On Sunday evening, US film and television writers gave their top two movie awards to romance Midnight in Paris and drama The Descendants in the final Hollywood guild awards show before next week's Oscars.

Writer-director Woody Allen won the Writers Guild of America (WGA) award for best original screenplay with Midnight in Paris, his tale of a young writer in Paris who faces questions of love.

The Descendants, which stars George Clooney as a man who brings his family together in a time of grief while his cheating wife is hospitalized, earned the WGA trophy for best adapted screenplay for writers Alexander Payne, Nat Faxon and Jim Rash.

The awards give both movies a lift in the race for the Oscars, the world's top film honors, because many guild members also belong to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences that gives out the Oscars on February 26.

But the guilds have recognized a variety of films this year, making them an inexact forecaster for Oscar success. Earlier this year, the director and producer guilds put The Artist atop their list of best films, but The Artist was not eligible for a WGA trophy because it was created by French writers.