Cuaron, Cooper, Lee vie for honor
NEW YORK » Bradley Cooper, Alfonso Cuaron and Spike Lee are among the nominees for the Directors Guild of America award for outstanding directorial achievement.
Oakland native Boots Riley snagged a directorial debut nomination for “Sorry to Bother You.”
The DGA announced its five nominees Tuesday in one of the most closely watched guild awards leading up to next month’s Academy Awards. Cuaron is nominated for his personal black-and-white drama “Roma,” Cooper for his “A Star Is Born” remake and Lee for his white supremacist tale “BlacKkKlansman.”
The other nominees for the 71st annual Directors Guild Awards are Peter Farrelly for the interracial road trip tale “Green Book” and Adam McKay for “Vice,” his biopic of former Vice President Dick Cheney.
Among those notably left out were Ryan Coogler (“Black Panther”), Yorgos Lanthimos (“The Favourite”) and Barry Jenkins (“If Beale Street Could Talk”).
The DGA Awards can be strongly predictive of the Oscar directing nominees and eventual best picture nominees. Only once in the last decade (when the film academy expanded the best picture category) has a director nominated by the DGA not also had the film nominated for best picture at the Oscars. The lone exception: David Fincher’s 2011 thriller, “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.”
But while many of the DGA nominees usually mirror most of the directors nominated by the Oscars, they often diverge by one nominee. That’s been the case in each of the past five years.
While Greta Gerwig last year made the field, becoming only the eighth woman to do so, this year’s nominees included no female filmmakers. Lee’s nomination is his first. He’s the fourth African-American director ever nominated for the award by the DGA.
Cooper and Riley were nominated by the DGA for best directorial debut along with Bo Burnham (“Eighth Grade”), Carlos Lopez Estrada (“Blindspotting”) and Matthew Heineman (“A Private War”).
The awards, including previously announced documentary and television directing nominees, will be presented Feb. 2 in Los Angeles.