The Directors Guild of America has just announced their nominations for “Outstanding Direction in Feature Film” for the 65th Annual DGA Awards.  The nominees are as follows:

• Ben Affleck for Argo
• Kathryn Bigelow for Zero Dark Thirty
• Tom Hooper for Les Miserables
• Ang Lee for Life of Pi
• Steven Spielberg for Lincoln

These nominations, as well as the omission of certain other directors, carry certain implications heading into the Academy Awards contest.  Hit the jump for more DGA-related news.

The Academy Award for Best Picture of the Year will go to The Artist. It’s over. Call off the dogs. The little silent film that could will be crowned the winner at next month’s ceremony. After riding a pretty solid frontrunner status throughout the past two months, the film has now picked up two of the most important Oscar precursor awards: the Producers Guild Award and the Directors Guild Award. Michel Hazanavicius was given the Best Feature Film director award at last night’s DGA ceremony, besting the likes of Hugo’s Martin Scorsese and The Descendants’ Alexander Payne.

The writing has been on the wall for a while now, but with the PGA and DGA in hand, there’s virtually zero chance of anything upsetting The Artist for Best Picture. I’m not saying Hazanavicius isn’t deserving of the DGA, as his crafting of the silent pic is certainly commendable (though I’m partial to Scorsese’s work on Hugo), I’m just pointing out that we’re most likely in for an incredibly predictable ceremony come next month. Hit the jump to see the full list of DGA winners in both film and television. The 84th Academy Awards will be held February 26th.

On the heels of announcing their nominees for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Feature Film for 2011, the Directors Guild of America have announced their nominations for Best Documentary Director.  The nominees are Joe Berlinger & Bruce Sinofsky for Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory, Steve James for The Interrupters, James Marsh for Project Nim, Richard Press for Bill Cunningham New York, and Martin Scorsese for George Harrison: Living in the Material World.  Scorsese also picked up DGA nomination this year for Hugo, which brings his total number of nominations to ten.  He previously won for The Departed.

While I’m rooting for Project Nim, this is a fine collection of nominees.  It’s much better than the Academy’s short list, which only includes Project Nim, Paradise Lost 3, and Bill Cunningham New York.  The winner of the DGA’s 2011 Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Documentary will be announced January 28th.

As we move ever closer to the Academy Awards, the director’s guild has just announced the five nominees who will contend for the DGA Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Feature Film for 2011. The DGA’s are a major prognosticator for the Best Director award at the Oscars, as only six times has the DGA winner not gone on to win Best Director. This year’s nominees include Martin Scorsese for Hugo, Woody Allen for Midnight in Paris, Michel Hazanavicious for The Artist, Alexander Payne for The Descendants, and David Fincher for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Hit the jump for more, including my thoughts on the nominees.

Earlier this week, the Directors Guild of America named its nominees for Best Director.  Now they’ve named their nominees for Best Documentary Director.  And the nominees are:

• Lixin Fan for Last Train Home
• Charles Ferguson for Inside Job
• Alex Gibney for Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer
• Davis Guggenheim for Waiting for “Superman”
• Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger for Restrepo

Among the notable snubs were Banksy for Exit Through the Gift Shop and Amir Bar-Lev’s The Tillman Story.  It’s possible that the DGA’s nominees will be the five Oscar nominees as well, but I honestly don’t see what’s so spectacular about Client 9.  Obviously, I’m biased towards Exit Through the Gift Shop, but I think it’s the more enduring and thought-provoking work.  Winners will be announced Saturday, January 29th. [TheWrap]

The Directors Guild of America has announced its nominees for 2011.  The nominees are Darren Aronofsky for Black Swan, David Fincher for The Social Network, Tom Hooper for The King’s Speech, Christopher Nolan for Inception, and David O. Russell for The Fighter.  It is highly likely that at least four of these five directors will receive Oscar nominations and it’s also likely that one of these five films is going to win Best Picture.  The last time the Directors Guild winner didn’t match up with Best Picture was in 2005 when the DGA gave Ang Lee Best Director for Brokeback Mountain but the Oscar for Best Picture went to Crash.

The DGA will announce the winner on Saturday, January 29th.  Previous winners include

Last night, the Directors Guild of America selected the best directorial work in film and television from 2009, most notably awarding Kathryn Bigelow with Outstanding Directorial Achievement for Feature Film for her work on The Hurt Locker, becoming the first female to ever win the award.  This is very good news for the Oscar prospects of the Hurt Locker, as well as very bad news for those of Avatar. The DGA feature film honoree has failed to line up with the Best Director Oscar winner a mere 6 times in the 61 year history of the awards, and has predicted the Best Picture Oscar winner 79% of the time.  Earlier in the month, The Hurt Locker upset Avatar to win kudos from the Producers Guild, perhaps the guild most likely to favor the big budget wonder of Avatar.  With both the producers and the directors on its side, The Hurt Locker just became the certain favorite for Best Picture come Oscar night.  James Cameron and Avatar may just have to settle for their Golden Globes . . . and billions upon billions of dollars.

On the non-fiction side, Louie Psihoyos won Outstanding Directorial Achievement for his work on The Cove.  Hit the jump for more on the night’s winners.