What Can DGA Tell Us About The Oscars?

When the DGA nominations were announced, much of the conversation seemed to spiral into which of the five directors would not make the Oscar cut. Only three times in those last 25 years have the DGA matched the Oscars Best Director five-for-five. The last time being 2009, when the Best Picture expanded from five to ten slots. And a woman and a black man were nominated for Best Director. The previous two times, in 1998 and 2005, resulted in the Picture / Director split. An occurrence that could very likely happen this year, given the competition across several movies.

We’ll assume there is a split. So how will this work? Guillermo del Toro for Best Director, and Lady Bird for Picture? Is Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri heading for Best Picture, with maybe Jordan Peele taking the Director prize? It’s a fascinating range of scenarios. The split. The Best Director nod without a Best Picture slot. And vice versa. The latter is almost incomparable since AMPAS changed the voting and Best Picture range 8 years ago.

Looking at the last 25 years, there’s a multitude of DGA nominees that went on to miss out on a Best Director nod with the Academy, but the film still secured a Best Picture slot. Some were surprises indeed – Peter Jackson (The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers); Kathryn Bigelow (Zero Dark Thirty); Baz Luhrmann (Moulin Rouge!). Some were not so much – Tom Hooper (Les Misérables); Mike Newell (Four Weddings and a Funeral); Marc Forster (Finding Neverland). Frank Darabont was nominated for DGA twice (The Shawshank Redemption; The Green Mile), but Oscar went nowhere near him. And look, there’s Ron Howard (Apollo 13) and Ang Lee (Sense and Sensibility) again in 1995, directing the front-runners that never made it to the Oscar Best Director list. I mean, Howard won the DGA for Heaven’s sake. And then of course, Ben Affleck (Argo) wins DGA without a Best Director Oscar nomination. A crazy, one-off year as only two directors made it into both branches. Spielberg and Ang Lee, obviously.

Okay, I got one. How about those directors nominated with DGA, but then the film was not nominated for either Picture or Director? Yep, that happened a few times. Martin Scorsese (The Age of Innocence) and Cameron Crowe (Almost Famous) would be the most famous examples, if it were not for the fact that happened to one director twice since 2001. Guess who? That is not happening this year. The prospect of any one of Get Out, Lady Bird, Three Billboards, The Shape of Water, or Dunkirk not making the Best Picture line-up now seems near-impossible. It would take a brave soul to pick which of those directors won’t be Oscar nominated, but missing out in that category is more likely.

Which directors not nominated with the Directors Guild could steal a spot at the Oscars? Momentum can alter even yet. there’s still time. Steven Spielberg (The Post) or Paul Thomas Anderson (Phantom Thread) could add to their Oscar arsenal. Mark my words, though, directors like Luca Guadagnino (Call Me By Your Name), Craig Gillespie (I, Tonya), or Sean Baker (The Florida Project), are just three names that could be called out for Best Director come nominations morning. And don’t tell me you confidently predicted Lenny Abrahamson (Room), Alexander Payne (Nebraska) and Benh Zeitlin (Beasts of the Southern Wild).

And you’d be a fool to predict any filmmaker for the Best Director Oscar win without both DGA nomination and Best Picture nod. Apart from Bennett Miller (Foxcatcher) in 2014, these elusive directors popped up back when there were five Best Picture slots. Very, very tough to see how that will happen this year. But on the brink of digressing, I simply must shout out to Robert Altman (Short Cuts), Krzysztof Kieslowski (Three Colors: Red), Atom Egoyan (The Sweet Hereafter), David Lynch (Mulholland Drive), Pedro Almodóvar (Talk to Her), Fernando Meirelles (City of God), Paul Greengrass (United 93). No DGA or Best Picture nominations, ironically meaning none of these terrific nominees had a chance. Quite a list though.

Heading into the Oscars race with no DGA nomination, regardless, means your Best Picture chances are minuscule. Sure, I bet if you obtained a vote count you’d find the likes of Lasse Hallström (The Cider House Rules) and Robert Altman (Gosford Park) were not too far away. But its few and far between. These stats and gut feelings combined still leaves us with these five DGA nominees for 2017. A horror of sorts, a coming-of-age story, a social drama, a fantasy love fable – I mean, relevant tales for our times. One of the most exciting rides in years.

Just quickly, Stephen Daldry (The Reader) pipped DGA nominee Christopher Nolan (The Dark Knight) to the Best Director Oscar list back in 2008. And Best Picture. Seven years earlier Nolan was nominated with DGA for Memento, but again didn’t make the Oscars. The screenplay was considered the favorite for a good part of the season, but lost to Gosford Park. Even Julian Fellowes in his winner’s speech admitted he thought Memento would win. Then in 2010, the highly fancied Nolan (Inception) was not nominated again, this time replaced with Ethan and Joel Coen (True Grit). So you could say, statistically speaking, AMPAS owe Nolan his first nomination. And arguably, DGA owe him his first win. But, what I will not do publicly, is predict that Christopher Nolan will win the DGA for Dunkrik, deservedly so, on the way to Oscar glory. No, that’d be stupid.