1917's win at the Directors Guild Awards foreshadows a big Oscar win for Sam Mendes

By Sam Barsanti | January 26, 2020 | 5:12pm

Aux Features Film

1917's win at the Directors Guild Awards foreshadows a big Oscar win for Sam Mendes

TFW you don’t know where you’re going to put this giant award Photo: Frazer Harrison

1917 director Sam Mendes better start clearing some shelf space in his house, both because he won the Outstanding Directorial Achievement In Theatrical Feature Film award at last night’s Directors Guild Awards (and that award is absolutely massive), and because the winner of that particular award almost always wins the Best Director trophy at the Academy Awards. As noted by Deadline, there have only been seven times since the DGA award was established in 1949 that its winner did not go on to win the directing Oscar, so it seems pretty likely that the Academy will end up being similarly impressed by 1917's faux single-take gimmick.

The DGA’s other film-related winners include Alma Har’el, who won Outstanding Directorial Achievement Of A First-Time Feature Film Director for Shia LaBeouf’s Honey Boy, and Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, who won the documentary award for American Factory. HBO cleaned up on the TV side, with Bill Hader winning Outstanding Directorial Achievement In Comedy Series for the “ronny/lily” episode of Barry, Johan Renck won the TV movie/limited series award for Chernobyl, Nicole Kassell won the dramatic TV award for Watchmen’s “It’s Summer And We’re Running Out Of Ice,” and Amy Schatz won the children’s programming award for Song Of Parkland.