DGA Nominees: Gerwig, Lanthimos, Nolan, Payne, and Scorsese
Wednesday, January 10, 2024 at 7:53PM 
Greta Gerwig on the set of "Barbie". Photo by Jaap Buitendijk for Warner Bros.
The Directors Guild of America has announced their nominations for the film year just passed. They are:
OUTSTANDING DIRECTING ACHIEVEMENT, THEATRICAL FEATURE FILM
- Greta Gerwig, Barbie (2nd DGA nod)
- Yorgos Lanthimos, Poor Things (1st DGA nod)
- Christopher Nolan, Oppenheimer (5th DGA nod)
- Alexander Payne, The Holdovers (3rd DGA nod)
- Martin Scorsese, Killers of the Flower Moon (13th DGA nods in various categories, 2 previous wins, + 1 Lifetime Achievement Award)
In short, the Best Picture frontrunners! All five of these films are locked up now in Oscar's headline category. It reminds us of ye olden times when armchair pundits knew that the DGA choices were more predictive of the eventual Best Picture nominees (back then more nail-biting with only five choices) than Oscar's Best Director lineup. Old factoids like that have vanished in the modern era when every film with considerable buzz ends up in the Best Picture lineup. But it's fun to think back on, especially in light of these choices...
The distant memory of that old truth makes us wonder if Maestro, Past Lives, The Zone of Interest, and American Fiction are going to have a rougher Oscar nomination morning than many expect. Or maybe it doesn't matter in the end since Best Picture is ten-wide and they'll all make it and receive other key nominations, too.
All five of the DGA choices are past Oscar nominees but only Scorsese is a previous winner for his directing. Could this shortlist repeat on nomination morning in Best Director? Sure! Will it? Probably not. The Academy's much smaller director branch tends to be slightly more daring and idiosyncratic than the large mainstream DGA. In other words Celine Song, Jonathan Glazer, or Cord Jefferson might still crash the party. That said, I'm guessing it's curtains for Bradley Cooper in Best Director. He was arguably more likely to show up here than at the Oscars since the directing branch there ignored him last time (A Star is Born). Looks like I'll have to change my predictions but I'm keeping Glazer in there.
Long shots that were fun to dream about but aren't happening at this point are Cannes winner Tran Anh Hung (The Taste of Things), JA Bayona (Society of the Snow) -- neither of those two films took off in the way they might have in another year -- and Todd Haynes (May December). Regarding the latter, whatever one thinks of May December, it's shameful that Haynes has never been nominated for his directing from his peers in the Academy or in the Guild. Shameful given his inventive exciting evolving filmography!
OUTSTANDING DIRECTING ACHIEVEMENT, FIRST TIME THEATRICAL FEATURE FILM
- Cord Jefferson, American Fiction
- Manuel Martelli, Chile '76
- Noora Niasari, Shayda
- AV Rockwell, A Thousand and One
- Celine Song, Past Lives
The debut category is noticeable for being 80% women and mostly filmmakers of color. Cord Jefferson and Celine Song both have a chance of crashing the Best Director party at the Oscars, though they don't feel probable exactly. Or perhaps you have more faith than I in one of those two pictures overperforming on nomination morning.
PREVIOUSLY ANNOUNCED NOMINATIONS IF YOU MISSED THEM 'ROUND THE WEB
OUTSTANDING DIRECTING ACHIEVEMENT IN DOCUMENTARY
- Moses Bwayo & Christopher Sharp - Bobi Wine: The People's President
- Mstyslav Chernov - 20 Days in Mariupol
- Madeleine Gavin - Beyond Utopia
- Davis Guggenheim - Still: A Michael J Fox Movie
- D Smith - Kokomo City
All but the lauded Kokomo City made the Documentary longlist for Best Documentary Feature at the Oscars. But how clear of a shot do they each have at making the five-wide list?
DIRECTING, DRAMATIC SERIES
- Peter Hoar, The Last of US "Long Long Time"
- Becky Martin, Succession "Rehearsal"
- Mark Mylod, Succession, "Connor's Wedding"
- Andrij Parekh, Succession, "America Decides"
- Robert Pulcini & Shari Springer Berman, Succession, "Tailgate Party"
TV awards have always had the 'duller than movie awards by their repetitive nature' problem but that's especially true in writing and directing categories where it's fairly regular for one series to hog nearly a whole category. Listen Succession is a brilliant show but pretending it's the only good thing on TV gets tiresome.
DIRECTING, COMEDY SERIES
- Erica Dunton, Ted Lasso "La Locker Room Aux Folles"
- Bill Hader, Barry "wow"
- Declan Lowney, Ted Lasso "So Long, Farewell"
- Christopher Storer, The Bear "Fishes"
- Ramy Youssef, The Bear "Honeydew"
DIRECTING, MOVIES FOR TELEVISION OR LIMITED SERIES
- Shawn Levy, All the Light We Cannot See (full series)
- Tara Miele, Lessons in Chemistry "Introduction to Chemistry"
- Millicent Shelton, Lessons in Chemistry, "Poirot"
- Sarah Adina Smith, Lessons in Chemistry, "Her and Him"
- Nzingha Stewart, Daisy Jones & The Six, "Track 10: Rock 'n' Roll Suicide"
Another messy category in which you can be nominated for individual episodes or whole series!
DIRECTING, VARIETY/TALK/NEWS/SPORTS - REGULARLY SCHEDULED PROGRAMMING
- Paul G Casey, Real Time with Bill Maher, "Episode 2117"
- Jim Hoskinson, The Late Show with Steven Colbert, "Jan 19, 2023: Rep Adam Kinzinger: Meet me at the Altar"
- Michael Mancini & Liz Patrick, Saturday Night Live "Pedro Pascal / Coldplay"
- David Paul Meyer, The Daily Show "Singer Charley Crockett Performas "Name on a Billboard" and DIscusses New Album with Jordan Klepper"
- Paul Pennolino, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, "Episode 1018: Dollar Stores"
DIRECTING, VARIETY/TALK/NEWS/SPORTS - SPECIALS
- Joel Gallen, Chris Rock: Selective Outrage
- Stan Lathan, Dave Chappelle" The Dreamer
- Linda Mendoza, Wanda Sykes: I'm An Entertainer
- Paul Miller, Carol Burnett: 90 Years of Laughter + Love"
- Glenn Weiss, the 95th Academy Awards
DIRECTING, REALITY PROGRAMS
- Niharika Desai, Rainn Wilson & the Geography of Bliss, "Happiness is a Bottle of Cod Liver Oil"
- Ken Fuchs, The Golden Bachelor, "Premiere"
- Joseph Guidry & ALexandra Lipsitz Project Greenlight a New Generation "PGL vs Gray Matter Problem"
- Rich Kim, Lego Masters "Is It Brick?"
- Patrick McManus, American Ninja Warrior, "Season 15 Finale"
DIRECTING, CHILDREN'S PROGRAM
- James Bobin, Percy Jackson and the Olympians "I Accidentally Vaporized My Pre-Algebra Teacher"
- Destin Daniel Cretton, American Born Chinese "What Guy Are You"
- Rob Letterman, Goosebumps "Say Cheese and Die"
- Amy Schatz, Stand Up & Shout: Songs from a Philly High School
- Dinh Thai, American Born Chinese "A Monkey on a Quest"
I tried with American Born Chinese and Percy Jackson both of which are the kind of comfort food genre tv I always end up sampling but I just couldn't get into them. Too off the rack for me -- where is the personality?
DIRECTING, COMMERCIALS
- Martin de Thurah Fair Exchange and Legends Never Die, Levi's 501 Jeans
- Seb Edwards, Rumble, Battle of the Baddest
- Kim Gehrig, Run This Town, Apple Music and The Travelers, Expedia
- Craig Gillespie, Waiting Room, Apple iPhone
- Andreas Nilsson, RIP Leon and Action Mode, Apple iPhone and Choose Happy, Les Mills Fitness and Wait'll You See This, Snapchat
We really don't understand how this particular category works with some directors being nominated for one commercial, others for multiple in a series, and others for multiple unrelated commercials!
DGA, precursor awards
Reader Comments (13)
Ugh! Shawn Levy gets nominated? That's like giving Raja Gosnell the Best Director Oscar. Insulting!
Well not a shocking list no surprises but I'm thinking Triet or Song take 1 or 2 of them out.
Most folks have been predicting Jonathan Glazer this whole time, but I can’t picture which one of the DGA 5 would get pushed out for him. It rarely happens, but I think this is a 5/5 Oscar/DGA match year.
How do these asshats, at every awards body keep ignoring Mike Flanagan? What the hell is the deal? Meanwhile, nobody liked "All the Light We Cannot See" and it's automatically getting checked off and it's also from Netflix. Something's gotta give.
Sometimes in awards season, I have moments of intense crabbiness, where I just want to wipe the slate clean of all “locks” and “frontrunners” and start again with different candidates who are just as good if not better.
For Oscar noms:
Cooper
Nolan
Payne
Scorsese
Triet, followed by Song.
The moment when you're tired by the race arrives sometimes and for me is that time.
Statement:
I loved Barbie. I laughed so much. I cried for how much I laughed.
But I would never consider it for an award race aside that for makeup and hairstyling and for Dance the night away. And when we will listen its name between the best picture nominees at the Oscars... Well the Oscars should just remember sometimes that they are the legacy of movies like The Godfather or The Last Emperor.
XOXO, Gossip Girl
What is the rationale for predicting Song over Gerwig or Payne, both of whom directed top 5 films this season and are previous nominees? When has a first-time American director, whose film will likely get no acting nods or techs, gotten nominated with only the Globes as a precursor?
I understand the feeling that Triet or Glazer might get in, though both seems as a bit much, as they likely appeal to the same constituency, as does Lanthimos. But people are really reaching when they suggest Song will get nominated (and it’s obvious Cooper is out at this point).
I think Glazer or Justine Triet will make it in. I think Payne and Gerwig are the most vulnerable, though Payne made it in for Nebraska when he didn't get in at DGA.
I think the final five will be: Nolan, Lanthimos, Scorsese, Payne, and Triet.
Gerwig still has a path, especially with the way she embraced old Hollywood techniques, but I think she's the vulnerable and that Triet created a lot of good will for her film at the Globes.
On the TV side, I'm really happy Succession is over. Without, we'll (hopefully) start seeing more shows in the drama categories. I'm also confounded by the nomination for the Ted Lasso finale. While the Erica Dunton nomination makes sense - that episode had great pacing and stakes along with its comedy. The finale was far from the show's best episode, and visually ugly. However, in a world with hundreds of shows on so many services and networks, voters seem to go with the one or two they actually watched.
I had Glatzer too, but I think I'm going to copy-paste the actual 5 nominees. Holdovers is so 70s and that is a beloved era for cinephiles (assuming directors are cinephiles).
Chile'76 is a very very interesting movie. Very opressive, very La ciénaga.
"Listen Succession is a brilliant show but pretending it's the only good thing on TV gets tiresome." -- Absolutely true any other year, but not this one. The final season of Succession was memorable. The three nominated episodes are monumental and I would have add 'Church and State' (the funeral)
I think Payne is vulnerable, the other four seem pretty locked in. We know the Academy loves Payne but The Holdovers is easily the least "director-y" of these and it's easy to imagine Glazer, Triet, Song, or even Bradley Cooper slipping in.
I think we already knew all five of these are lockety-locks for Best Picture, and in a world with only 5 best picture noms I think would very likely be the lineup.
We’re really doing this Barbie thing huh?
Peter -- i dont think Triet is happening though I do have to wonder why. The movie is heavily favored in all "international" prizes taht dont require you not be in English. It did well in theaters and it's winning other awards. but people dont seem to be chalking any of that up to her directing which is a bit weird. I wonder if it's because it's such a talky movie and they don't know her and "talky" without being a very famous auteur equals "screenplay" if you know what i mean ;)