The Directors Guild of America (DGA) is the latest industry guild to announce the nominees for their 66th Annual DGA Awards with the winner to be announced on January 25.
This year’s nominees are:
Alfonso Cuaron for Gravity
Paul Greengrass for Captain Phillips
Steve McQueen for 12 Years a Slave
David O. Russell for American Hustle
and Martin Scorsese for The Wolf of Wall Street
The DGA nominations have always been fairly significant since the 15,000 members of the guild often nominate in a similar fashion as the directing branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and famously have been a strong precursor both for the Academy’s Best Director category but also for Best Picture, back when it was just five nominees.
Last year, they were quite famously off from the Academy’s Best Director choices, going with just two of the directors who went on to Oscar night: Steven Spielberg and Ang Lee. The DGA gave their award to Ben Affleck for Argo, who was somehow not even nominated for an Oscar in direction, although Argo went on to win Best Picture.
The previous nine years they selected the same director for their top award as the Academy did for theirs, and they often have three to four of the same nominees. This year’s line-up looks pretty good, like they might go five for five although the Academy does like to throw in a few surprises–like the director of a smaller indie or a foreign filmmaker–but the five movies represented by the DGA nominees are definitely in the top running for Best Picture on Oscar night this year.
