Historically, this is our most accurate predicator, but not this decade. Over the last ten years (The Hurt Locker to Green Book), the DGA has predicted six of the last ten winners for Best Picture and nine of the last ten Best Director (the Oscars missed Ben Affleck). That's better than SAG's four of the last ten (they haven't predicted one since 2015) but worse than the PGA, which went eight of the last ten.
So, the question isn't so much "What is going to win?" as "Will the DGA agree with the PGA and give it to 1917?" I think it's pretty much in the bag for Sam Mendes for one reason: 1917 looks more like a film that wins the DGA than the PGA. The last two disagreements that the Directors had with the Producers were on The Revenant and Roma. 1917 has quite a few commonalities between those films, ranging from the kind of visceral director's vision it provides down to the fact that Sam Mendes is a previous winner just like Innaritu and Cuaron.
People are looking at the DGA to buck the tide turning towards 1917 by giving it to Bong Joon-Ho, but I think the moment they're looking for already passed when the Producer's Guild gave out their award. That was the moment where we might have seen if this was going to be a horserace had they given their award to Once Upon a Time... In Hollywood or Parasite. But they didn't.
Unanswerable question: had The Producer's Guild given their award to Roma and The Revenant instead of Green Book and The Big Short, would they have had a better chance of winning the Oscar? I think so.
If not Mendes, who?
Bong Joon-Ho. Working in his favor is the Neon's remarkable campaign and the fact that his film has already been picked up by HBO for a limited series with Adam McKay. There's no question who McKay is voting for in this race and certainly he will have friends. As we've learned, foreign-language films have won before as both Roma and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon taught us. Bong Joon-Ho's win might have more parallels with Ang Lee as both of them had to beat a Hollywood blockbuster sensation (Gladiator). It's still a bit difficult to see how Ang Lee managed to eek out a win that year over Ridley Scott and Steven Soderbergh. Perhaps it was just the "Wow" factor that won out or perhaps Ang Lee was a previous nominee for Sense and Sensibility who had made two subsequent films in the US before leaving. That does not describe Bong Joon-Ho. For Bong, the biggest thing going for him is the fact that Parasite has so many passionate supporters, he might just win the day.
This Oscar season is going so quickly that Quentin Tarantino's day in the sun as the front-runner seems ages ago. But no, it does not appear that QT will win this award. I've long suspected how much his fellow directors really like him. Do they even see him as a director or more of a writer? The fact that he's announced he will write novels in the near future says how he sees himself. Writer/Directors have certainly won this award in the past, in fact seven of the last ten winners wrote or co-wrote their films, for which Sam Mendes (and to a lesser extent Bong Joon-Ho would be closer in spirit). But none of them won Oscars for writing their scripts. The Coen Bros. would seem to be the closest parallel here.
Working for Martin Scorsese is the fact that he's Martin Scorsese. Working against him is the fact that he's seen as running third or even fourth in this race! That is not a good sign. That hasn't happened since... The Wolf of Wall Street? The DGA long finished voting when the news dropped that De Niro and DiCaprio would be starring together in the next Scorsese film. Had that news dropped earlier, all the fizz would have gone out of the champagne. No, this isn't his swan song. Marty + Bobby + Leo = Forever.
And finally, Taika Watiki. Did Fox Searchlight distribute the movie too soon? Or was an imaginary Hitler BFF too much for voters to stomach? Either way, he's a Kiwi comedic filmmaker who crossed over to this country in grand fashion (TV! Marvel movies! Star Wars TV!), made his labor of love, and beat out Noah Baumbach, Greta Gerwig, and Todd Phillips. He knows he's not going to win. He already has a follow-up movie in post-production (a Michael Fassbender sports comedy) with Thor 4 in the wings. "The Oscars of Jojo Rabbit" may not have happened and a grassroots campaign for Greta Gerwig may cost him his writing Oscar, but his consolation prize is a remarkable career.
***
Just for fun, let's do a quick thought experiment. We are basically waiting on the DGA and the BAFTAs to clear this race up. AT THIS POINT IN THE RACE, WHICH MOVIES WON:
THE PGA, SAG & GOLDEN GLOBE:
* Argo
THE PGA & GOLDEN GLOBE
* 12 Years a Slave
* The Artist
* Green Book
* La La Land
THE PGA & SAG
* Birdman
* The King's Speech
THE SAG & GOLDEN GLOBE
* American Hustle
* Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Nine movies. Six of them went on to win the Oscar. Three of them didn't. The three that didn't were American Hustle, La La Land, and Three Billboards... . Two of these three (American Hustle, Three Billboards...) were never expected to win the DGA Award. 1917 mostly is.
Like La La Land, 1917 has the PGA and the Golden Globe. So... to predict that 1917 isn't going to continue its momentum to win Best Picture is to expect an upset of La La Land proportions. Or (don’t laugh) Crash.
DGA Prediction (and a quick overview of 1917's chances)
For the films of 2019
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