Directors Guild Nominees Include Woody Allen, David Fincher, and Alexander Payne

Monday, 09 January 2012 10:59 Written by Jordan DeSaulnier

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Directors Guild Nominees Include Woody Allen, David Fincher, and Alexander Payne

The Directors Guild of America has announced the five nominees for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Feature Film at the 64th Annual DGA Awards. Last week we saw three separate professional organizations formally announcing their awards contenders, with the Art Directors Guild, Producers Guild, and Writers Guild all dropping press releases. To those folks who assiduously track every blip on the awards season radar, though, the DGA Awards are a bigger deal than any of those. Why? Because the winner of this DGA honor has only ever failed to correspond with the Best Director Oscar six times, and the directorial Oscar also tends to go to the Best Picture winner.

The nominees are, in no particular order: Alexander Payne, Martin Scorsese, David Fincher, Michel Hazanavicius, and Woody Allen. Payne's The Descendants and Hazanavicious's The Artist have been awards season favorites for some time now, with The Artist gaining no small amount of momentum all the time. Scorsese took a different approach with Hugo, his first 3D family film, and the legend did as masterful a job as one would expect, though a win here seems unlikely. Ditto for David Fincher, whose technical acumen and visual perfectionism elevate The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo like crazy. It's nice to see Woody Allen getting more love for Midnight in Paris, a whimsical treat from the big guy.

Here's the official announcement:

    LOS ANGELES, CA: On January 9, 2012, DGA President Taylor Hackford announced the five nominees for the DGA Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Feature Film for 2011.

    “The directors nominated this year for the Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Feature Film Award have each demonstrated an inspired command of the medium. The fact that their prodigious talents have been recognized by their peers is the highest honor a director can achieve,” said Hackford. “I offer my most sincere congratulations to each of the nominees.”

    The winner will be named at the 64th Annual DGA Awards Dinner on Saturday, January 28, 2012, at the Grand Ballroom of Hollywood and Highland.

    The nominees are (in alphabetical order):

    Woody Allen, Midnight in Paris

    David Fincher, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

    Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist

    Alexander Payne, The Descendants

    Martin Scorsese, Hugo

Notice that Steven Spielberg is not included for his work on War Horse, not a good sign for a movie that looks to have Oscar written all over it. On the other side of things, Bridesmaids has become an unlikely awards contender, but it would perhaps have been unreasonable to expect Paul Feig to make the DGA list. And though I knew Nicolas Winding Refn would end up overlooked for his work on Drive, it is a bit of a bummer nonetheless.