2025 DGA nominations clarify Oscar race for best director

The Directors Guild of America announced its feature film nominees Wednesday, ahead of a ceremony on Feb. 8 to announce the winners.

The nominees are Jacques Audiard for “Emilia Pérez,” Sean Baker for “Anora,” Edward Berger for “Conclave,” Brady Corbet for “The Brutalist” and James Mangold for “A Complete Unknown.”

The DGA winner is among the most reliable indicators of a future Oscar win. Nineteen of the last 22 DGA awardees have gone on to win the Academy Award for directing. This is the first DGA recognition for all five of this year’s nominees.

The nominees for the Michael Apted award for directorial achievement in a first-time theatrical feature are Payal Kapadia for “All We Imagine as Light,” Megan Park for “My Old Ass,” RaMell Ross for “Nickel Boys,” Halfdan Ullmann Tøndel for “Armand” and Sean Wang for “Didi.”

Last year’s winners were, respectively, Christopher Nolan for “Oppenheimer” and Celine Song for “Past Lives.”

In the TV categories, announced Tuesday, the nominees for dramatic series are Alex Graves for “The Diplomat,” Hiromi Kamata for “Shōgun,” Issa López for “True Detective: Night Country,” Frederick E.O. Toye for “Shōgun” and Jonathan Van Tulleken for “Shōgun.”

The nominees for comedy series are Lucia Aniello for “Hacks,” Ayo Edebiri for “The Bear,” Duccio Fabri for “The Bear,” Jeff Schaffer for “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and Christopher Storer for “The Bear.”

For movie for television and limited series, the nominees are Kevin Bray for “The Penguin,” Alfonso Cuarón for “Disclaimer,” Jennifer Getzinger for “The Penguin,” Helen Shaver for “The Penguin” and Steven Zaillian for “Ripley.”

The nominees for documentary are Brendan Bellomo and Slava Leontyev for “Porcelain War,” Julian Brave NoiseCat and Emily Kassie for “Sugarcane,” Johan Grimonprez for “Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat,” Ibrahim Nash’at for “Hollywoodgate” and Natalie Rae and Angela Patton for “Daughters.”