His plays include The Dresser, The Deliberate Death of a Polish Priest, Interpreters, J.J. Farr, Another Time, Taking Sides, The Handyman, Quartet and Mahler’s Conversion.
His films include The Dresser (Academy Award Nomination for Best Screenplay), Taking Sides (XXIX Flaiano Film Festival Award for Best Screenplay), The Pianist for which he won an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, Being Julia and Oliver Twist. Love In The Time Of Cholera and The Diving Bell and The Butterfly came out in 2007. The latter is in contention for several Academy Awards amongst one of which is for Ronnie in the category of Best Adapted Screenplay.
He was made Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1974 and was Visitor in Theatre at Balliol College, Oxford in 1985. He was President of English PEN, 1989-1993, and President of International PEN, 1993-97. He was Chairman of the Royal Society of Literature. In 2005 he was elected President of the Royal Literary Fund. In 1996 he was appointed Chevalier de l’ordre National des Arts et des Lettres. In 1999, he was appointed a CBE. He was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Letters by Keele University in 2002 and made an Honorary Fellow of the Central School of Speech and Drama in 2007.