The DGA‘s are pretty much the last indication of the Hollywood Award season and with a year that’s been particularly tricky to call, these awards leading up to Oscar night are more important than ever. This brings us to tonight’s awards with the DGA, or Director’s Guild of America. The big win of the night though belongs to Ben Affleck who won Best Feature Film for Argo.

The DGA awards are exclusively for the men and women behind the cameras so don’t be surprised to see Best Actor and Actress and all that jazz left off here. Consisting of, you guessed it, directors from America, this elite group certainly knows best when it comes to directing and chooses winners from amongst themselves as well as newcomers to the industry.

Historically, the DGA’s have been a strong predictor for Best Director which in turn lends lots of creedence to a film winning Best Picture. In the history of the DGA awards, the directorial winner of Best Feature Film has gone on to snag the Best Director Oscar all but six times. Since the DGA began in 1948, that’s quite a track record. 

Of those six who didn’t make the cut, there were 1968’sThe Lion in Winter Oliver where Anthony Harvey won the DGA but Carol Reed won the Oscar for Oliver. 1972 had Cabaret director Bob Fosse take the Oscar while Francis Ford Coppola won the Oscar for The Godfather, 1985’s Out of Africa had Sydney Pollack win the Oscar but lost to Steven Spielberg for The Color Purple when it came to the DGAs, 1995’s fan favorite Braveheart which won Mel Gibson a Best Directors award come Oscar night while the DGA went another direction and awarded Ron Howard for Apollo 13 snagged Best Director come Oscar night, 2000’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon won Ang Lee a DGA but auteur Steven Soderbergh scooped up the Oscar for Traffic and finally the DGA awarded Rob Marshall for Chicago over the Academy’s pick The Pianist where infamous Hollywood ex-communicatee Roman Polanski won Oscar gold.

Ben Affleck and his film Argo have gone on a fiery winning streak which is only solidified by tonight’s win. He’s also taken gold home for Best Picture at the PGAs, snagging both Best Pic and Best Director at the Critics Choice Award and the Golden Globes, a Best Ensemble Cast at the SAG awards amongst a slew of other more minor wins. Barring an unprecedented mass scale write in campaign, Affleck still stands ineligible for a Best Director win because of his lack of a nomination. At this point in the same, Affleck would seem to be the obvious choice so making the Oscar prediction sans him makes it all that much more unpredictable.

It’s no surprise to see Game Change continue on a good roll where Rian Johnson, who also directed this year’s epic Looper, won for one of my favorite shows on television, Breaking Bad. Newcomer Lena Dunham took home another win for the inaugural episode of the new HBO hit, Girls while another until recently unknown Malik Bendjelloul conquered in the documentary department.

Below you’ll find the nominees with the winners highlighted in bold.

FEATURE FILM

BEN AFFLECK Argo
(Warner Bros. Pictures)

KATHRYN BIGELOW
Zero Dark Thirty
(Columbia Pictures)
 
TOM HOOPER
Les Miserables
(Universal Pictures)
 
ANG LEE
Life of Pi
(20th Century Fox)

STEVEN SPIELBERG
Lincoln
(DreamWorks Pictures/Twentieth Century Fox)

DOCUMENTARY FILM

MALIK BENDJELLOUL
Searching For Sugar Man
 
KIRBY DICK
The Invisible War

LAUREN GREENFIELD
The Queen of Versailles

DAVID FRANCE
How To Survive A Plague

ALISON KLAYMAN
Ai WeiWei: Never Sorry

DRAMATIC SERIES

RIAN JOHNSON
Breaking Bad, “Fifty-One”
(AMC)
  
MICHAEL CUESTA
Homeland, “The Choice”
(Showtime)

JENNIFER GETZINGER
Mad Men, “A Little Kiss”
(AMC)

LESLI LINKA GLATTER
Homeland, “Q & A”
(Showtime)
 
GREG MOTTOLA
The Newsroom, “We Just Decided To”
(HBO)

MOVIES FOR TELEVISION AND MINI-SERIES

JAY ROACH
Game Change
(HBO)

 GREG BERLANTI
Political Animals, “Pilot”
(USA Network)

PHILIP KAUFMAN
Hemingway & Gellhorn
(HBO)

KEVIN REYNOLDS
Hatfields & McCoys
(History)
 
MICHAEL RYMER
American Horror Story: Asylum, “Dark Cousin”
(FX)
 

COMEDY SERIES

LENA DUNHAM
Girls, “Pilot”
(HBO)
 
LOUIS C.K.
Louie, “New Year’s Eve”
(FX)

MARK CENDROWSKI
The Big Bang Theory, “The Date Night Variable”
(CBS)

BRYAN CRANSTON
Modern Family, “Election Day”
(ABC)
 
BETH MCCARTHY-MILLER
30 Rock, “Live from Studio 6H”
(NBC)

MUSICAL VARIETY

GLENN WEISS
66th Annual Tony Awards
(CBS)

 MICHAEL DEMPSEY
12-12-12: The Concert for Sandy Relief
(Multiple Networks/Cable Outlets)

DON ROY KING
Saturday Night Live with Host Mick Jagger
(NBC)

DON MISCHER
84th Annual Academy Awards
(ABC)

CHUCK O’NEIL
The Daily Show With Jon Stewart, “#17153”
(Comedy Central)

REALITY PROGRAMS

BRIAN SMITH
Master Chef, “Episode #305”
(Fox)

TONY CROLL
America’s Next Top Model, “The Girl Who Becomes America’s Next Top Model”
(CW)

PETER NEY
Face Off, “Scene of the Crime”
(Syfy)

J. RUPERT THOMPSON
Stars Earn Stripes, “Amphibious Assault”
(NBC)

TIM WARREN
Ink Master, “Episode 103”
(Spike TV)

DAYTIME SERIALS

JILL MITWELL
One Life To Live, “Between Heaven and Hell”
(ABC)

ALBERT ALARR
Days Of Our Lives, “11895”
(NBC)

LARRY CARPENTER
General Hospital, “Bad Water”
(ABC)

WILLIAM LUDEL
General Hospital, “Magic Milo”
(ABC)

SCOTT McKINSEY
General Hospital, “Shot Through The Heart”
(ABC)
 

CHILDREN’S PROGRAMS

PAUL HOEN
Let it Shine
(Disney Channel)

STUART GILLARD
Girl vs. Monster
(Disney Channel)

SAVAGE STEVE HOLLAND
Big Time Movie
(Nickelodeon)

JONATHAN JUDGE
Camp Fred
(Nickelodeon)

AMY SCHATZ
Don’t Divorce Me! Kids’ Rules for Parents on Divorce
(HBO)

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