Directors Guild Of America Nominations For 2007
Sean Penn - Into the Wild (official site)
Paul Thomas Anderson - There Will Be Blood (official site)
Joel Coen & Ethan Coen - No Country for Old Men (official site)
Other than Joel Coen (previously nominated for “Fargo“), all of the directors on this list are first time nominees for this award.
Among the notable directors this year who didn’t get nominated: Joe Wright, who helmed “Atonement“, Tim Burton, the director of “Sweeney Todd,” Ridley Scott, the director of “American Gangster,” Ben Affleck, director of “Gone Baby Gone,” and David Fincher, who many thought might have an outside chance for directing “Zodiac.”
Historically, the Directors Guild Outstanding Directorial Achievement nominations have been a good indicator of the directors that will be nominated for an Oscar as well as who the winner of the Oscar will be. Throughout the 60 year history of the awards the winner of this award has almost always gone on to win the Oscar for Best Director (including last year’s winner, Martin Scorsese for “The Departed.”
Even more surprising, however, is that the movies whose director is nominated for this award tend to be the movies that make Oscar’s Best Picture list. In fact, in the past five years only one nominee for a DGA award didn’t get a Best Picture nomination. “Dreamgirls” was nominated for a DGA but got bumped from the Best Picture spot by Clint Eastwood’s “Letters from Iwo Jima.”
The guild will announce the winner at a dinner January 26, four days after Oscar nominations come out. The Oscars are scheduled for February 24.
