If you love filmmaking and have two and a half hours to spare, boy have we got the treat for you. As you may or may not be aware, the Directors Guild of America handed our their awards last weekend, honoring Alejandro G. Iñárritu with an unprecedented second trophy in a row for his work on The Revenant. However, all five DGA Awards nominees were in attendance, and before the ceremony they took part in a lengthy discussion on their varied films and the art of directing.

So yeah, watching George Miller (Mad Max: Fury Road), Ridley Scott (The Martian), Adam McKay (The Big Short), Tom McCarthy (Spotlight), and Iñárritu talk about making movies together for the length of a feature film is pretty much cinephile catnip. The conversation touches on every aspect of filmmaking, from planning to philosophy to post-production. And with such a varied group of directors, it’s fascinating to hear how differently they work from one another while still getting fantastic—albeit wildly diverse—results.


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Image via 20th Century Fox

As you no doubt know, Scott failed to land a Best Director Oscar nod in favor of Lenny Abrahamson for Room, but it’s nice to see him as a part of this discussion and indeed he comes complete with some great insights, as well as a story about discovering and casting Sigourney Weaver in Alien.

It’s things like this that makes the whole “winning” aspect of the awards race secondary. While the long buildup to the Oscars—with the campaigning and narratives etc.—can become tiresome, the various roundtables and interviews like this make it all worth it, to see some of our best filmmakers talking extensively and openly about an artform that we adore.

So cancel your plans to watch whatever movie you were going to watch this evening, and sit back with Miller, Scott, Iñárritu, McKay, and McCarthy instead (via The Film Stage).

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Image via Warner Bros.

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Image via 20th Century Fox
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Image via 20th Century Fox
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Image via Open Road Films
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Image via Paramount Pictures