Joey Magidson
Tomorrow evening, the Directors Guild of America puts on their annual Directors Guild Awards. DGA is an excellent precursor to focus in on, especially if how it correlates to the Oscars is something you care about. More on that next, but with DGA a day away, we stand on the precipice of the first real indicator of how the perceived Oscar frontrunners do when facing off. So, consider this to be a very exciting moment, as well as the first real marker for Phase Two of awards season…
In recent history, DGA has been an outstanding predictor of who will win the Oscar for Best Director. It has been five years in a row that the Academy has followed along with the guild, and since the year 2000, only three times have the Oscars gone in a different direction than the Directors Guild. Last year, Sean Baker‘s win here for Anora was one of the biggest indicators that the film and filmmaker were headed to Academy Award glory.
The 78th Annual DGA Awards features three Feature categories. The Documentary field has Mstyslav Chernov (2000 Meters to Andriivka), Geeta Gandbhir (The Perfect Neighbor), Sara Khaki and Mohammadreza Eyni (Cutting Through Rocks), Elizabeth Lo (Mistress Dispeller), and Laura Poitras and Mark Obenhaus (Cover-Up), with Gandbhir likely the favorite. The First-Time category has Hasan Hadi (The President’s Cake), Harry Lighton (Pillion), Charlie Polinger (The Plague), Alex Russell (Lurker), and Eva Victor (Sorry, Baby) duking it out. There, it could be Lighton or Victor. Then, we have the big category.
The top prize is between Paul Thomas Anderson (One Battle After Another), Ryan Coogler (Sinners), Guillermo del Toro (Frankenstein), Josh Safdie (Marty Supreme), and Chloé Zhao (Hamnet). I feel confident in saying that this is a two horse race, in that del Toro, Safdie, and Zhao are just happy to be nominated. So, it’s Anderson vs Coogler for DGA, with the same almost certainly being the case at the Oscars.
It feels like PTA is an unstoppable force, given his precursor strength, including a Golden Globe win. So, the smart money is on Anderson. Coogler is the alternative, however, and Sinners is riding even higher than One Battle After Another at the moment, especially considering its record-setting Oscar nomination haul. This is one of those fields where the two movies are in direct competition and give us an opportunity to see how they stack up when gunning for the same prize.
If it’s not Paul Thomas Anderson, it will be Ryan Coogler, mark my words. Is it likely? Probably not, but then again, Baker wasn’t predicted by nearly anyone last year, and he went on to take DGA and the Oscar. So, sleep on Coogler at your own risk, even if Anderson is the overwhelming favorite, as well as my prediction (all of my picks can be found here for DGA, FYI). In short? It’s probably Anderson, and he’s the smart bet to win the Oscar as well, but until the name is called out, Coogler looms as a threat.
Stay tuned to see who wins the DGA prize tomorrow night!
I think a factor is that Anderson has never won DGA, so this is not just a chance to reward him for the film of the year, but to give him a career first honor. If DGA had previously honored Anderson, that might actually give Coogler a leg up.
That’s probably correct.