In an event that often foreshadows Oscar night success, the Directors Guild of America held its 74th annual awards ceremony Saturday evening and awarded the best director of a theatrical feature film to Jane Campion for “The Power of the Dog.”
Campion beat out Steven Spielberg, Kenneth Branagh, Paul Thomas Anderson and Denis Villeneuve for the top prize. She was previously nominated for the award for “The Piano.”
Spielberg was nominated for “West Side Story,” Branagh for “Belfast,” Anderson for “Licorice Pizza” and Villeneuve for “Dune.”
The DGA Award is historically a solid predictor of who will take home the Academy Award for best director. Since 1948, there have only been eight times that the winner of the DGA award for feature film directing has not gone on to win the Oscar for best director.
The most recent time was in 2020, when Sam Mendes won the DGA Award for “1917,” but the Oscar went to Bong Joon Ho for “Parasite.”
Last year, both honors went to “Nomadland” director Chloé Zhao, who became only the second woman to win the DGA’s top prize and the Oscar. Kathryn Bigelow was the first woman to win the awards, for 2008’s “The Hurt Locker.”
Maggie Gyllenhaal beat out Lin-Manuel Miranda and Rebecca Hall for the DGA’s best first-time director award. Gyllenhaal won for “The Lost Daughter,” beating out Miranda for “Tick, Tick…BOOM!” and Hall for “Passing.”
On the small screen, directors of HBO’s “Succession,” a comedy- tinged drama about the four grown children of a mogul vying to succeed their father in running a media and entertainment conglomerate, swept all five nominations in the drama series category with Mark Mylod winning for the episode titled “All the Bells Say.”
In the comedy series category, directors of Apple TV+’s “Ted Lasso” – – the story of a perennially upbeat football coach who takes over an English soccer club — scored three of the five nominations but lost to a “Hacks” episode directed by Lucia Aniello, titled, “There Is No Line.”
The awards were presented at The Beverly Hilton hotel, in a ceremony hosted by comedian/director Judd Apatow. He previously hosted the ceremony in 2018 and 2020. The DGAs were presented virtually last year.
During the event, assistant director Joseph P. Reidy received the DGA’s Frank Capra Achievement Award, which is presented to an assistant director or unit production manager for career achievement in the industry and service to the guild. Stage manager Garry W. Hood received the Franklin J. Schaffner Achievement Award, which is given to an associate director or stage manager for service to the industry and the DGA.
Here is the complete list of winners:
FEATURE FILM
— Jane Campion, “The Power of the Dog”
FIRST-TIME DIRECTOR
— Maggie Gyllenhaal, “The Lost Daughter”
DRAMATIC SERIES
— Mark Mylod, Succession, “All the Bells Say”
COMEDY SERIES
— Lucia Aniello, Hacks, “There Is No Line”
MOVIES FOR TELEVISION AND LIMITED SERIES
— Barry Jenkins, The Underground Railroad
VARIETY / TALK / NEWS / SPORTS – REGULARLY SCHEDULED PROGRAMMING
— Don Roy King, Saturday Night Live, “Keegan-Michael Key; Olivia Rodrigo”
VARIETY / TALK / NEWS / SPORTS – SPECIALS
— Paul Dugdale, Adele: One Night Only
REALITY PROGRAMS
— Adam Vetri, Getaway Driver, “Electric Shock”
CHILDREN’S PROGRAMS
— Smriti Mundhra, Through Our Eyes, “Shelter”
COMMERCIALS
— Bradford Young, Super. Human., Channel 4 Paralympics
DOCUMENTARY
— Stanley Nelson, Attica
That movie was a snore. Dune should have won DGA.