DGA Winners: Gravity Soars, Breaking Bad and 30 Rock Finales Score

Alfonso Cuarón’s groundbreaking work on Gravity has won him the Directors Guild of America’s top prize tonight, the best precursor for the road to the Oscar. He is the first Latino and only the second non-Caucasian in the DGA’s history to win

(Ang Lee is the other, for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon). Cuarón’s humble response? “Thank you. Let’s have a drink!” Earlier, when accepting his nominee medallion from his star, Sandra Bullock, Cuarón gets big laughs: “Move the actor as little as possible and move the universe around the actor. That’s pretty much how actors work, right?” Cuaron says he was inspired by Steven Spielberg’s early effort “Duel” and the work of Robert Bresson to make Gravity.

On the TV side, Breaking Bad and 30 Rock won trophines for Vince Gilligan and Beth McCarthy-Miller, respectively, for their series finales and Steven Soderbergh received two awards tonight; one in the TV Movie/Miniseries category for his awards juggernaut Behind the Candelabra but before that was a surprise award given to him, the Robert B. Aldrich Award in Service, with DGA president Paris Barclay praising Soderbergh’s contributions to film and to the guild.

Full list of nominees and winners (in bold):

FEATURE FILM
WINNER: Alfonso Cuarón (“Gravity”)
Paul Greengrass (“Captain Phillips”)
Steve McQueen (“12 Years a Slave”)
David O. Russell (“American Hustle”)
Martin Scorsese (“The Wolf of Wall Street”)

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
Zachary Heinzerling (“Cutie and the Boxer”)
WINNER: Jehane Noujaim (“The Square”)
Joshua Oppenheimer (“The Act of Killing”)
Sarah Polley (“Stories We Tell”)
Lucy Walker (“The Crash Reel”)

COMEDY SERIES
Mark Cendrowski, “The Big Bang Theory” (for the episode “The Hofstadter Insufficiency”)
Bryan Cranston, “Modern Family” (for the episode “The Old Man & the Tree)
Gail Mancuso, “Modern Family” (for the episode “My Hero”)
WINNER: Beth McCarthy-Miller, “30 Rock” (for the episode “Hogcock/Last Lunch”)
Anthony Rich, “The Big Bang Theory” (for the episode “The Love Spell Potential”)

REALITY PROGRAM
Matthew Bartley, “The Biggest Loser”
WINNER: Neil P. DeGroot, “72 Hours”
Paul Starkman, “Top Chef”
J. Rupert Thompson, “The Hero”
Bertram van Munster, “The Amazing Race”

VARIETY/TALK/NEWS/SPORTS — SPECIALS
Louis C.K., “Louis C.K.: Oh My God”
Joel Gallen, “2013 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony”
Louis J. Horvitz, “The 55th Annual Grammy Awards”
Don Mischer, “The 85th Annual Academy Awards”
WINNER: Glenn Weiss, “The 67th Annual Tony Awards”

CHILDREN’S PROGRAM
Stephen Herek, “Jinxed”
Jeffrey Hornaday, “Teen Beach Movie”
Jonathan Judge, “Swindle”
WINNER: Amy Schatz, “An Apology to Elephants”
Adam Weissman, “A.N.T. Farm”

VARIETY/TALK/NEWS/SPORT SERIES
Dave Diomedi, “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon”
Andy Fisher, “Jimmy Kimmel Live”
Jim Hoskinson, “The Colbert Report”
WINNER: Don Roy King, “SNL”
Chuck O’Neil, “The Daily Show”

TV MOVIE/MINISERIES
Stephen Frears, “Muhammad Ali’s Greatest Fight”
David Mamet, “Phil Spector”
Beth McCarthy-Miller & Rob Ashford (“The Sound of Music Live!”)
Nelson McCormick, “Killing Kennedy”
WINNER: Steven Soderbergh, “Behind the Candelabra”

DRAMA SERIES
Bryan Cranston, “Breaking Bad” (for the episode “Blood Money”)
David Fincher, “House of Cards” (for the episode “Chapter 1”)
WINNER: Vince Gilligan, “Breaking Bad” (for the episode “Felina”)
Lesli Linka Glatter, “Homeland” (for the episode “The Star”)
David Nutter, “Game of Thrones” (for the episode “The Rain of Castamere”)

COMMERCIAL
Fredrik Bond, “Voyage” for Heineken and “From the Future” for Johnny Walker
John X. Carey, “Real Beauty Sketches” for Dove
WINNER: Martin de Thurah, “The Man Who Couldn’t Slow Down” for Hennessy and “Human Race” for Acura
Matthijs van Heijningen, “Perfect Day” for Playstation and “48” for Verizon”
Noam Murro, “Basketball” for Guinness and “Kids” for DIRECTV and “Mask” for VW

Franklin J Schaffner Achievement Award: Vincent DeDario (presented by Keith Jackson)

Robert B. Aldrich Award for Service: Steven Soderbergh

Frank Capra Achievement Award: Lee Blaine

Diversity Award: Shonda Rhimes & Betsy Beers

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Erik Anderson

Erik Anderson is the founder/owner and Editor-in-Chief of AwardsWatch and has always loved all things Oscar, having watched the Academy Awards since he was in single digits; making lists, rankings and predictions throughout the show. This led him down the path to obsessing about awards. Much later, he found himself in film school and the film forums of GoldDerby, and then migrated over to the former Oscarwatch (now AwardsDaily), before breaking off to create AwardsWatch in 2013.

He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Critics Choice Association (CCA), San Francisco Bay Area Film Critics Circle (SFBAFCC) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.

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