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  • Paul Thomas Anderson Wins Top DGA Film Prize For ‘One Battle After Another’, Pays Tribute To Producer & AD Adam Somner: “He Would Love This”

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    One Battle After Another director Paul Thomas Anderson has won the DGA Awards‘ top prize — Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Theatrical Feature Film — which marks a highly significant Oscar predictor.

    “It’s an honor, President Nolan,” he told DGA president Christopher Nolan, to loud laughter from the audience Saturday at the Beverly Hilton.

    This was Anderson’s third DGA nomination. Most recently, he was nominated for Licorice Pizza in 2021 and, before that, for There Will Be Blood in 2007.

    Ever since the first DGA Awards ceremony in 1948, the winner of its Theatrical Feature Award has predicted the Best Director Oscar winner in all but eight instances. This makes the DGA Awards a major bellwether for Oscar. Add to that, the DGA Theatrical Feature win and Oscars Best Director has matched every year for the past five.

    Anderson referenced Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind, saying, “It’s like we’re all here for a reason, some cosmic thing brought us to this room, and it was that call to the mountain. It’s that feeling that we all love making sh*t and we need to do it. We need to do it or it’s an addiction, I’m not quite sure.”

    Paul Thomas Anderson and team accept the Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Theatrical Feature Film for ‘One Battle After Another’ on Saturday at the DGA Awards

    Kevin Winter/Getty Images for DGA

    On a more somber note, Anderson paid tribute to his close friend, producer and longtime first AD Adam Somner, who died in 2024 from thyroid cancer.

    “Obviously we are up here, minus one,” Anderson said. “A lot of people in this room know our hero, our man, Adam Somner. Steven [Spielberg] knows him. His wife Carmen [Ruiz de Huidobro] is here.”

    Anderson continued, “He took this work so seriously, and did not take himself seriously at all. And that was a great gift… He made us feel safe. Think about this work that we do, how dangerous it can be, really dangerous. And to be to get through a film and no one get hurt, be safe, have an amazing experience is because of a great AD, and he was the best.”

    Choking up a little, Anderson went on, “I wish everyone in this room the love that I had with him, may you be blessed with a relationship that I had with him, and if you have one already, hold them close, remind them that you love them. He would love this. He’d be so f*cking happy.”

    Adam Somner

    Adam Somner

    Getty Images

    Last year, the big DGA win went to Anora’s Sean Baker, who went on to win the Directing Oscar and the film took Best Picture. Two years ago, Christopher Nolan won at the DGAs ahead of picking up Best Director and Best Picture Oscars for Oppenheimer.

    Other nominees in this same DGA category tonight Ryan Coogler for Sinners, Chloé Zhao for Hamnet, Guillermo del Toro for Frankenstein and Josh Safdie for Marty Supreme.

    Coogler is only the fifth Black director ever to be recognized in this DGA Awards category. The last was Spike Lee for BlacKkKlansman in 2018. But no Black filmmaker has ever won this top DGA prize.

    Zhao won this DGA top honor in 2021 for Nomadland (which also earned Best Picture and Best Director at Oscar) and now, with this Hamnet nomination, she joins Kathryn Bigelow, Jane Campion and Greta Gerwig as the only women to earn multiple DGA nominations.

    In 2018, Del Toro won the DGA top film prize for The Shape of Water, while this was Safdie’s first DGA nomination.

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    Antonia Blyth

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  • Kumail Nanjiani Opens Directors Guild Awards With Jokes About Epstein Files, Long Movies, ‘Sinners’ and D.W. Griffith

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    Kumail Nanjiani gently skewered a room full of Hollywood heavyweights in his opening monologue at the Directors Guild Awards, taking aim at the Epstein files, runaway production, the extended running times of many movies and the fact that the guild’s top award was named in honor of director D.W. Griffith until 1999.

    He quipped that the DGA kudos, which are part of a marathon of industry precursor awards events leading up to the March 15 Academy Awards, represents “Hollywood’s biggest night — Excuse me, Vancouver, Budapest and sometimes Atlanta,” he said. Looking out at the ballroom at the Beverly Hilton, with tables packed with directors and their teams of assistant directors and unit production managers, Nanjiani observed, “It’s like if a movie was just the credits.”

    Nanjiani noted that as a native of Karachi, Pakistan, his gig as host marked a first for the Directors Guild Awards: “You don’t have to know where I’m from to know I’m the first person from there to host this show,” he said.

    Nanjiani delivered a 20-minute opening in front of a room that included DGA president Christopher Nolan, Steven Spielberg and DGA nominees Ryan Coogler, Paul Thomas Anderson, Chloe Zhao and Josh Safdie. He closed on a heartfelt note that was then punctuated with a final joke about Griffith, whose 1915 film “The Birth of a Nation” presents an abjectly racist vision of post-Civil War America, with the Klu Klux Klan presented as a heroic organization.

    Nanjiani lauded “the power of filmmaking” and told a story about the first movie he saw in a theater as a kid growing up in Pakistan: Spielberg’s 1993 smash “Jurassic Park.” Nodding to the director, who is a DGA board members, Nanjiani stated, “You made an audience of people on the other side of the world explode with laughter.” He made oblique references to DGA nominees “Sinners,” “The Pitt” and “Marty Supreme.”

    “This is why what you all do is so important right now. We are in a moment where people are focused on the differences between us, but your beautiful art reminds us that we have all have much more in common than we don’t,” Nanjiani said. “I can watch your work and know what it feels like to be in a juke joint in the Mississippi Delta or to try to patch up people in an ER in Pittsburgh. You even made me give a shit about ping pong. I’m kidding. I’m Asian. I have always given a shit about ping pong.

    “In this challenging moment is more important than ever, and I genuinely, sincerely thank you for doing it. You remind us of our shared humanity while also celebrating our differences, because our commonality may make us human, but our differences make us beautiful — and that is what D. W. Griffith represents,” Nanjiani said.

    Among Nanjiani’s other zingers:

    “I’d ask you to keep your speeches short but I’ve seen your movies we all know that’s not going to happen.”

    “Every bad guy in ‘Sinners’ is a white person, which makes it the most realistic movie of the year. No offense to almost everyone here. No film has so effectively captured the true horror of white people dancing.”

    Nanjiani riffed on the fact that “Sinners” star Michael B. Jordan shares a first and last name with the NBA legend: ” ‘Sinners’ starred Michael B. Jordan and his brother Scottie B. Pippen. For those who don’t know, Michael Jordan was a basketball player, and Scottie Pippen did as much work as he did for a fraction of the praise and money. He was like his first AD.”

    Nanjiani returned his focus to Spielberg when he noted that the filmmaker has made films in the past (2002’s “Minority Report,” 1993’s “Schindler’s List” and 1982’s “ET the Extra-Terrestrial”) that have predicted the tumult and technological and societal disruption of modern times. He also worked in a jab at President Trump, albeit not by name.

    Spielberg “is not only perhaps the greatest filmmaker of all time, he’s also clairvoyant. He’s made movies about everything we’re talking about right now: AI, Nazis, the government coming after harmless aliens. It’s like you’ve predicted the last 10 years of our lives. Steven, can your next movie be about an 80-year-old on the Epstein list who gets shot into space?”

    Nolan, the most prominent director brand in Hollywood today, addressed the challenges that Hollywood’s creative community is facing amid the great contraction in film and TV and consolidation among its largest players. Hollywood’s three key creative unions — SAG-AFTRA, Writers Guild of America and DGA — are heading into a new contract negotiation cycle that begins Feb. 9 when SAG-AFTRA sits down with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers.

    “In 2024 our employment was down about 40% and that was followed by another decline in 2025,” Nolan said. “The complicated part of this is that we as directors have to talk to our employers, talk to the people who run our business, and really get to grips with that the amount of money that people spend on our work, on entertainment, is very, very steady. Audiences are invested in us. We have to be sure that we are able to repay that investment.”

    Nolan continued, “We are the storytellers. We are the people who have to innovate on the screen. And it’s very, very important that as our industry progresses, new technologies and new forms of distribution come along that we are always sensitive to. How are our voices being put across? How can we get our messages across? How can we engage with that audience and repay that investment that they continue to give us?”

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    Cynthia Littleton

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  • Hollywood Guilds Come Out Strong For “Ethical & Transparent” AI Bill From Adam Schiff  

    Hollywood Guilds Come Out Strong For “Ethical & Transparent” AI Bill From Adam Schiff  

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    SAG-AFTRA, IATSE the WGA, and even the DGA have united behind a legislative move to put up some new and slightly punitive guardrails around Artificial Intelligence.

    “Everything generated by AI ultimately originates from a human creative source, says Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, SAG-AFTRA National Executive Director and Chief Negotiator, of a new bill proposed today by Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA). “That’s why human creative content—intellectual property—must be protected. SAG-AFTRA fully supports the Generative AI Copyright Disclosure Act, as this legislation is an important step in ensuring technology serves people and not the other way around,” 

    Deep into his race to be California’s new junior Senator, Schiff introduced the Generative AI Copyright Disclosure Act into the 118th Congress (read it here) Tuesday. If passed by the House and Senate and signed by President Joe Biden, the succinct act would require companies and corporations that use copyrighted works in the training of their generative AI systems training datasets to submit a public notice with the Register of Copyrights.

    In short, before you put that AI created material out there, you’ve got to pull back the veil and reveal where you scooped up the info and datasets from. Now, with its $5,000 civil penalty for violations, the bill doesn’t exactly hit the tech overlords and studios that hard where it counts.

    However, with the fears and harsh realities that AI itself generates among below-the-line workers and creators, the fact is the introduction of the legislation alone sees Schiff tossing some blue meat to his base. In a Senate bid that is his to lose against a Republican challenger he promoted, Schiff, who is commonly known as the Congressman from Hollywood for the number of studios in and around his Burbank district, is putting an issue of vital importance to unions and guild members on the table.

    The use and implications of AI was a very big part of last year’s strikes by the WGA and SAG-AFTRA. Despite the handwringing of those who predicted it would sink any deal, protections around AI for guild members ended up being a major part of the agreements the scribes and the actors came to with the studios and streamers.

    Now with the long anticipated introduction of Schiff’s new bill , leadership is responding again.

    “This bill is an important first step in addressing the unprecedented and unauthorized use of copyrighted materials to train generative AI systems,” states WGA West chief Meredith Stiehm. “Greater transparency and guardrails around AI are necessary to protect writers and other creators.”

    Stiehm’s East Coast partner, WGA East president Lisa Takeuchi Cullen added: “The Generative AI Copyright Disclosure Act is an important piece of legislation that will ensure companies use this new and rapidly advancing technology in ethical and transparent ways. Given the scope and potential threat of AI, enforceable regulations are urgently needed to keep companies from implementing this technology in the shadows, without people’s consent or knowledge.”

    “The Directors Guild of America commends this commonsense legislation, which is an important first step toward enabling filmmakers to protect their intellectual property from the potential harms caused by generative AI,” says DGA president Lesli Linka Glatter. “We thank Representative Schiff for championing these rights that will protect filmmakers and the entire creative community.”

    In the midst of their own negotiations right now with the AMPTP, in which AI is a distinct priority, IATSE goes straight for the bottom line when it comes to Schiff’s bill.

    “The International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees commends Rep. Adam Schiff for introducing the Generative AI Copyright Disclosure Act,” IATSE president Matt Loeb declares. “Entertainment workers must be fairly compensated when their work is used to train, develop or generate new works by AI systems. This legislation will ensure there is appropriate transparency of generative AI training sets, thereby enabling IATSE workers to enforce their rights.”

    Since the contract agreements that ended the months-long WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes of last year, a number of guild brass have made it very clear that legislative solutions to the unmitigated growth of AI are the next logical step. To that end, SAG-AFTA and others have already been working the halls of Congress to see bills like Schiff’s hit the floor of the GOP controlled House.

    “The threats of AI to workers is a bipartisan issue, both sides know it can hurt their constituents,” one union leader said to Deadline after Schiff’s bill was introduced today. “I’ve heard concerns from almost as many Republican members as I have Democrats,” he added.

    Schiff’s bill follows up on the momentum began by President Biden’s Executive Order on AI from last October and the subsequent three-pillar strategy Vice President Kamala Harris and the administration rolled out late last month.

    On a state level, there are two bills moving through the Assembly in Sacramento that also hope to curb AI’s reach and power, especially in relation to Hollywood.

    Currently in the early stages of the legislative process, the SAG-AFTA backed and MPA opposed AB 2602 would cement protections for performers that digital recreations of them or their work could only be used with permission and compensation. Another bill, AB 1836, would put contextual and creatives limits on the AI or digital use of deceased performers, from a Sidney Poitier to a Marilyn Monroe, Elvis, a Heath Ledger and many more. At its core, AB 1836 would make use of a dead star’s likeness and performance only allowable if the 21st century use is within the context of what the performer actually did when they were alive – – AKA no Jane Wyman and Marilyn tag-team wrestling.

    As Adam Schiff said today of the Generative AI Copyright Disclosure Act: “This is about respecting creativity in the age of AI and marrying technological progress with fairness.”

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    Dominic Patten

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  • Everything Everywhere All at Once Gets Its “Holy Shit” Awards Moment

    Everything Everywhere All at Once Gets Its “Holy Shit” Awards Moment

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    This awards season has been very long, and fairly consistent, but Saturday night still delivered a major turning point: The industry actually gave out a major award. We’d heard from the journalists who vote on the Critics Choice Awards and Golden Globes, but so far the major industry awards—BAFTA, SAG, the Oscars— had only announce their nominees. But on Saturday the Directors Guild of America gave us our first palpable sense of who Hollywood is getting behind for best picture of the year. The answer, after a long and winding three-hour-plus ceremony: Everything Everywhere All at Once.

    It’s not a huge shock, following the A24 miracle movie’s utter dominance at the Critics Choice Awards and its huge Oscar nomination tally of 11. But for a genre-mashing, boundary-defying, hot-dog-finger-wielding movie such as this, going all the way over the likes of Steven Spielberg and Top Gun: Maverick with a bunch of directors still speaks volumes. Early in the ceremony, host Judd Apatow perhaps set the tone by remarking that James Cameron wasn’t nominated by his peers for his technically masterful Avatar sequel, while the two men behind the film with “the dildo fight” were. Welcome to 2023.

    Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert were in attendance, as were their fellow nominees Spielberg, Maverick’s Joseph Kosinski, and Tár’s Todd Field. (Martin McDonagh, the fifth nominee, was absent.) Bleeding into Sunday’s BAFTA Awards, the event ended just in time for Kwan, Scheinert, and Field to hop on a plane to London, where they’re also competing, while Spielberg is flying out to Berlin where he’s being lauded with an Honorary Golden Bear. Yes, it is that time of year. But each got their moment first, as the DGA ceremony gives every nominee his own presentation. Highlights included Paul Thomas Anderson describing “drooling” over Tár and Jerry Bruckheimer very earnestly commending Kosinski, the director who too rarely gets credit for Maverick’s artistic achievements.  

    And then there’s Spielberg, who loomed over the night. This may be the end of the road for his Oscar campaign, despite The Fabelmans’ auspicious start in Toronto last fall. The film simply hasn’t connected on an industry level in the way his competition seems to have; remember, he’s not even a BAFTA nominee. It’s a strange dynamic when virtually everyone inside the DGA Ceremony at the Beverly Hilton, from the Daniels and Field to presenters like Anderson and Denis Villeneuve, all but worship at the legendary Spielberg’s feet from the stage, even as the voters prepare to reward someone different. The dynamic was eerily similar to last year, when Spielberg was nominated for West Side Story and lost to Jane Campion. 

    The DGA is typically a safer voting body than the Academy—going with 1917 over Parasite, say—which makes Everything Everywhere’s triumph here all the more notable. You might be tempted to point to Power of the Dog’s similar combo at this point in the game—DGA and Critics’ Choice wins, Oscar noms leader—and plead caution for calling this thing over. Of course, nothing is sure yet. But unlike the case of Power, Everything Everywhere is a SAG ensemble front-runner too; that mix of acting- and directing-branch support is rare and potent. And anyway, in the last 21 years, 20 DGA winners for best film have gone on to win the Oscar for best picture and/or director. Something big is almost certainly happening for this movie. 

    So when Kwan and Scheinert hit the stage, you can understand why the latter wrapped up his speech by saying, “​​Holy shit. This is crazy.” This was the moment the industry affirmed this little-film-that-could was the one to beat. The BAFTAs have a chance to lift the likes of Banshees and Tár, to puncture that scrappy A24 momentum; the producers’ guild weighs in next week, where Maverick faces its own last stand. But right now, it’s everything everywhere for Everything Everywhere. No sign, still, of that changing.

    Listen to Vanity Fair’s Little Gold Men podcast now.

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    David Canfield

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