75th Directors Guild of America (DGA) awards: The Daniels win for ‘Everything Everywhere All At Once’

The 75th DGA Awards, honoring the outstanding directorial achievement in feature film, documentary, television and commercials of 2022, are taking place tonight at The Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills in a ceremony hosted by Judd Apatow.

The directing duo of Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert won the night’s top award, Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Theatrical Feature Film for Everything Everywhere All At Once, making them only the third pair in DGA history to win after Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins for 1961’s West Side Story and Joel and Ethan Coen for 2007’s No Country for Old Men. Both sets went on to win the Best Director Oscar and their films both won Best Picture.

Over its 75-year history, the DGA Awards has been the best precursor we have for the Best Director Oscar. Only eight DGA winners have not translated their wins into an Academy Award, most recently Sam Mendes (1917), who lost in an upset to Bong Joon-ho for Parasite three years ago. Four of the five DGA nominees this year – Field, Kwan and Scheinert, McDonagh and Spielberg – are nominated for Best Director at the Oscars, where Ruben Östlund (Triangle of Sadness) was nodded over Kosinski.

Charlotte Wells won the award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement of a First-Time Feature Film Director for her debut film Aftersun, starring Best Actor Oscar nominee Paul Mescal. A heavy favorite going in, Wells has won more than 15 first time/debut director critics’ prizes this season and is also nominated for BAFTA’s version of this category.

Glenn Weiss won his 9th DGA Award for his direction of the 75th Tony Awards. Eight of his wins come from his work on the annual Tonys ceremony. Bill Hader won the comedy directing award for the action-packed episode “710N”. This is Hader’s 3rd DGA win, he previously won for the first two seasons of Barry. Sam Levinson triumphed in drama series directing for the episode “Stand Still Like the Hummingbird” from his show Euphoria.

Robert A. Fishman is set to receive one of the Guild’s top accolades, the Lifetime Achievement Award for Distinguished Achievement in Television Direction, which will honor Fishman’s legendary career as a Director of televised sports. in his 50+ year career, Fishman has won three DGA Awards for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Sports: in 1987 for his direction of the of the NCAA Basketball Championship, in 1989 for the U.S. Open tennis tournament, and again in 1990 for baseball’s American League Championships Series Game 4.

The Frank Capra Achievement Award, honoring assistant directors and unit production managers for career achievement and service to the DGA, will be presented to First Assistant Director Mark Hansson. A DGA member since 1990, Hansson’s more than 130 Assistant Director credits include work on theatrical feature films such as Christopher Ashley’s Come from Away, Kenny Ortega’s High School Musical 3: Senior Year and Bill Condon’s Dreamgirls; and celebrated movies for television such as Bruce Beresford’s And Starring Pancho Villa as Himself.

The Franklin J. Schaffner Achievement Award will go to Stage Manager Valdez Flagg, whose career includes working on variety and live productions such as the Oscars, American Music Awards, Grammy Awards, ESPY Awards, NFL Honors, Essence Honors, NAACP Image Awards, Golden Globe Awards, Primetime Emmy Awards, Screen Actors Guild Awards, the Democratic National Convention, and In Performance At the White House for three presidential administrations.

Here is the complete list of winners.

FEATURE FILM

Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Theatrical Feature Film

• Todd Field, TÁR (Focus Features)
  Unit Production Manager: Nigel Wooll, First Assistant Director: Sebastian Fahr-Brix
• Joseph Kosinski, Top Gun: Maverick (Paramount Pictures)
  Unit Production Managers: LeeAnn Stonebreaker, Tommy Harper, First Assistant Director: Scott Robertson, Second Assistant Directors: Andrew Stahl, Robert E. Kay, Second Second Assistant Director: Spencer Taylor
• Daniel Kwan, Daniel Scheinert, Everything Everywhere All at Once (A24) – WINNER
  Unit Production Manager: Allison Rose Carter, First Assistant Director: Rodney Smith, Second Assistant Director: John Nasraway, Second Second Assistant Director: Ken C. Wu
• Martin McDonagh, The Banshees of Inisherin (Searchlight Pictures)
  First Assistant Director: Peter Kohn
• Steven Spielberg, The Fabelmans (Universal Pictures)
  Unit Production Manager: Carla Raij, First Assistant Director: Josh McLaglen, Second Assistant Director: Heather Wagner-Wang, Second Second Assistant Director: David Stickler

Outstanding Directorial Achievement of a First-Time Feature Film Director

• Alice Diop, Saint Omer (/SuperNEON)
• Audrey Diwan, Happening (IFC Films)
• John Patton Ford, Emily the Criminal (Roadside Attractions/Vertical Entertainment)
• Antoneta Alamat Kusijanović, Murina (Kino Lorber)
• Charlotte Wells, Aftersun (A24) – WINNER

Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Documentary

• Matthew Heineman – Retrograde (National Geographic Documentary Films)
• Laura Poitras – All the Beauty and the Bloodshed (NEON)
• Daniel Roher – Navalny (Warner Bros. Pictures/CNN Films/HBO Max)
• Shaunak Sen – All That Breathes (HBO Documentary Films/Sideshow/Submarine Deluxe)
• Sara Rosa – Fire of Love (National Geographic Documentary Films/NEON) – WINNER

TELEVISION

Outstanding Directorial Achievement in a Dramatic Series

• Jason Bateman – Ozark, “A Hard Way To Go” (Netflix)
• Vince Gilligan – Better Call Saul, “Waterworks”(AMC)
• Sam Levinson – Euphoria, “Stand Still Like the Hummingbird” (HBO) – WINNER
• Aoife McArdle – Severance, “Hide and Seek”(AppleTV+)
• Ben Stiller – Severance, “The We We Are”(AppleTV+)

Outstanding Directorial Achievement in a Comedy Series

• Tim Burton – Wednesday, “Wednesday’s Child is Full of Woe” (Netflix)
• Bill Hader – Barry, “710N” (HBO) – WINNER
• Amy Sherman-Palladino – The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, “How Do You Get to Carnegie Hall?” (Amazon Prime Video)
• Christopher Storer – The Bear, “Review” (Hulu)
• Mike White – The White Lotus, “BYG” (HBO)

Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Movies for Television and Limited Series

• Eric Appel – Weird: The Al Yankovic Story (Roku Channel)
• Deborah Chow – Obi‑Wan Kenobi (Disney+)
• Jeremy Podeswa – Station Eleven, “Unbroken Circle” (HBO Max)
• Helen Shaver – Station Eleven, “Who’s There?” (HBO Max) – WINNER
• Tom Verica – Inventing Anna, “The Devil Wore Anna” (Netflix)

Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Variety/Talk/News/Sports – Series

• Paul G. Casey – Real Time with Bill Maher, “#2010” (HBO)
• Jim Hoskinson – The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, “#1333” (CBS)
• David Paul Meyer – The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, “Brandi Carlile Discusses Her New Deluxe Album and Performs ‘You and Me on the Rock'” (Comedy Central)
• Liz Patrick – Saturday Night Live, “Jack Harlow” (NBC) – WINNER
• Paul Pennolino – Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, “Afghanistan” (HBO)

Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Variety/Talk/News/Sports – Specials

• Ian Berger – The Daily Show with Trevor Noah Presents “Jordan Klepper Fingers the Pulse – Hungary for Democracy” (Comedy Central)
• Hamish Hamilton – Super Bowl LVI Halftime Show (NBC)
• James Merriman – Norman Lear: 100 Years of Music and Laughter (ABC)
• Marcus Raboy – Mark Twain Prize 2022: Celebrating Jon Stewart (PBS)
• Glenn Weiss – The 75th Annual Tony Awards (CBS) – WINNER

Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Reality Programs

• Joseph Guidry – The Big Brunch for “Carb Loading Brunch” (HBO Max)
• Carrie Havel – The Go-Big Show for “Only One Can Win” (TBS)
• Rich Kim – Lego Masters for “Jurass-brick World” (Fox)
• Michael Shea – FBOY Island for “Do You Like Cats?” (HBO Max)
• Ben Simms – Running Wild with Bear Grylls for “Florence Pugh in the Volcanic Rainforests of Costa Rica” (Nat Geo) – WINNER

Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Children’s Programs

• Tim Federle – Better Nate Than Ever (Disney+)
• Bonnie Hunt – Amber Brown for “I, Amber Brown” (AppleTV+)
• Dean Israelite – Are You Afraid of the Dark? for “The Tale of Room 13” (Nickelodeon)
• Michael Lembeck – Snow Day (Nickelodeon)
• Anne Renton – Best Foot Forward for “Halloween” (AppleTV+) – WINNER

Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Commercials

• Juan Cabral – John Lewis & Partners’ “For All Life’s Moments” and Apple’s “Share the Joy”
• Kim Gehrig – Apple’s “Accessibility” and “Run Baby Run” – WINNER
• Craig Gillespie – Apple’s “Hard Knocks”, Jimmy John’s’ “Problem”, and Nissan’s “Thrill Driver”
• David Shane – Apple’s “Detectives”, ITVX’s “Smile”, and Procter & Gamble’s “Traffic Stop”
• Ivan Zachariáš – Apple’s “Data Auction” and Upwork’s “This Is How We Work Now”