Fresh off his win at this week’s Critics Choice Awards, Paul Thomas Anderson led the list of nominees Thursday for the coveted Directors Guild of America Award for feature films for helming “One Battle After Another,” while previous winner Chloé Zhao of “Hamnet” became one of only a handful of women to be nominated multiple times by the DGA.
Also nominated for the DGA feature film honor were Ryan Coogler for “Sinners,” Guillermo Del Toro for “Frankenstein” and Josh Safdie for “Marty Supreme.”
The DGA Award for Theatrical Feature Film has traditionally been a powerful indicator of who will win the Oscar for best director. Since 1948, there have only been eight times that the winner of the DGA Award for feature film directing has not gone on to win the Oscar for best director. The most recent time was in 2020, when Sam Mendes won the DGA Award for “1917,” but the Oscar went to Bong Joon Ho for “Parasite.”
Last year, DGA Award and the Oscar both went to Sean Baker for “Anora.”
Anderson was previously nominated for the DGA Award for his films “There Will Be Blood” and “Licorice Pizza.” The nomination for Del Toro is his second. He previously won the DGA Award for “The Shape of Water.” The nod for Safdie is his first.
Zhao previously won the DGA Award and the Oscar for directing “Nomadland.” With her nomination for “Hamnet,” she joins a small list of women who have received more than one nomination for the DGA Award, including Greta Gerwig, Kathryn Bigelow and Jane Campion.
The DGA on Thursday also announced nominees for First-Time Theatrical Feature Film, with nods going to Hasan Hadi for “The President’s Cake,” Harry Lighton for “Pillion,” Charlie Polinger for “The Plague,” Alex Russell for “Lurker” and Eva Victor for “Sorry, Baby.”
The 78th annual DGA Awards will be presented Feb. 7 at The Beverly Hilton hotel.
The guild on Wednesday announced nominations in the television and documentary categories, with HBO’s “The Pitt” and FX’s “The Bear” both earning multiple nods.