1917‘s Sam Mendes Wins Best Director at 2020 Directors Guild Awards, Cements Place As Oscar Favorite
It was a sad night for the Bong Hive, but all smiles for Mendes, Honey Boy helmer Alma Har'el, and HBO. Check out the full list of 2020 DGA winners.
(Photo by Francois Duhamel / © Universal Pictures)
It was good news for 1917 and bad news for the Bong Hive Saturday night, as the Directors Guild of America gave its top prize – best director of a Theatrical Feature Film – to the WWI movie’s helmer, Sam Mendes. Bong Joon-ho, whom many expected to take out the award for Parasite, missed out along with Martin Scorsese (The Irishman), Quentin Tarantino (Once Upon A Time In Hollywood), and Taika Waititi (Jojo Rabbit).
Mendes’s win all but assures his victory for directing on Oscar night: the winner of the top DGA prize has only missed out on the Oscar seven times since the awards began in 1949. Coupled with his Golden Globe win, Mendes is looking formidable.
Honey Boy‘s Alma Har’el took home the directing price for First Time Feature Film, and Steven Bognar and Julie Reicher won for their documentary, American Factory.
HBO dominated in the TV awards, winning for episodes of Watchmen and Barry, the limited series Chernobyl, and for the documentary Song of Parkland in the Children’s Programs category.
See the full list of Directors Guild Awards winners below, and let us know what you think of the winners in the comments.
Theatrical Feature Film
99%
95%
88%
86%
81%
First Time Feature Film
96%
94%
82%
95%
93%
Documentary Feature Films
95%
97%
98%
100%
98%
Dramatic Series
96%
95%
89%
89%
96%
Comedy Series
90%
98%
93%
90%
90%
Variety/Talk/News/Sports – Specials
88%
84%
42%
100%
70%
Movies for Television or Limited Series
96%
92%
80%
95%
80%
80%
Variety/Talk/News/Sports – Regularly Scheduled Programming
- -
- -
73%
- -
Reality Programs
93%
70%
100%
- -
- -
Children’s Programs
- Are You Afraid of the Dark? – “Part One: Submitted for Your Approval” – Dean Israelite
- Sesame Street’s 50th Anniversary Special – Jack Jameson
- Ghostwriter – “Ghost In Wonderland, Part 1” – Luke Matheny
- Song of Parkland – Amy Schatz WINNER
- A Series Of Unfortunate Events – “Penultimate Peril: Part 1” – Barry Sonnenfeld
Commercials
- Lighter Than Air, JP Elite Dragonfly – Fredrick Bond
- Dream It, Squarespace – Spike Jonze WINNER
- Underdogs, Apple – Mark Molloy
- The Seven Worlds, Hennessy X.O. – Ridley Scott
- Train, AT&T – Dougal Wilson
Are you as obsessed with awards as we are? Check out our Awards Leaderboard for 2019/2020.
