Martin Scorsese, Greta Gerwig, Christopher Nolan Nominated for Directors Guild Awards

The Directors Guild of America has nominated Martin Scorsese (“Killers of the Flower Moon”), Christopher Nolan (“Oppenheimer”), Greta Gerwig (“Barbie”), Yorgos Lanthimos (“Poor Things”) and Alexander Payne (“The Holdovers”) as the best feature-film directors of 2023 for the 76th annual DGA Awards.

This is Scorsese’s 11th DGA nomination in the category. He is second in total film nominations to Steven Spielberg, who has 13, and well ahead of the third-place directors, Elia Kazan, William Wyler and Fred Zinneman, who had seven. Apart from Spielberg and Scorsese, the living directors with the most nominations are Woody Allen, Francis Ford Coppola and another of this year’s nominees, Christopher Nolan, who have five.

Gerwig’s nomination marks the 13th time a woman has been nominated in the DGA’s top feature-film category in its 76 years of existence. Five of those nominations, and two of the three wins for female directors, have come in the last seven years.

Gerwig was also nominated for 2017’s “Lady Bird,” making her the third female director to receive a second DGA feature-film nomination. The first two were Kathryn Bigelow, nominated for “The Hurt Locker” and “Zero Dark Thirty,” and Jane Campion, for “The Piano” and “The Power of the Dog.”

While the nominations are largely in line with the rest of this awards season, the most conspicuous name missing from the list of nominees is Bradley Cooper for “Maestro.” Cooper was nominated by the DGA for his 2018 film “A Star Is Born,” though he did not receive an Oscar directing nomination for that film.

Other directors who didn’t land DGA nominations included a pair of international directors whose films have done well on the awards circuit, Justine Triet for “Anatomy of a Fall” and Jonathan Glazer for “The Zone of Interest.”

Together with Wednesday morning’s Screen Actors Guild Awards nominations, the DGA results make “Barbie,” “Killers of the Flower Moon” and “Oppenheimer” the three movies to be nominated in the top feature-film category at both of the major guilds that have announced their nominees. The Producers Guild will reveal its nominees on Friday, while the final major guild, the Writers Guild, delayed its awards because of the 2023 WGA strike and won’t announce nominations until Feb. 21.

In the category devoted to first-time directors, the nominees included Cord Jefferson for “American Fiction,” Celine Song for “Past Lives,” A.V. Rockwell for “A Thousand and One,” Noora Niasari for “Shayda” and Manuela Martelli for “Chile ’76.”

DGA nominations have historically been among the most accurate guild noms for predicting what Oscar voters will do, but the two groups haven’t matched up five-for-five since 2010.

Since then, the Academy’s Directors Branch has gotten increasingly idiosyncratic and international. Last year, it chose Swedish director Ruben Östlund for “Triangle of Sadness” over DGA nominee Joseph Kosinski for “Top Gun: Maverick.” In previous years, the Academy chose Ryusuke Hamaguchi (“Drive My Car”) over DGA nominee Denis Villeneuve (“Dune”), Thomas Vinterberg (“Another Round”) over DGA nominee Aaron Sorkin (“The Trial of the Chicago 7”) and Yorgos Lanthimos (“The Favourite”) and Pawel Pawlikowski (“Cold War”) over Bradley Cooper (“A Star Is Born”) and Bobby Farrelly (“Green Book”).

On Tuesday, the DGA announced its nominees in the television and documentary categories.

Winners will be announced during the 76th annual DGA Awards ceremony on Saturday, Feb. 10.

The list of nominees:

OUTSTANDING DIRECTORIAL ACHIEVEMENT IN FEATURE FILM FOR 2023

GRETA GERWIG
“Barbie”
(Warner Bros. Pictures)
Directorial Team:

• Unit Production Manager: Michael Sharp

• First Assistant Director: Josh Robertson

• Second Assistant Directors: David Keadell, Matthew Milan (Los Angeles Unit)

YORGOS LANTHIMOS
“Poor Things”
(Searchlight Pictures)

CHRISTOPHER NOLAN
“Oppenheimer”
(Universal Pictures)
Directorial Team:

• Unit Production Managers: Thomas Hayslip, Nathan Kelly, Rafael Lima (New Jersey / New York Unit)

• First Assistant Director: Nilo Otero

• Second Assistant Director: Andrew Stahl

• Second Second Assistant Director: Jesse Carmona

• Additional Second Assistant Directors: Dixon McPhillips, Richard Molloy (New Jersey / New York Unit), AJ Jackson (New Jersey / New York Unit)

• Location Manager: Patty Carey Perazzo (New Jersey / New York Unit)

ALEXANDER PAYNE
“The Holdovers”
(Focus Features)
Directorial Team:

• Unit Production Manager: Chris Stinson

• First Assistant Director: Rod Smith

• Second Assistant Director: John Nasraway

• Second Second Assistant Director: Tim LaDue

MARTIN SCORSESE
“Killers of the Flower Moon”
(Apple Original Films / Paramount Pictures)
Directorial Team:

• Unit Production Managers: Daniel Lupi, Shea Kammer

• First Assistant Director: Adam Somner

• Second Assistant Director: Jeremy Marks

• Second Second Assistant Director: Dominic Pacitti

• Additional Second Assistant Director: Nuekellar Hardy

MICHAEL APTED AWARD FOR OUTSTANDING DIRECTORIAL ACHIEVEMENT IN FIRST-TIME THEATRICAL FILM

CORD JEFFERSON
“American Fiction”
(Orion Pictures / Amazon MGM Studios)

MANUELA MARTELLI
“Chile ‘76”
(Kino Lober)

“NOORA NIASARI
Shayda”
(Sony Pictures Classics / ORIGMA 45)

A.V. ROCKWELL
“A Thousand and One”
(Focus Features)
Directorial Team:

• Unit Production Manager: Jamin O’Brien

• First Assistant Director: Daniel Lugo

• Second Assistant Director: Teena Marie Delerme-Lugo

• Assistant Unit Production Manager: Rob York

• Second Second Assistant Director: Donté Bouyer

• Additional Second Assistant Director: T.J. Hallett

• Location Manager: Joanna Lu

CELINE SONG
“Past Lives”
(A24)
Directorial Team:

• Unit Production Manager: Kerry Johnson

• First Assistant Director: Ben Kahn

• Second Assistant Director: Geraldine Schubert

• Second Second Assistant Director: Dan Levy

• Location Manager: Joseph Mullaney

The post Martin Scorsese, Greta Gerwig, Christopher Nolan Nominated for Directors Guild Awards appeared first on TheWrap.