The Writers Guild of America announced its awards and once again surprised with its choices, stirring up the awards race.

The Best Original Screenplay award is the most contested prize this year as it includes three of the top contenders for the Oscar. In this case only two of those contenders were in competition for the WGA. Those films were "The Grand Budapest Hotel" and "Boyhood." "Birdman" did not compete at the WGA because it was not eligible as the writers of the film are not part of the WGA and did not register the film under the guild.

Most pundits expected "Boyhood" to go home with the big win, but instead "The Grand Budapest Hotel" repeated its BAFTA win and took home the Best Original Screenplay. The film's win was the first major Guild award as it lost the Directors Guild of America, Producers Guild of America and Screen Actors Guild. However, "The Grand Budapest Hotel" has done well with the below the line prizes.

For "Boyhood," the loss was bad news as it once again showed the lack of support the feature has obtained from industry voters. The film has only won one below-the-line guild, and that was the EDDIE award for editing. "Boyhood" was expected to go home with the PGA, DGA and WGA after sweeping almost all awards ceremonies. Having lost all four major guilds is a sign that "Boyhood" will likely go home empty-handed from the Academy Awards.

"Boyhood's" loss at this ceremony is good news for "Birdman," which picked up three of the guild awards and is now the front-runner to win the Best Picture. The last time a film picked up three Guild awards and lost the Oscar was in 1995 when "Apollo 13" won the PGA, the DGA and SAG. The film ended up losing to "Braveheart." However, it is important to note that "Braveheart" won the WGA for Best Original Screenplay, something "Boyhood" could not even pull off.

Over the past 20 years, every Best Picture winner has at least won one major guild award. Even last year, "12 Years a Slave" took home the PGA award. The film did not win the SAG, DGA or WGA, but it was still able to pull off one win. In 2006 "The Departed" only won two Guilds but still managed to take home the Oscar, while in 2005 "Crash" also took home two Guild awards.

The race is still too wide open as "Birdman" lacks the editing nomination, which has been crucial for the last 33 years. Every film since 1981 that has won the Best Picture award has been nominated for Best Editing. As a result, it is still too early to call the race.

In the Best Adapted Screenplay race, "The Imitation Game" won the award without a real race. The film's biggest competition was "The Theory of Everything," which won the BAFTA award. However, that film was not nominated at the WGA because it was not eligible. "The Imitation Game" is likely to pull off the win at the Oscars especially since it is nominated for eight Oscars as opposed to the five "The Theory of Everything" is nominated for. Additionally, the BAFTA and the Academy diverge most of the time in the writing categories. "The Imitation Game" also won the Best Screenplay award at the USC Scripter's awards, which is a major prize for the Oscar race.

The Best Adapted Screenplay competition is unlikely to affect the Best Picture race as these two films have failed to really generate buzz. Additionally, both "The Imitation Game" and "The Theory of Everything" lost the BAFTA, the Golden Globe and the Critics' Choice and they were also not critics' darlings.

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