DGA nominations are out - Only Oscar remains

The last of the major feature film award nominations are now out with the Director’s Guild of America (DGA) announcing their nominations today. Previously, the PGA, Writers' Guild, SAG and the Golden Globe nominations have been announced

The DGA nominations look very much like what I think we will see for both the Best Director Oscar Nominations and Best Motion Picture Oscar Nominations that will be announced Thursday.

It is a strong list with Steven Spielberg for Lincoln, Ben Affleck for Argo, Kathryn Bigelow for Zero Dark Thirty, Ang Lee for Life of Pi and Tom Hooper for Les Miserables.

In making the announcement of the nominees, Guild president Taylor Hackford said:

"DGA members have chosen an incredibly rich and varied group of filmmakers to nominate for this year's Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Feature Film Award. These directors represent the highest standard of filmmaking, and their films are a testament to artistic achievement, innovative storytelling and the passion that filmmakers share with their audiences."

It is extremely likely that the winner of the DGA award will also be the winner of the directing Oscar. Only six times since 1948 (when the DGA began giving the award) has the DGA winner not also won the Oscar:

1968 Anthony Harvey won the DGA Award for The Lion in Winter but Carol Reed won the Oscar of Oliver.

1972 Francis Ford Coppola won the DGA Award for The Godfather but Bob Fosse got the Oscar for Cabaret.

1985 Steven Spielberg won the DGA for The Color Purple but Sydney Pollock got the Oscar for Out of Africa.

1995 Ron Howard won the DGA for Apollo 13 while Mel Gibson won the Oscar for Braveheart.

2000 Ang Lee got the DGA Award for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon – Steven Soderbergh took the Oscar for Traffic.

2002 Rob Marshal was DGA’s pick for Chicago but Roman Polanski won the Oscar for The Pianist.

Best Picture Oscar? The DGA nominations enhance the chances of that award going to either Lincoln or Argo. Those two films have been nominated in the ‘best’ category by the DGA, the PGA, the Writer’s Guild and an ensemble-cast nomination from the Screen Actor’s Guild. Academy members of each of these guilds will be voting for Best Picture once the nominations are announced.

While those two films chances are enhanced, 'it ain’t over till it’s over', as Yogi said.

Les Miserables was nominated by the PGA, DGA and SAG but was ineligible for the WGA award (WGA has very strict eligibility requirements for consideration).

Zero Dark Thirty, which was released late in the SAG voting period and did not send screeners to the nominating committee, was nominated by the WGA, PGA and DGA, but only received an individual nomination for Jessica Chastain from SAG.

Silver Linings Playbook did not get a DGA nomination but did from the other Guilds. Life of Pi did not receive any nominations from SAG.

DGA Awards are February 2nd.