Directors Guild Nominations

Here's a crazy stat: Only once in the past 10 years has a film won Best Picture without its director not winning the DGA Award previously (Crash directed by Paul Haggis). So the nominated films today should feel real good about their chances for Oscar glory. They will all certainly be nominated for Best Picture, but the competition for the win just got that much smaller.

The DGA nominees for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in a Feature Film for 2012 are:

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

These nominees seem to solidify the season-long frontrunner status of Argo, Zero Dark Thirty, and Lincoln which all have done well with both critics and guilds throughout. It also boosts the chances for more divisive films like Les Miserables and Life of Pi showing they, too, had wide support. The snubs were telling. As BFCA nominee David O. Russell and Golden Globe nominee Quentin Tarantino are left on the outside, though underestimate either of their chances for an Oscar nomination at your peril. I also wouldn't count out Paul Thomas Anderson, Benh Zeitlin, and Michael Haneke. The tougher ask though is who among the DGA Five is the likelier to be replaced? Lee? Hooper?

For the win, I think it's between Bigelow and Affleck with the latter being the only first-time nominee and non-winner on the list and the former being the only woman winner ever. It's worth to note that it's been six year since a previous winner has won the award. The last repeat winner was coincidentally this year's nominee Ang Lee, winning his second DGA for Brokeback Mountain. Can Affleck continue the streak of first-time winners? They do seem to like their actor-turn-directors, right?