76th Directors Guild Nominations

The DGA sometimes throws predictors off with its selections and Alexander Payne is that candidate this year. The other four were clearly expected, but Payne wasn’t. It’s not surprising, just not what’s expected. Celine Song likely got hindered by being up for the First Feature nomination, but that’s not exclusionary, so she was seriously injured by this. That’s also true of Justine Triet, Jonathan Glazer, but especially Bradley Cooper. He was already fading as a possibility, but this nails his coffin shut. Song, Triet, and Glazer could all be saved by the more international flavor of the Oscars’ directors branch, but who will get left out? One would think Payne, but he’s only gotten two DGA nods in the past (Sideways and The Descendants) whereas he has three Oscar nominations, those two prior films plus Nebraska. That doesn’t mean he’s assured of a nomination, but it would be a major scandal if any of the other four didn’t make the Oscar nominations list, so we must consider him the edge case.

The Nominations

Best Director

Greta Gerwig – Barbie
Yorgos Lanthimos – Poor Things
Christopher Nolan – Oppenheimer
Alexander Payne – The Holdovers
Martin Scorsese – Killers of the Flower Moon