For the second consecutive year, Alejandro G. Inarritu won the Directors Guild of America Award for feature film directing thanks to The Revenant. He’s the first director ever to do that and it strengthens his position at the Oscars.
Inarritu won the same award last year for Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance), which went on to win the Best Director and Best Picture Oscar. The Mexican filmmaker was previously nominated for the DGA Award for 2006’s Babel and also won a DGA award for directing a Procter & Gamble commercial in 2012.
As previously noted, the DGA Award is one of the best predictors of the eventual Oscar winners. Since the award started in 1948, only seven DGA winners didn’t win the Oscar and it has only happened twice since 2001 (Chicago’s Rob Marshall in 2002 and Argo’s Ben Affleck in 2012).
However, it is worth noting that winning here doesn’t necessarily strengthen The Revenant’s chances to win Best Picture. Since 2012, only Inarritu’s Birdman has won both Director and Picture. (Life of Pi and Gravity won Director, but lost Picture.)
If Inarritu does win Best Director for The Revenant, he will be the first filmmaker to win back-to-back Oscars since Joseph L. Mankiewicz did it at the 1949 and 1950 ceremonies. He would only be the third director ever, since John Ford also did it at the 1940 and 1941 ceremonies.
Here are the other winners from the DGA Awards, where were held on Feb. 6:
Movies for TV/Mini-Series: Dee Rees, Bessie
First Time Feature Film Director: Alex Garland, Ex Machina
Dramatic Series: David Nutter, Game of Thrones - “Mother’s Mercy”
Comedy Series: Chris Addison, Veep - “Election Night”
Variety/Talk/News/Sports - Regularly Scheduled Programming: Dave Diomedi, The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon - “Episode 325”
Variety/Talk/News/Sports - Specials: Don Roy King, Saturday Night Live 40th Anniversary Special
Reality Programs: Adam Vetri, Steve Austin’s Broken Skull Challenge - “Gods of War”
Children’s Programs: Kenny Ortega, Descendants
Commercials: Andreas Nilsson, Biscuit Filmworks
Documentary: Matthew Heineman, Cartel Land
Lifetime Achievement Awards:
Television Direction: Joe Pytka
Frank Capra Achievement Award: Mary Rae Thewlis
Franklin J. Schaffner Achievement Award: Thomas McDermott