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Every year, the Director’s Guild of America does incredibly well in acting as an indicator for the Best Director Academy Award. Their nominations usually match up to what the Academy chooses and more often than not, so does their winner. This year, the Guild is honouring Ben Affleck, Kathryn Bigelow, Tom Hooper, Ang Lee and Steven Spielberg with nominations.

While those are all excellent choices, there are some very obvious omissions. David O. Russell anyone? What about Quentin Tarantino? Django Unchained and Silver Linings Playbook are two of the year’s best films and if I was voting, I would put Russell and Tarantino in over Hooper and Lee. But that’s just my opinion. I would also say that Paul Thomas Anderson deserves to be up there more than Ben Affleck does.

You can check out the full list below but as we wait to hear who the Guild will choose,...

Sorry Quentin Tarantino ("Django Unchained"), David O. Russell ("Silver Linings Playbook"), and Wes Anderson ("Moonrise Kingdom"), your films are critically well-received but the Directors Guild chose to honor Ben Affleck ("Argo"), Kathryn Bigelow ("Zero Dark Thirty"), Tom Hooper ("Les Miserables"), Ang Lee ("Life of Pi"), and Steven Spielberg ("Lincoln").

Who will win? We'll find out the winner of the 65th Annual Directors Guild of America (DGA) Award on Saturday, February 2nd.

Here's the complete list of nominees; for winners/nominees of other award-giving bodies, click here:

Ben Affleck

Argo

(Warner Bros. Pictures)

Mr. Affleck.s Directorial Team:

· Unit Production Manager: Amy Herman

· First Assistant Director: David Webb

· Second Assistant Director: Ian Calip

· Second Second Assistant Directors: Clark Credle, Gavin Kleintop

· First Assistant Director (Turkey Unit): Belkis Turan

This is Mr. Affleck.s first DGA Feature Film Award nomination.

Kathryn Bigelow

Zero Dark Thirty

(Columbia Pictures)

Ms. Bigelow.s Directorial...

A strong indicator of who will win the Best Director Oscar in February has arrived this afternoon, as The Directors Guild of America has released nominees for its 2013 awards.

Four DGA and Oscar-directing winners and one newcomer were nominated for the 65th annual award for directorial achievement in feature film for 2012.

The only newcomer is Ben Affleck, who landed his first Directors Guild film award nomination for Iran hostage thriller Argo.

Four past winners of the DGA Award are Kathryn Bigelow, nominated for Zero Dark Thirty; Tom Hooper, Les Miserables; Ang Lee, Life of Pi; and 11-time nominee Steven Spielberg, Lincoln.

Among the directors absent from the list this year are previous DGA Award nominees: Django Unchained’s Quentin Tarantino, Silver Linings Playbook’s David O. Russell, The Master’s Paul Thomas Anderson along with Moonrise Kingdom’s Wes Anderson.

DGA members are often members of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Science.

On January 8, 2013, DGA President Taylor Hackford announced the five nominees for the DGA Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Feature Film for 2012.

The nominees are (in alphabetical order):

Ben Affleck

Argo

(Warner Bros. Pictures)

Mr. Affleck.s Directorial Team:

Unit Production Manager: Amy Herman

First Assistant Director: David Webb

Second Assistant Director: Ian Calip

Second Second Assistant Directors: Clark Credle, Gavin Kleintop

First Assistant Director (Turkey Unit): Belkis Turan

This is Mr. Affleck.s first DGA Feature Film Award nomination.

Kathryn Bigelow

Zero Dark Thirty

(Columbia Pictures)

Ms. Bigelow.s Directorial Team:

Unit Production Manager: Colin Wilson

First Assistant Director: David A. Ticotin

Second Assistant Directors: Ben Lanning, Sarah Hood

First Assistant Director (Jordan Unit): Scott Robertson

Second Assistant Directors (Jordan Unit): Jonas Spaccarotelli, Yanal Kassay

Second Second Assistant Director (Jordan Unit): Tarek Afifi

Unit Production Manager (India Unit): Rajeev Mehra

This is Ms.

Although Ari Folman's "Waltz With Bashir" did not make the shortlist of 15 films under consideration for the best documentary Oscar, it is among the nominees for the DGA's doc award, announced Friday.

"Waltz" will compete with Gonzalo Arijon's "Stranded: I've Come From a Plane that Crashed on the Mountains," in which survivors of a 1972 Andes plane crash tell their story; Elizabeth Farnsworth and Patricio Lanfranco's "The Judge and the General," a look back at the investigation into the regime of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet; Peter Gilbert & Stevie James' "At the Death House Door," an examination of the wrongful conviction of a Texas man executed for murder; and James Marsh's "Man on Wire," a study of tight-rope walker Philippe Petit.

All the nominees are first-time DGA nominees, with the exception of Gilbert (who won the DGA's doc award in 1998 for "Vietnam: Long Time Coming" and was...

• The 60th Annual DGA Awards have announced those who will be the honored guests at the upcoming dinner distinguishing outstanding directorial achievement in what was a splendid year of eye candy. Notably absent from this year's 5-list is of course David Fincher and his film Zodiac and Joe Wright for Atonement, but for the most part the nominees are  a very much deserving pack. The winner will be announced January 26th - an interesting stat: only six times since the DGA Awards began in 1949 has the winner not gone on to win an Academy Award.Prez Michael Apted (from the 7-up films) had this to say about the cream of the cream..."2008 marks the 60th Anniversary of the DGA Awards," said Apted. "We are very proud to have today's five nominees join the illustrious list of directors that have been nominated for directorial excellence in feature filmmaking over the past 59 years.

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