By Matt Neglia
The Directors Guild Of America (DGA) have announced their nominations representing the best in directing for 2021. The winners will be announced March 12th.
Click below to see the nominations.
NARRATIVE FEATURE FILM
Paul Thomas Anderson – Licorice Pizza
Kenneth Branagh – Belfast
Jane Campion – The Power of the Dog
Steven Spielberg – West Side Story
Denis Villeneuve – Dune
FIRST TIME NARRATIVE FEATURE FILM
Maggie Gyllenhaal – The Lost Daughter
Rebecca Hall – Passing
Tatiana Huezo – Prayers For The Stolen
Lin Manuel-Miranda – Tick, Tick…BOOM!
​Michael Sarnoski – Pig
Emma Seligman – Shiva Baby
​DOCUMENTARY
Jessica Kingdon – Ascension
Stanley Nelson – Attica
Raoul Peck – Exterminate All The Brutes
Questlove – Summer of Soul
Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi & Jimmy Chin – The Rescue
​The full list of nominations including television can be found here. So what do you think? The Oscar’s Best Director lineup has matched with the DGA Nominees very rarely (Last time was 2009). So who is going to carry over to the Oscars?
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Looking at how the season has gone so far, here are all the directors who have scored major nominations this year:
Kenneth Branagh – Belfast: CCA, DGA, GG
Jane Campion – The Power of the Dog: CCA, DGA, GG
Steven Spielberg – West Side Story: CCA, DGA, GG
Denis Villeneuve – Dune: CCA, DGA, GG
​Paul Thomas Anderson – Licorice Pizza: CCA, DGA
​Guillermo del Toro – Nightmare Alley: CCA
Maggie Gyllenhaal – The Lost Daughter: GG
All of the DGA nominees have been longlisted for the BAFTAs whose nominations are set to be announced on February 3rd.
So while it is likely that our five final Best Director nominees will come from above, below is a list of directors who made the Oscar lineup in their respective years without any of the above precursors:
Terrence Malick – The Tree Of Life (2011)
Ben Zeitlin – Beasts Of The Southern Wild (2012)
Bennett Miller – Foxcatcher (2014)
Lenny Abrahamson – Room (2015)
Paul Thomas Anderason – Phantom Thread (2017)
Is there a chance that someone from the outside sneaks their way in? If so, who gets bumped? Check out our predictions for Best Director here. Let us know your thoughts in the comments below or on our Twitter account.
You can follow Matt and hear more of his thoughts on the Oscars and Film on Twitter at @NextBestPicture
