Peter Straughan (born 1968) is an English screenwriter. He won twoBAFTA Awards for Best Adapted Screenplay forTinker Tailor Soldier Spy andConclave, with the latter also earning him theAcademy Award in the same category.

Straughan's first ambition was to be a professional musician and he achieved this while playing bass guitar with Newcastle-based band The Honest Johns. He spent four years touring and recording with the band through the late 1980s and into the early 1990s before leaving to take up full-time education atNewcastle University. While Straughan was a student he was also a member of the band Cactusman. He wrote the song "Killer", which appeared on the CD albumNorth of London, a collection of music by North East bands released through Newcastle Arts.^[1]

Straughan co-wrote the 2006 feature film,Mrs Ratcliffe's Revolution and adaptedToby Young's memoirHow to Lose Friends & Alienate People. He is the writer of the 2009 filmThe Men Who Stare at Goats, and co-writer of the 2011 filmTinker Tailor Soldier Spy, for which he was nominated for theAcademy Award for Adapted Screenplay, a screenplay he wrote in collaboration with his late wifeBridget O'Connor. O'Connor died of cancer, aged 49, in 2010, before the film was released. They were awarded aBAFTA for Best Adapted Screenplay.^[2]

Straughan adaptedHilary Mantel's trilogy of novels set in the royal court ofHenry VIII for television. The three novelsWolf Hall,Bring Up the Bodies, andThe Mirror & the Light were adapted into the 2015Wolf Hall television series and its 2024 sequelWolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light.

In 2025, he won theGolden Globe Award for Best Screenplay, theBAFTA Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, and theAcademy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay forConclave.^[3][4][5]

• List of Academy Award winners and nominees from Great Britain

• Peter Straughan atBritish Council: Literature
• Peter Straughan atIMDb

• 21st-century English dramatists and playwrights
• 21st-century English screenwriters
• 21st-century English short story writers
• 21st-century English male writers
• 1968 births
• Alumni of Newcastle University
• Best Adapted Screenplay BAFTA Award winners
• English male television writers
• English male dramatists and playwrights
• English male screenwriters
• English male short story writers
• English screenwriters
• English television directors
• English television writers
• Living people
• People from Gateshead
• Writers from Tyne and Wear
• Best Adapted Screenplay Academy Award winners

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