Moonlight outshines La La Land to win top prize at Writers Guild of America Awards

Moonlight has beaten Oscars favourite La La Land to win the top honour at a politically charged Writers Guild of America Awards.

The film’s writer and director Barry Jenkins won best original screenplay for the drama about a young gay black man coming of age in Miami.

He beat Damien Chazelle’s musical La La Land — widely tipped for Oscar success — as well as Manchester By The Sea, Loving and Hell Or High Water.

The Writers Guild ceremony included a number of references to Donald Trump, with an impersonator of the US president taking to the stage and two men dressed as Russian soldiers handing out awards.

But Oscar-winning film-maker Oliver Stone warned it had been become “fashionable” to criticise Trump.

British film-maker Richard Curtis received the Valentine Davies Award for humanitarian service.

List of winners

Original Screenplay: Moonlight

Comedy/Variety Sketch Series: Saturday Night Live

Comedy/Variety Talk Series: Last Week Tonight With John Oliver

Drama Series: The Americans

Documentary Screenplay: Command and Control

Children's Episodic: Gortimer Gibbon's Life on Normal Street, "Mel vs. The Night Mare of Normal Street"

Children's Long Form: Once Upon a Sesame Street Christmas

Daytime Drama: General Hospital

On-Air Promotion (Television, New Media or Radio): "CBS On-Air Reel"

TV News Script - Analysis, Feature or Commentary: "CBS Sunday Morning Almanac"

TV News Script - Regularly Scheduled, Bulletin or Breaking Report: "Muhammad Ali: Remembering a Legend"

Television Graphic Art and Animation: "The Real History of Cinco de Mayoce”.

Comedy/Variety Specials: Triumph's Election Special

Outstanding Achievement in Video Game Writing: Uncharted 4: A Thief's End

Original Short Form New Media: The Commute, "The Party"

Quiz and Audience Participation: Hollywood Game Night

Radio Documentary: "Chernobyl: 30 Years Later"

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"

Animation: BoJack Horseman, "Stop the Presses"

Documentary Script - Other Than Current Events: Jackie Robinson, Part One

Documentary Script - Current Events: Frontline, "The Choice" & "Inside Asaad's Syria"