Saturday, February 2, 2013

A Brief History of the DGA

The Directors Guild announced their picks for Best Director of 2012 tonight, and perhaps a lot may be telling of the eventual winner.  The DGA has always been the sturdiest signifier of the eventual Best Picture Oscar winner.  And yet, this year is a bit wild-- what with the 2\5 overlap from the DGA and Best Director Oscar nominees.  The DGA selected this year:

  • Ben Affleck, Argo
  • Kathryn Bigelow, Zero Dark Thirty
  • Tom Hooper, Les Miserables
  • Ang Lee, Life of Pi
  • Steven Spielberg, Lincoln

Only Spielberg and Lee transferred onto the Academy list.  Calling attention the surge for Argo lately, it seems assured a victory tonight.  However, Spielberg is the the most honored DGA recipient of all time-- winning a record breaking 3 times (The Color Purple, Schindler's List, Saving Private Ryan.)

Here's a look of the DGA history:

1948: Joseph L. Mankiewicz, A Letter to Three Wives
1949: Robert Rossen, All the King's Men
1950: Joseph L. Mankiewicz, All About Eve
1951: George Stevens, A Place in the Sun
1952: John Ford, The Quiet Man
1953: Fred Zinnemann, From Here to Eternity
1954: Elia Kazan, On the Waterfront
1955: Delbert Mann, Marty
1956: George Stevens, Giant
1957: David Lean, The Bridge on the River Kwai
1958: Vincent Minnelli, Gigi
1959: William Wyler, Ben-Hur
1960: Billy Wilder, The Apartment
1961: Robert Wise, Jerome Robbins, West Side Story
1962: David Lean, Lawrence of Arabia
1963: Tony Richardson, Tom Jones
1964: George Cukor, My Fair Lady
1965: Robert Wise, The Sound of Music
1966: Fred Zinnemann, A Man For All Seasons
1967: Mike Nichols, The Graduate
1968: Anthony Harvey, The Lion in Winter
1969: John Schlesinger, Midnight Cowboy
1970: Franklin J. Schaffner, Patton
1971: William Friedkin, The French Connection
1972: Francis Ford Coppola, The Godfather
1973: George Roy Hill, The Sting
1974: Francis Ford Coppola, The Godfather: Part II
1975: Milos Forman, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
1976: John J. Avildsen, Rocky
1977: Woody Allen, Annie Hall
1978: Michael Cimino, The Deer Hunter
1979: Robert Benton, Kramer vs. Kramer
1980: Robert Redford, Ordinary People
1981: Warren Beatty, Reds
1982: Richard Attenborough, Gandhi
1983: James L. Brooks, Terms of Endearment
1984: Milos Forman, Amadeus
1985: Steven Spielberg, The Color Purple
1986: Oliver Stone, Platoon
1987: Bernardo Bertolucci, The Last Emperor
1988: Barry Levinson, Rain Man
1989: Oliver Stone, Born on the Fourth of July
1990: Kevin Costner, Dances with Wolves
1991: Jonathon Demme, The Silence of the Lambs
1992: Clint Eastwood, Unforgiven
1993: Steven Spielberg, Schindler's List
1994: Robert Zemeckis, Forrest Gump
1995: Ron Howard, Apollo 13
1996: Anthony Minghella, The English Patient
1997: James Cameron, Titanic
1998: Steven Spielberg, Saving Private Ryan
1999: Sam Mendes, American Beauty
2000: Ang Lee, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
2001: Ron Howard, A Beautiful Mind
2002: Rob Marshall, Chicago
2003: Peter Jackson, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
2004: Clint Eastwood, Million Dollar Baby
2005: Ang Lee, Brokeback Mountain
2006: Martin Scorsese, The Departed
2007: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen, No Country for Old Men
2008: Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire
2009: Kathryn Bigelow, The Hurt Locker
2010: Tom Hooper, The King's Speech
2011: Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist

In bold indicates a Best Picture winner.

In the last twenty years- the DGA has only missed with the eventual Best Picture Academy Award winner four times-- and all have a link to this years race as well.

1995: Ron Howard won for Apollo 13 despite being snubbed by the Oscars (like Affleck this year), Braveheart won Best Picture and Director that year.  Coincidentally, Ang Lee-- nominated by both DGA and AMPAS this year for Life of Pi, earned a DGA nod, but no Oscar nod for Sense and Sensibility.

1998: Spielberg won the DGA and the Best Director Oscar for Saving Private Ryan, but in the one of the biggest upsets in Academy history, the Weinstein-steamrolled Shakespeare in Love took Best Picture.

2000: In one of the tightest Oscar races in recent history, Ang Lee popped up as the DGA pick for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, though he lost the Best Director Oscar to Steven Soderbergh for Traffic, and Gladiator took Best Picture.

2005: Another huge Oscar upset occurred win Brokeback Mountain won the DGA and the Directing Oscar for, but of course, Ang Lee, but Crash won the top prize at the Oscars.

We await for the news!

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