"Midnight in Paris" and "The Descendants" win top WGA honors

(CBS/AP) Woody Allen's romantic fantasy "Midnight in Paris" won best original screenplay and Alexander Payne's family drama "The Descendants" won best adapted screenplay at the Writers Guild of America awards on Sunday.

Pictures: Writers Guild Awards 2012

The wins boost the prospects for both films to earn the same prizes at this Sunday's Academy Awards, where both movies are also in the running for best picture.

Allen's film stars Owen Wilson as a modern Hollywood writer, who gets a chance to hang with his literary idols in the 1920s Paris of Hemingway and Fitzgerald.

Payne's film, which is based on the novel by Kaui Hart Hemmings, stars George Clooney as a Hawaiian dad struggling to tend to his two daughters after a boating accident puts his wife in a coma. Payne shared the adapted screenplay honor with co-writers Nat Faxon and Jim Rash.

But not all key Academy Awards contenders,  including Oscar best-picture front-runner "The Artist," were eligible for the Writers Guild honors. The black-and-white silent film is competing against "Midnight in Paris" for original screenplay, but "The Artist" was ineligible at the Writers Guild awards because it was not made under the union's contract guidelines.

TV winners included the writers for "Breaking Bad," "Modern Family," and "Homeland." For a complete list of winners, click here.