Directors Guild Recognizes Taika Waititi with Nomination, Snubs Greta Gerwig

And the awards season news continues to pile up in its truncated timetable this year. Just earlier today, we learned what movies the Jojo Rabbit.

Waititi is a genre fan favorite in recent years after helming the groovy Hunt for Wilderpeople, it was his latest effort that included him personally playing a comical, imaginary version of Adolf Hitler that finally got him the DGA’s attention.

Waititi s a full list of nominees who also include Parasite.

Similarly, Bong’s nomination is a happy precedent or the eclectic genre director. Bong has previously been known for his sci-fi and horror hybrids like Snowpiercer, Okja, and The Host, and is now earning international acclaim for his more straight ahead “tragi-comedy,” Parasite. Nevertheless, it is rare for a foreign language film director to be nominated in the Best Director category by the DGA or especially the Academy of Motion Picture Art and Sciences.

But while the DGA’s recognition of both Waititi and Bong feel like breakthroughs for major talent, the DGA noticeably did not nominate any women for its top prize, despite the best movies of 2019. Nonetheless, all five DGA nominees are men, just as the Hollywood Foreign Press Association failed to recognize any women directors this year.

With that said, Alma Har’el and Melina Matsoukas were recognized as outstanding first-time directors, as each was nominated in that category for Joker has proven more divisive, and yet the movie was nominated for Best Director by the Globes. But the DGA, with its 17,000-plus , remains a better prognosticator for how the Oscars vote than the 90-member journalist Globes.

The full list of nominees is below.

OUTSTANDING DIRECTORIAL ACHIEVEMENT IN THEATRICAL FEATURE FILM

Bong Joon Ho, Parasite

Sam Mendes, 1917

Martin Scorsese, The Irishman

Quentin Tarantino, Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood

Taika Waititi, Jojo Rabbit

OUTSTANDING DIRECTORIAL ACHIEVEMENT OF A FIRST-TIME FEATURE FILM DIRECTOR

Matt Diop, Atlantics

Alma Har’El, Honey Boy

Melina Matsoukas, Queen & Slim

Tyler Nilson and Michael Schwartz, The Peanut Butter Falcon

Joe Talbot, The Last Black Man in San Francisco

David Crow is the Film Section Editor at Den of Geek. He’s also a member of the Online Film Critics Society. Read more of his work here. You can follow him on Twitter @DCrowsNest.