years have seen the celebration of adaptive efforts with winners such as Peter Jackson and his team (The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King), Ronald Harwood (The Pianist), Akiva Goldsman (A Beautiful Mind), Stephen Gaghan (Traffic), John Irving (The Cider House Rules), Billy Bob Thornton (Sling Blade), Emma Thompson (Sense & Sensibility), Eric Roth (Forrest Gump) and Ted Tally (The Silence of the Lambs).

This year it is a toss-up between David Magee (Finding Neverland), Paul Haggis (Million Dollar Baby), Jos? Rivera (The Motorcycle Diaries), Alexander Payne & Jim Taylor (Sideways), and Richard Linklater, Julie Delpy, Ethan Hawke & Kim Krizan (Before Sunset) for the Original Screenplay category and a race between John Logan (The Aviator), Brad Bird (The Incredibles), Mike Leigh (Vera Drake), Keir Pearson & Terry George (Hotel Rwanda), and Charlie Kaufman, Michel Gondry & Pierre Bismuth (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) for the Adapted Screenplay honour.

May the best pen win?