When awards season rolls around every year there always seems to be a group of films that are tapped to pick up their share of the major awards. 2010 is no exception and this year the likes of Toy Story 3, Inception, The King's Speech, The Social NetworkBlack Swan and The Fighter are among those which have won awards already and look likely to pick up some Oscars as well.

However, when it comes to the Screen Actors Guild (SAG), the Directors Guild of America (DGA) and the Writers Guild of America (WGA), there are rules which often prohibit certain awards favorites from winning in some of the big categories offered by awards ceremonies.

Following the Oscars deeming the scores for Black Swan, True Grit and The Fighter ineligible for the Best Original Score category, the WGA has deemed some of the biggest awards favorites ineligible for Best Original Screenplay and Best Adapted Screenplay at its annual awards ceremony.

Variety reports that under tough restrictions - requiring that scripts be "produced under WGA jurisdiction and be formally submitted for consideration" - favorites such as Toy Story 3, The King's Speech and Another Year are now ineligible for the two Best Screenplay categories. Head over to Variety for a breakdown of why these films have been shunned.

Toy Story 3 Oscars Best Picture

Despite the fact that members of the WGA make up a segment of the Academy voters this exclusion doesn't mean that those films snubbed won't get nominated for the Screenplay awards at the Oscars. However, an interesting thing to note is that for 11 of the last 16 years, the winners of the WGA awards in the Screenplay categories have matched up with the Oscars. I guess that means this year it will be harder to guess what will win on the big night! :-P

Despite many of the awards favorites being labelled ineligible by the WGA, there are still plenty of big ones left, including Black Swan, The Fighter, Inception and The Social Network. Here's a complete list of what's eligible and ineligible:

INELIGIBLE - ORIGINAL AND ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

  • Another Year
  • Biutiful
  • Blue Valentine
  • The Ghost Writer
  • The King's Speech
  • Made in Dagenham
  • Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
  • Toy Story 3
  • Winter's Bone

ELIGIBLE - ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY (TOTAL: 43)

  • All Good Things
  • Black Swan
  • Brooklyn's Finest
  • Burlesque
  • Casino Jack
  • City Island
  • The Company Men
  • Conviction
  • Country Strong
  • Cyrus
  • Due Date
  • Easy A
  • The Fighter
  • Frankie and Alice
  • Frozen
  • Furry Vengeance
  • Get Low
  • Greenberg
  • Grown Ups
  • Hereafter
  • Holy Rollers
  • How Do You Know
  • Inception
  • Just Wright
  • The Kids Are All Right
  • Letters to Juliet
  • Life as We Know It
  • Middle Men
  • Morning Glory
  • Mother and Child
  • The Other Guys
  • Our Family Wedding
  • Please Give
  • Remember Me
  • Salt
  • Secretariat
  • Solitary Man
  • Somewhere
  • Splice
  • Stone
  • Welcome to the Rileys
  • Wonderful World
  • You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger

ELIGIBLE - ADAPTED SCREENPLAY (TOTAL: 33)

  • 127 Hours
  • Alice in Wonderland
  • The American
  • Barney's Version
  • Barry Munday
  • The Crazies
  • Eat Pray Love
  • The Extra Man
  • Fair Game
  • For Colored Girls
  • Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1
  • I Love You Phillip Morris
  • It's Kind of a Funny Story
  • Jack Goes Boating
  • The Karate Kid
  • The Last Song
  • Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole
  • Let Me In
  • Like Dandelion Dust
  • The Next Three Days
  • Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief
  • Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
  • Rabbit Hole
  • Red
  • Shutter Island
  • The Social Network
  • The Sorcerer's Apprentice
  • The Tempest
  • Today's Special
  • The Town
  • Tron: Legacy
  • True Grit
  • The Twilight Saga: Eclipse

It's rather... unfortunate that films like Eclipse, Alice in Wonderland, Grown Ups and Furry Vengeance are eligible and others like Toy Story 3, The King's Speech and Winter's Bone have been given the cold shoulder. But in the end rules are rules and they can't be broken just so that the awards favorites can get nominated.

I'll leave it up to you to give your picks for what you think should nominated and ultimately win.

The WGA award winners will be announced on February 5th, 2011.

Source: Variety