Directors Guild of America chooses Ben Affleck, ‘Argo’ continues awards dominance

Credit: Claire Folger/Warner Bros. Pictures

The Directors Guild of America have spoken, and they’ve chosen Ben Affleck as Best Director for ‘Argo’, continuing the film’s dominant steamroll towards Oscar. Affleck’s win marks only the third occasion in history where the winner for Best Feature lacked a corresponding Oscar nomination (the other two occasions were Ron Howard for ‘Apollo 13′ and Steven Spielberg for ‘The Color Purple’).

In addition, only six times in history has the DGA winner not gone on to win the Oscar for Directing. With Affleck’s snub by the Academy, this will be the seventh occasion. So it’s still pretty much anyone’s ballgame at this point, in an awards season that will go down as one of the craziest, most precedent-defying seasons in history.

Full list of winners via Awards Daily:

Feature Film: Ben Affleck, Argo
Animated Feature: Rich Moore, Wreck-It Ralph
Feature Documentary: Malik Bendjelloul, Searching for Sugarman
TV Series, Comedy: Lena Dunham, Girls
TV Series, Drama: Rian Johnson, Breaking Bad
TV Series, Daytime Serial: Jill Mitwell, One Life to Live
TV Musical/Variety Program: Glenn Weiss, 66th Annual Tony Awards
TV Children’s Program: Paul Hoen, Let It Shine
Best TV Miniseries: Jay Roach, Game Change
Best TV Reality Series: Brian Smith, Master Chef
Best Commercials: Alejandro González iñárritu, Best Job (Proctor and Gamble – Wieden + Kennedy)
DGA Lifetime Achievement Award: Milos Forman
Robert B. Aldrich Service Award: Michael Apted
Lifetime Achievement in News Direction Award: Eric Shapiro
Frank Capra Achievement Award (for Assistant Director or Unit Production Manager): Susan Zwerman
Franklin J. Schaffner Achievement Award (for Associate Director or Stage Manager): Dency Nelson