After “Sinners” beat out “One Battle After Another” and every other film in history with 16 Oscar nominations, the prospect of it actually pulling a Best Picture upset was taken much more seriously. Yet now that the guilds are next in line, many still believe “One Battle After Another” will restore the presumed order from there, starting with Paul Thomas Anderson being favored to win at the DGA on February 7th. But even if Ryan Coogler doesn’t pull the upset for Best Director at DGA and at the Oscars, would that mean “Sinners” is back to being a Best Picture long shot?
There have been stretches in the expanded ballot era when winning Best Director guaranteed a Best Picture win, and others when a Best Picture/Best Director split was much more common. Recently, the former has been the trend since 2021, as Best Picture, Best Director, and the DGA have all matched for “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” “Oppenheimer,“ and “Anora.”
Since the expanded era began in 2009, there have been only 6 Best Picture and Best Director splits in 16 years. But do those past splits point to a path where “Sinners“ – or even “One Battle After Another“ if need be – can still make 2025 another exception after the DGAs?
2012: “Argo“ Wins Best Picture and DGA, Ang Lee Wins Best Director
2012 was a year unlike any in a long time, but it was still very much a fluke. While “Argo“ was the first Best Picture winner without a Best Director win since 2005, it had an asterisk because Ben Affleck wasn’t nominated for Best Director at the Oscars anyway, despite winning the DGA afterwards. With that and fellow presumed favorite Kathryn Bigelow snubbed at the Oscars too, and with two-time winner Steven Spielberg having faded for “Lincoln,“ Ang Lee – the previous Best Director Oscar winner who didn’t have a Best Picture winning movie – won almost by default for “Life of Pi“ instead.
Given that both Anderson and Coogler are Oscar nominees, this kind of example doesn’t apply to them, just as it hasn’t for the 13 years since then.
2013: “12 Years a Slave“ Wins Best Picture, Alfonso Cuaron Wins Best Director, and DGA
Like “Sinners,” “Gravity“ was an auteur-driven blockbuster from Warner Bros. that surged to catch up to a presumed early favorite, only it came out in the fall and was set in present-day space rather than Earthbound 1930s Mississippi. Like Coogler hopes to do now by being the first African-American to win the DGA as well as the Oscar for Best Director, Alfonso Cuaron broke barriers when he was the first Mexican director to win the DGA and the Oscar, and defeated Steve McQueen’s own efforts to be the first African-American winner.
However, Cuaron became the Best Director favorite by the time DGA and Oscar voting started, while Coogler had still been playing catch-up to Anderson all season. Even with Coogler’s own barrier-breaking narrative, Anderson’s personal narrative of never winning an Oscar has still resonated more with voters so far – although “One Battle After Another” winning Best Adapted Screenplay can fix that before they even get to Best Director.
If 2025 is a repeat of 2013, then that might point to Coogler making history as a DGA and Oscar winner, only for “One Battle After Another“ to narrowly hold on for Best Picture, just like “12 Years a Slave“ barely held off “Gravity“ at the finish line. In that case, the year’s big hit blockbuster surged to be neck-and-neck with the smaller film and critics’ favorite presumed to win Best Picture since festival season, but it wasn’t quite enough. If Coogler does pull ahead of Anderson at the DGA, that is the kind of example “One Battle After Another“ will have to take inspiration from.
2015: “Spotlight“ Wins Best Picture, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu Wins Best Director, and DGA
Just like 2013, a late surging blockbuster and its director seemed to have caught the early favorite near the end, once it won the DGA and Best Director at the Oscars. But just like “12 Years a Slave“ did, “Spotlight“ survived the late charge of “The Revenant“ and used its early-season cushion to hold on in Best Picture. However, there were some very different circumstances.
Voters didn’t hold Iñárritu’s Best Director win a year earlier for “Birdman“ against him, making him the first director in over 60 years to win two years in a row. Despite that, they wouldn’t give one of his films Best Picture for the second year in a row as well. Given that both Anderson and Coogler have never won before, this race doesn’t exactly resemble the one from 10 years ago.
For that matter, since “The Big Short“ won the PGA in 2015 instead of either “Spotlight“ or “The Revenant,“ that race was already far more chaotic in other ways as well – just like how “12 Years a Slave“ and “Gravity“ had an unprecedented tie at the PGA in 2013.
2016: “Moonlight“ Wins Best Picture, Damian Chazelle Wins Best Director, and DGA
The comparisons between 2016 and 2025 have already been analyzed in great detail, as it was the last time two films won almost everything all season, to the extent that “One Battle After Another“ and “Sinners“ have. It was the last time a Black-led movie won, or even seriously threatened to win, Best Picture. As such, if Anderson beats Coogler at the DGA and the Oscars, just like Chazelle beat Barry Jenkins, it will only continue the parallel.
Still, as a movie that didn’t win DGA, PGA, or SAG and only won WGA before the Oscars, “Moonlight“ is a very rare exception to Best Picture trends that no film really wants to have to match. And if “Sinners“ comes up short at the DGA and then the PGA, almost no one will believe, or want to believe, that Academy voters could still muster the willpower to turn the tide for it as they did with “Moonlight.“ Therefore, while “Sinners“ can take some hope from “Moonlight’s” example if Coogler loses, it doesn’t necessarily want to keep following its exact path for much longer – at least before Oscar night.
2018: “Green Book“ Wins Best Picture, Cuaron Wins Best Director, and DGA
An era where there were five Best Picture/Best Director splits in seven years came to an end with the most hotly contested and debatable split of them all. Like in 2013, Cuaron won DGA and Best Director in a walk, only to have his film lose Best Picture despite everything.
Unlike in 2013 with “Gravity,“ Cuaron came in with the season’s big early favorite in “Roma“ and had it lose to a hot-charging underdog this time. Only it wasn’t a Black-led/made film in “12 Years a Slave,“ but the much more old-fashioned if not regressive “Green Book.“ And unlike “12 Years a Slave,“ which at least had an Oscar-nominated director, “Green Book“ survived having Peter Farrelly miss a Best Director nomination, though he still got into the DGA field.
With both Anderson and Coogler as DGA and Oscar nominees, and with both “Sinners“ and “One Battle After Another” regarded as far more politically and racially progressive than “Green Book“ – even with their own key differences – there is collective confidence and relief this season won’t be another 2018 either way.
For whatever reason, 2018 appeared to be the last straw before Best Picture and Best Director voters started voting in lockstep again. There was one more big split of sorts in 2019, when “1917“ and Sam Mendes won the PGA and DGA, yet Academy voters went for “Parasite“ and Bong Joon-ho in Best Picture and Best Director. It was only the second time in this era and the eighth time in history that the DGA and Oscar Best Director votes split, yet there hasn’t been a disagreement of this kind or scale since.
After the chaos of the 2010s, order has been restored and then some – with only one more exception in 2021.
2021: “CODA“ Wins Best Picture, Jane Campion Wins Best Director, and DGA
This has been the only time since 2018 when Best Picture and Best Director at the Oscars have been split, and the process to get there was fairly similar. Like “Roma,” “The Power of the Dog“ was the early season favorite from Netflix that swept all the early Best Picture and Best Director awards, with its director continuing the momentum at the DGA. Like “Green Book,” “CODA“ was the more old-fashioned and traditionally Oscar-baity movie that surged late, stole momentum at the PGA, and then didn’t need a Best Director win – or even a nomination – to take Best Picture.
Since it was a pandemic year and since “The Power of the Dog“ was from perennial Best Picture runner-up Netflix, those were mitigating circumstances in “CODA’s“ favor. In so-called “normal“ seasons since then, everything has been much more orderly, as “Everything Everywhere All at Once“ and “Oppenheimer“ dominated in 2022 and 2023, and “Anora” struggled for a time but then won almost across the board with the guilds in 2024.
Considering this very recent history, it will be all too easy to assume an Anderson win at DGA will make “One Battle After Another“ a near-lock for Best Picture again – or that if Coogler pulls the upset, there will be no stopping “Sinners” from then on in. But will this year’s DGA begin another 2020s year in lockstep, or leave room for the kind of disorder last seen a decade ago?
What do you think is going to win the DGA this weekend? “Sinners” or “One Battle After Another?” If Paul Thomas Anderson prevails, do you still think “Sinners” could win the PGA and go on to win Best Picture? Please let us know in the comments section below and on Next Best Picture’s X account, click here here for the most recent tally of awards season winners, here for Next Best Picture’s precursor tracker, and here for their current Oscar predictions.
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