Woody Allen’s romantic fantasy “Midnight in Paris” and Alexander Payne’s family drama “The Descendants” have won top screenplay* honors from the Writers Guild of America.

    With his biggest hit in decades, writer-director Allen earned the guild’s prize on Sunday for original screenplay for “Midnight in Paris.” The film stars Owen Wilson as a modern-day Hollywood writer who gets a chance to hang with his literary idols in the 1920s Paris of Hemingway and Fitzgerald.

    Director Payne shared the adapted screenplay honor with co-writers Nat Faxon and Jim Rash. Based on the novel by Kaui Hart Hemmings, “The Descendants” stars George Clooney as a Hawaiian father struggling to tend to his two daughters after a boating accident puts his wife in a coma.

    The wins boost the prospects for both films to earn the same prizes at this Sunday’s Academy Awards.

    The guild’s prize for big-screen documentary writing went to Katie Galloway and Kelly Duane de la Vega for “Better This World.”(SD-Agencies)