The Directors Guild of America handed out their annual year-end honors Saturday night and, as expected, the top award went to Damien Chazelle for “La La Land.” And it wasn’t a surprise.
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Chazelle’s modern movie musical has won every major guild honor it could (oops, except for the ASC awards tonight), and with 14 Academy Award nominations, it should dominate Oscar Sunday. In fact, the DGA Award and the Best Director Oscar have only gone in different directions twice this century. The first was in 2002, when Roman Polanski won the Oscar for “The Pianist” and Rob Marshall took the DGA for “Chicago.” The second was in 2012 and deserves an asterisk as Ben Affleck took the DGA for “Argo,” but was not nominated for the Academy Award, which went to Ang Lee for “Life Of Pi.”
Other winners included “Lion“‘s Garth Davis for First-Time Feature Film, “O.J.: Made In America“‘s Ezra Edelman for Documentary, and the helmers of “Saturday Night Live,” “Veep” and “Game Of Thrones.”
The winners and nominees in each category are as follows:
Feature Film
Damien Chazelle, “La La Land” – WINNER
Garth Davis, “Lion”
Barry Jenkins, “Moonlight”
Kenneth Lonergan, “Manchester By The Sea”
Denis Villeneuve, “Arrival”
First-Time Feature Film
Garth Davis, “Lion” – WINNER
Kelly Fremon Craig, “The Edge Of Seventeen”
Tim Miller, “Deadpool”
Nate Parker, “The Birth Of A Nation”
Dan Trachtenberg, “10 Cloverfield Lane”
Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Documentary
Otto Bell, “The Eagle Huntress”
Ezra Edelman, “O.J.: Made In America” – WINNER
Josh Kriegman & Elyse Steinberg, “Weiner”
Raoul Peck, “I Am Not Your Negro”
Roger Ross Williams, “Life, Animated”
Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Dramatic Series
The Duffler Brothers, Stranger Things, “Chapter One: The Vanishing Of Will Byers”
Ryan Murphy, The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story, “From The Ashes Of Tragedy”
Jonathan Nolan, Westworld, “The Original”
Miguel Sapochnik, Game Of Thrones, “The Battle Of The Bastards” – WINNER
John Singleton, The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story, “The Race Card”
Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Comedy Series
Alec Berg, Silicon Valley, “Daily Active Users”
Donald Glover, Atlanta, “B.A.N.”
Mike Judge, Silicon Valley, “Founder Friendly”
Becky Martin, Veep, “Inauguration” – WINNER
Dale Stern, Veep, “Mother”
Movies for Television and Mini-Series
Raymond De Felitta, “Madoff”
Thomas Kail (Directed By), Alex Rudzinski (Live Television Direction By), “Grease Live!”
Kenny Leon (Directed By), Alex Rudzinski (Live Television Direction By), “Hairspray Live!”
Jay Roach, “All The Way”
Steven Zaillian, The Night Of, “The Beach” – WINNER
Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Variety/Talk/News/Sports – Regularly Scheduled Programming
Paul G. Casey, Real Time with Bill Maher, “Show #1437”
Nora Gerard, CBS Sunday Morning, “Charles Osgood Farewell Broadcast”
Jim Hopkinson, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, “Episode #0179”
Don Roy King, Saturday Night Live, “Host: Dave Chappelle” – WINNER
Paul Pennolino, Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, “Episode #1030”
Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Variety/Talk/News/Sports – Specials
Jerry Foley, “Tony Bennett Celebrates 90 – The Best is Yet to Come”
Tim Mancinelli, The Late Late Show with James Corden, “The Late Late Show Carpool Karaoke Primetime Special”
Linda Mendoza, “Smithsonian Salutes Ray Charles: In Performance at the White House”
Paul Myers, Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, “A Very Special Full Frontal Special”
Glenn Weiss, The 70th Annual Tony Awards – WINNER
Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Reality Programs
Ken Fuchs, Shark Tank, “801”
John Gonzalez, Live PD, “Episode 5”
Brian Smith, STRONG, “Welcome to STRONG”
J. Rupert Thompson, American Grit, “The Finale ‑ Over the Falls” – WINNER
Bertram Van Munster, The Amazing Race, “We’re Only Doing Freaky Stuff Today”
Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Children’s Programs
Liz Allen, The Kicks, “Pilot”
Alethea Jones, Gortimer Gibbon’s Life On Normal Street, “Gortimer And The Jacks Of All Trades”
Michael Lembeck, “A Nutcracker Christmas”
Tina Mabry, “An American Girl Story ‑ Melody 1963: Love Has To Win” – WINNER
John Schultz, “Adventures In Babysitting”
Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Commercials
Lance Acord, Frankie’s Holiday, Apple – MAL
Dante Ariola, Hold Your Breath, SunTrust – Strawberry Frog
Fredrik Bond, Dive, Apple – TBWA/Media Arts Lab
Derek Cianfrance, Chase, Nike Golf – Wieden + Kennedy Portland – WINNER
Ag Rojas, The Best Planet, S7 Airlines – Wieden + Kennedy Amsterdam