Directors Guild Awards: Alfonso Cuaron wins for 'Gravity'

UPDATED: Gravity does not seem to be falling on the awards circuit. Alfonso Cuarón walked away with the top honor at the Directors Guild of America Awards Saturday night in Los Angeles, beating out Martin Scorsese, David O. Russell, Paul Greengrass, and Steve McQueen.

“This is truly an honor and I am humbled by it,” Cuarón said to the audience of his peers after last year’s winner Ben Affleck presented him with the award. But Gravity was not the work of just one mind, and no one knows that more keenly than Cuarón. “Directing is about the work of your collaborators,” he said. Earlier in the evening, when Gravity was spotlighted amongst the five Feature Film nominees, Cuarón thanked his team including his first assistant director Josh Robertson, co-writer (and son) Jonas Cuarón, his cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki, and his visual effects team. Then he said: “I barely understand how we made the film.” The audience laughed uproariously.

The DGA Awards are generally a pretty decent indicator for who will walk away with the Best Director Oscar. Comprised of over 15,000 voting members, the Directors Guild does have a tendency to skew more mainstream when compared with the choices of the 377 voting members of the Directors branch in the Academy. But in the past ten years, the DGA winner has gone on to win the Oscar 90% of the time. In fact, in 65 years, only 7 DGA winners failed to win the Academy Award. Last year, however, was a major outlier when Ben Affleck won the DGA for Argo after he’d failed to pick up an Oscar nomination.

The DGA did deviate from the Oscars in other fairly significant ways last year. The nominees only matched 2 out of the 5 Oscar nominees. This year, it was 4 out of 5. Captain Phillips director Paul Greengrass was the odd man out — the Academy included Alexander Payne for his work on Nebraska instead.

For Cuarón, the win only seems to add to his awards momentum. In addition to a host of Film Critics awards, Cuarón also won a Golden Globe earlier this month.

The DGA doesn’t just honor features, though. Oscar nominee Jehane Noujaim picked up an award for her documentary The Square, Steven Soderbergh won for Behind the Candelabra, and Vince Gilligan was recognized for directing the Breaking Bad finale “Felina.” Check out the full list of winners from the 66th Annual DGA Awards after the jump.

FEATURE FILM

WINNER: Alfonso Cuarón, Gravity

Paul Greengrass, Captain Phillips

Steve McQueen, Twelve Years A Slave

David O. Russell, American Hustle

Martin Scorsese, The Wolf of Wall Street

DOCUMENTARY

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 Wheel

DRAMATIC SERIES

Bryan Cranston, Breaking Bad, “Blood Money”

David Fincher, House of Cards, “Chapter 1”

WINNER: Vince Gilligan, Breaking Bad, “Felina”

Lesli Linka Glatter, Homeland, “The Star”

David Nutter, Game of Thrones, “The Rains of Castamere”

COMEDY SERIES

Mark Cendrowski, The Big Bang Theory, “The Hofstadter Insufficiency”

Bryan Cranston, Modern Family, “The Old Man & The Tree”

Gail Mancuso, Modern Family, “My Hero”

WINNER: Beth McCarthy-Miller, 30 Rock, “Hogcock!/Last Lunch”

Anthony Rich, The Big Bang Theory, “The Love Spell Potential”

MOVIES FOR TELEVISION AND MINI-SERIES

Stephen Frears, Muhammad Ali’s Greatest Fight

David Mamet, Phil Spector

Beth McCarthy-Miller and Rob Ashford, The Sound of Music Live!

Nelson McCormick, Killing Kennedy

WINNER: Steven Soderbergh, Behind the Candelabra

VARIETY/TALK/NEWS/SPORTS – REGULARLY SCHEDULED PROGRAMMING

Dave Diomedi, Late Night With Jimmy Fallon, “#799”

Andy Fisher, Jimmy Kimmel Live, “#13-1810”

Jim Hoskinson, The Colbert Report, “#10004”

WINNER: Don Roy King, Saturday Night Live, “Saturday Night Live with Host Justin Timberlake”

Chuck O’Neil, The Daily Show With Jon Stewart, “#19018”

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

REALITY PROGRAMS

Matthew Bartley, The Biggest Loser, “1501”

WINNER: Neil P. DeGroot, 72 Hours, “The Lost Coast”

Paul Starkman, Top Chef, “Glacial Gourmand”

J. Rupert Thompson, The Hero, “Teamwork”

Betram van Munster, The Amazing Race, “Beards in the Wind”

CHILDREN’S PROGRAMS

Stephen Herek, Jinxed

Jeffrey Hornaday, Teen Beach Movie

Jonathan Judge, Swindle

WINNER: Amy Schatz, An Apology to Elephants

Adam Weissman, A.N.T. Farm

COMMERCIALS

Fredrik Bond, Voyage, Heineken; From The Future, Johnny Walker

John X. Carey, Real Beauty Sketches, Dove

WINNER: Martin de Thurah, The Man Who Couldn’t Slow Down, Hennessy VS; Human Race, Acura MDX 2014

Matthijs van Heijningen, Perfect Day, Sony Playstation; #Forty Eight, Verizon

Noam Murro, Basketball, Guinness; Kids, DIRECTV; Mask, Volkswagen

ROBERT B. ALDRICH AWARD: Steven Soderbergh