Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert have been named the best theatrical-film directors of 2022 by the Directors Guild of America, which presented its 75th annual DGA Awards on Saturday night in Beverly Hills.
The two directors, who go by the name The Daniels, won for the freewheeling “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” topping Steven Spielberg for “The Fabelmans,” Martin McDonagh for “The Banshees of Inisherin,” Todd Field for “Tar” and Joseph Kosinski for “Top Gun: Maverick.” They are only the third directing team to win the DGA Award, after the Coen brothers for “No Country for Old Men” and Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins for “West Side Story.”
Spielberg, who is both the most-nominated and winningest film director in DGA history with 13 nominations and three wins, was the sentimental favorite going into the show, but “Everything Everywhere” has proven to be a surprisingly potent awards contender. The DGA win gives the Daniels’ real momentum going into next weekend’s Producers Guild Awards. A victory there would make their film an even stronger Oscar frontrunner despite its seemingly divisive nature with older voters.
In the DGA’s theatrical feature film category, the guild’s winner has gone on to win the Best Director Oscar 66 times in the previous 74 years. Four of those mismatches have come in this century, most recently with “1917” director Sam Mendes, who won the DGA Award in 2020 but lost the Oscar to Bong Joon Ho for “Parasite.”
All of this year’s DGA nominees also have Oscar nominations for directing except Kosinski, who was replaced on the Academy’s slate by Ruben Ostlund for “Triangle of Sadness.”
The award for documentary director went to Sara Dosa for “Fire of Love,” which the first-time feature director prize, which has been named after the late director Michael Apted, went to Charlotte Wells for “Aftersun.”
Sam Levinson won the award for Drama Series for “Euphoria” over episodes of “Ozark,” “Better Call Saul” and “Severance,” while the Comedy Series award went to Bill Hader for “Barry” over episodes of “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” “Wednesday,” “The White Lotus” and “The Bear.”
In the Movies for Television and Limited Series category, Helen Shaver won for “Station Eleven” in a field that also included “Weird: The Al Yankovic Story,” “Obi-Wan Kenobi,” “Inventing Anna” and another episode of “Station Eleven.”
Other television winners included “Saturday Night Live,” “Running Wild With Bear Grylls,” Best Foot Forward” and the 75th Tony Awards.
Special achievement awards went to Mark Hansson (Frank Capra Achievement Award), Valdez Flagg (Franklin J. Schaffner Achievement Award) and Robert A. Fishman (Lifetime Achievement Award in Television).
Judd Apatow hosted the ceremony, which took place at the Beverly Hilton Hotel and came in at a relatively brisk three hours. It was brisk, at least, for the notoriously long-winded DGA, which benefited from fact that several winners and nominees, including Martin McDonagh, Charlotte Wells and Bill Hader weren’t present to give speeches. (McDonagh and Wells were no doubt in or en route to London, where they’re nominees at Sunday’s BAFTA awards.)
Here is the full list of nominees. Winners are indicated by *WINNER.
THEATRICAL FEATURE FILM
Todd Field, “TÁR”
Joseph Kosinski, “Top Gun: Maverick”
Daniel Kwan & Daniel Scheinert, “Everything Everywhere All at Once” *WINNERS
Martin McDonagh, “The Banshees of Inisherin”
Steven Spielberg, “The Fabelmans”
FIRST-TIME THEATRICAL FEATURE FILM
Alice Diop, “Saint Omer”
Audrey Diwan, “Happening”
John Patton Ford, “Emily the Criminal”
Antoneta Alamat Kusijanovic, “Murina”
Charlotte Wells, “Aftersun” *WINNER
DRAMATIC SERIES
Jason Bateman, “Ozark”: “A Hard Way To Go”
Vince Gilligan, “Better Call Saul”: “Waterworks”
Sam Levinson, “Euphoria”: “Stand Still Like the Hummingbird” * WINNER
Aoife McArdle, “Severance”: “Hide and Seek”
Ben Stiller, “Severance”: “The We We Are”
COMEDY SERIES
Tim Burton, “Wednesday”: “Wednesday’s Child is Full of Woe”
Bill Hader, “Barry”: “710N” * WINNER
Amy Sherman-Palladino, “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”: “How Do You Get to Carnegie Hall?”
Christopher Storer, “The Bear”: “Review”
Mike White, “The White Lotus”: “BYG”
MOVIES FOR TELEVISION AND LIMITED SERIES
Eric Appel, “Weird: The Al Yankovic Story”
Deborah Chow, “Obi‑Wan Kenobi”
Jeremy Podeswa, “Station Eleven”: “Unbroken Circle”
Helen Shaver, “Station Eleven”: “Who’s There?” *WINNER
Tom Verica, “Inventing Anna”: “The Devil Wore Anna”
VARIETY/TALK/NEWS/SPORTS – REGULARLY SCHEDULED PROGRAMMING
Paul G. Casey, “Real Time With Bill Maher”: “Episode #2010”
Jim Hoskinson, “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert”: “Episode #1333”
David Paul Meyer, “The Daily Show with Trevor Noah”: “Brandi Carlile Discusses Her New Deluxe Album and Performs ‘You and Me on the Rock’”
Liz Patrick, “Saturday Night Live”: “Host and Musical Guest Jack Harlow” *WINNER
Paul Pennolino, “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver”: “Afghanistan”
VARIETY/TALK/NEWS/SPORTS – SPECIALS
Ian Berger, “The Daily Show with Trevor Noah Presents: Jordan Klepper Fingers the Globe ‑ Hungary for Democracy”
Hamish Hamilton, “Super Bowl LVI Halftime Show 2022”
James Merryman, “Norman Lear: 100 Years of Music and Laughter”
Marcus Raboy, “Mark Twain Prize 2022: Celebrating Jon Stewart”
Glenn Weiss, “The 75th Annual Tony Awards” *WINNER
REALITY PROGRAMS
Joseph H. Guidry, “The Big Brunch”: “Carb Loading Brunch”
Carrie Havel, “The Go‑Big Show”: “Only One Can Win”
Rich Kim, “Lego Masters”: “Jurass‑brick World”
Michael Shea, “FBoy Island”: “Do You Like Cats?”
Ben Simms, “Running Wild with Bear Grylls”: “Florence Pugh in the Volcanic Rainforests of Costa Rica” *WINNER
CHILDREN’S PROGRAMS
Tim Federle, “Better Nate Than Ever”
Bonnie Hunt, “Amber Brown”: “I, Amber Brown”
Dean Israelite, “Are You Afraid of the Dark?”: “The Tale of Room 13”
Michael Lemback, “Snow Day The Musical”
Anne Renton, “Best Foot Forward”: “Halloween” *WINNER
COMMERCIALS
Juan Cabral (MJZ), For All Life’s Moments, John Lewis ‑ adam&eveDDB; Share the Joy, Apple AirPods ‑ TBWA\Media Arts Lab
Kim Gehrig (Somesuch, Inc.), Accessibility, Apple ‑ Apple (Direct); Run Baby Run, iPhone ‑ Apple (Direct) *WINNER
Craig Gillespie (MJZ), Hard Knocks, Apple Watch Series 7 – Apple; Problem, Jimmy John’s – Anomaly; Thrill Driver, Nissan ‑ TBWA\Chiat\Day NY
David Shane (O Positive, LLC), Detectives, iPhone 13 Pro – Apple; Smile, ITVX – Uncommon; Traffic Stop, Native ‑ M/H
Ivan Zacharias (SMUGGLER), Data Auction, iPhone ‑ TBWA\ Media Arts Lab; This Is How We Work Now, Upwork ‑ Alto
DOCUMENTARY
Sara Dosa, Fire of Love *WINNER
Matthew Heineman, “Retrograde”
Laura Poitras, “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed”
Daniel Roher, “Navalny”
Shaunak Sen, “All That Breathes”
FRANK CAPRA ACHIEVEMENT AWARD: Mark Hansson
FRANKLIN J. SCHAFFNER ACHIEVEMENT AWARD: Valdez Flagg
LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD IN TELEVISION: Robert A. Fishman
