Christopher Nolan Wins Directors Guild For 'Oppenheimer'

BEVERLY HILLS, CA — In a ceremony that traditionally signals Oscar- night glory, the Directors Guild of America Awards were held Saturday evening, and Christopher Nolan won the Theatrical Feature Film award for "Oppenheimer."

Nolan had already collected Golden Globe and Critics Choice awards for his direction of the film. The DGA nomination this year was his fifth, having been previously nominated for "Dunkirk," "Inception," "The Dark Knight" and "Memento."

The DGA Award is historically a solid predictor of who will take home the Academy Award 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."

On the TV side of the Directors Guild Awards, HBO's recently concluded series "Succession" had four of the five nominations for drama series directing, but it was another HBO series, "The Last of us," that snagged the prize.

The DGA Awards were presented at the Beverly Hilton in a ceremony hosted for the fifth time by Judd Apatow.

Also during the ceremony, Unit Production Manager Janet Knutsen received the Frank Capra Achievement Award for lengthy career as an assistant manager, while stage manager Gary Natoli received the Franklin J. Schaffner Achievement Award.

Director David Nutter received the Lifetime Achievement Award for Distinguished Achievement in Television Directing. His credits include "Game of Thrones," "The Sopranos," "Entourage," "The X-Files" and "Band of Brothers."