Alfonso Cuaron won Best Director for “Roma.” He will win the Oscar, but not necessarily Best Picture.
The DGA Awards have produced some big surprises tonight. Bill Hader and “Barry” beat the Palladino’s and “Mrs. Maisel” for directing in TV comedy. What? The choreography, the complex direction of each “Maisel” episode is an art.
Morgan Neville lost Documentary Best Director to Tim Wardle and “Three Identical Strangers.”
First Feature went to Bo Burnham for “Eighth Grade.” He beat Bradley Cooper for “A Star is Born.” This is really a shock. Bradley Cooper did an excellent job. In Toronto we felt this was a movie to beat. Something has gone wrong over the months. Nevertheless, “A Star is Born” made $200 million. So someone liked it. As for “Eighth Grade,” I thought it was “Lady Bird” lite.
A bright spot: Ben Stiller winning Best Director of a movie/mini-series for “Escape at Dannemora.”
Adam McKay, director of “Vice,” won Best Director for a TV drama for his episode of HBO’s “Succession.” Go figure. The mystery of all TV drama nominations in all awards shows is why “Billions” is totally ignored all the time.
Winners to be announced beginning 9:30pm Eastern Time:
*Winners in bold
OUTSTANDING DIRECTORIAL ACHIEVEMENT IN FEATURE FILM
Bradley Cooper, A Star Is Born
Alfonso Cuarón, Roma
Peter Farrelly, Green Book
Spike Lee, BlacKkKlansman
Adam McKay, Vice
OUTSTANDING DIRECTORIAL ACHIEVEMENT OF A FIRST-TIME FILM
Bo Burnham, Eighth Grade
Bradley Cooper, A Star Is Born
Carlos López Estrada, Blindspotting
Matthew Heineman, A Private War
Boots Riley, Sorry to Bother You
OUTSTANDING DIRECTORIAL ACHIEVEMENT IN DOCUMENTARY
Morgan Neville, Won’t You Be My Neighbor?
RaMell Ross, Hale County This Morning, This Evening
Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin, Free Solo
Tim Wardle, Three Identical Strangers
Betsy West and Julie Cohen, RBG
BEST VARIETY SERIES DIRECTING Don Roy King, “Saturday Night Live” Paul Pennolino, “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver” Sacha Baron Cohen, “Who is America” Jim Hoskinson, “Late Show with Stephen Colbert” Paul G. Casey, “Real Time with Bill Maher”
BEST MOVIE/MINISERIES DIRECTING Jean-Marc Vallee, “Sharp Objects” Ben Stiller, “Escape at Dannemora” David Leveaux and Alex Rudzinski, “Jesus Christ Superstar” Cary Joji Fukunaga, “Maniac” Barry Levinson, “Paterno”
BEST COMEDY DIRECTING Hiro Mirai, “Atlanta” (“Teddy Perkins”); Daniel Palladino, “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” (“We’re Going to the Catskills!”); Amy Sherman-Palladino, “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” (“All Alone”); Bill Hader, “Barry”; Donald Glover, “Atlanta” (“FUBU”)
BEST DRAMA DIRECTING Chris Long, “The Americans” (“START”) Daina Reed, “The Handmaid’s Tale” (“Holly”) Jason Bateman, “Ozark” (“Reparations”) Adam McKay, “Succession” (“Celebration”) Lesli Linka Glatter, “Homeland” (“Paean to the People”)
DGA’s Variety/Talk/News/Sports specials winner is Louis J. Horvitz for the 60th Grammy Awards
