Paul Thomas Anderson took the top film honor at the Directors Guild of America Awards on Feb. 7, winning the guild’s feature prize for One Battle After Another and strengthening his standing in a tightly watched awards season race.
The win matters because the DGA’s feature award has tracked the Academy’s directing Oscar with rare exceptions. In 77 years, the guild’s choice has matched the Oscar winner all but eight times, according to TheWrap.
In the same category, Anderson faced Ryan Coogler for Sinners, Guillermo del Toro for Frankenstein, Josh Safdie for Marty Supreme and Chloé Zhao for Hamnet. When nominees were announced in January, the Associated Press noted that a Coogler victory would have marked the first time a Black filmmaker won the DGA’s top theatrical prize.
Across television, Amanda Marsalis won dramatic series for The Pitt, while Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg won comedy series for The Studio. Shannon Murphy received the limited/anthology prize for Dying for Sex, and Stephen Chbosky won movies for television for Nonnas.
The ceremony unfolded as the guild’s leadership presses studios and lawmakers on shrinking production volume and job security. Christopher Nolan told the audience, “In 2024 our employment was down about 40% and that was followed by another decline in 2025,” according to remarks reported Saturday. In a separate interview distributed by Tribune Content Agency, the DGA’s national executive director pointed to a 35%–40% global drop in TV production in 2024, said 2025 tracked worse, and argued a federal production incentive could help pull work back to the U.S.
