The Directors Guild of America presented its Feature Film Grand Prize to Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert for “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” putting them on track to win at next month’s Academy Awards.
The 75th Annual DGA Awards, held Saturday night at the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, California, denied Steven Spielberg four record-breaking wins for the guild’s top honor. Spielberg was once supposed to be driving through awards season with his autobiographical The Fabelmans, but a fierce affection for Everything Everywhere All at Once — the Oscar favorite with a leading 11 nominations — has dominated Hollywood’s Oscar run.
In the past 10 years, the DGA winner has won at the Academy Awards in all but one. (In 2020, Sam Mendes won at the DGA for “1917,” while Bong Joon Ho won the Oscar for “Parasite.”) Last year, Jane Campion (“The Power of the Dog”) won each. In 75 years, only 10 times the DGA winner and Oscar winner have been unequal.
The other nominees were: Todd Field (“Tár”), Martin McDonagh (“The Banshees of Inisherin”) and Joseph Kosinski (“Top Gun: Maverick”). With one exception, the same filmmakers are nominated for the Oscars on March 12 for best director. The Academy chose Ruben Östlund (“Triangle of Sadness”) rather than Kosinski.
Kwan and Scheinert, the filmmaking couple known as The Daniels, follow Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins for West Side Story (1961) and Joel Coen and Ethan Coen for No Land for Old Men (2007). They’re also unusually young (both 35) and early in their careers (this is only their second feature film) to win with the guild – especially over a veteran like Spielberg. With 13 nominations, he holds the record for most DGA nominations.
No woman was nominated for Best Director by the DGA or Film Academy this year. But the other two top awards from the Guild went to women filmmakers. Best First Feature went to Charlotte Wells for the father-daughter drama Aftersun. Sara Dosa won Best Documentary for “Fire of Love,” about an adventurous French volcanologist couple.
Jake Coyle, The Associated Press
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