DGA Awards 2018: Full Winners List, from Guillermo del Toro to Jordan Peele

Guillermo del Toro took the top prize at the Directors Guild of America Awards for “The Shape of Water,” adding to an award season haul that already includes a Golden Globe, a PGA Award, and multiple critics honors. His 1962 romantic fable is also up for 12 BAFTA Awards and 13 Oscars, and del Toro is expected to succeed Damien Chazelle as Best Director at both upcoming ceremonies.

Chazelle presented del Toro with his DGA Award. “Inclusion is necessary, if not for any other reason [but] for the fact that we are not hearing the stories that need to be heard,” said del Toro. “If films are good — and they’ve been so great so far — can you imagine if we hear 100 percent, instead of 50 percent of the voices that need and must be heard?”

Since the first DGA Awards in 1948, only seven individuals have won the Feature Film Director statuette without then triumphing at the Academy Awards.

Aside from Christopher Nolan (“Dunkirk”), the remaining contenders for the DGA trophy — Greta Gerwig (“Lady Bird”), Martin McDonagh (“Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri”), and Jordan Peele (“Get Out”) — were all first-time nominees.

Absent from these ongoing campaigns is of course Harvey Weinstein, who resigned from the 16,000-plus-member DGA in late November, about six weeks after expulsion proceedings were initiated for his alleged acts of sexual misconduct. “[Men] must speak up,” said DGA president Thomas Schlamme, elected in June 2017. “This is not just a fight by women for women. They didn’t create this problem. It’s a fight for everyone for a better world for everyone.” In his address, Schlamme also addressed the need to put more minorities and women — who make just five percent of films in the director’s chair.

Read More: Here’s What the Directors Guild Award Nominations Mean for the Oscar Race

Schlamme’s frequent collaborator, Aaron Sorkin, is another director celebrating his premiere nomination tonight; he vied for First-Time Feature Film Director for “Molly’s Game,” a drama that already earned him an Oscar nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay. Of their “The West Wing” collaboration, Schlamme said, “The show centered on a fictitious president who in all of his strengths and weaknesses, always tried to find the better angels in himself and others. Tragically, that doesn’t seem to reflect the current occupant of the West Wing. So I will continue to model myself after the fictitious one.”

Niki Caro (“The Zookeeper’s Wife”) accepted the evening’s first award for her work directing the Netflix children’s program “Anne with an E.” It was the two-year anniversary of her father’s death, and Caro admitted, “He would say the DGA is a bloody great organization.”

Additional television victors included Reed Morano (“The Handmaid’s Tale”), Jean-Marc Vallée (“Big Little Lies”), Beth McCarthy-Miller (“Veep”), Don Roy King (“Saturday Night Live”), and Brian Smith (“Masterchef”).

Another winner was Glenn Weiss, who oversaw Envelopegate at the 2017 Oscars. Once “La La Land” was mistakenly named Best Picture, Weiss recalled thinking, “I don’t want the headline the next day to be, ‘Something bad happened, and they tried to cover it up.’ So in my mind, we needed to be transparent, we needed to show what was going on out there” at the Dolby Theatre.

“The Shape of Water” co-stars Sally Hawkins and Richard Jenkins presented del Toro with his DGA feature film nomination medallion. “It was a movie that was full of many reasons why it shouldn’t work, and those are the reason why it works,” said del Toro. “For you to tell me today to continue doing these insane fables that I’ve been making for 25 years means the world.”

He also choked back tears while dedicating the honor to his parents, who live in his native Mexico: “Thank you dad, thank you mom. You believe in me, in my monsters, all the time.” On January 20, del Toro missed the PGA Awards to tend to his ailing father.

Peele’s medallion came with a standing ovation after “Get Out” villainess Catherine Keener got the giggles while roasting co-star Bradley Whitford. “The horror genre is my favorite form,” he said. “[Horror] hasn’t gotten the respect I think it deserves. Horror is a genre that gives us a way to deal with our fears collectively. When a bunch of strangers go into a theater to laugh, cry, scream together, something cathartic happens, something important happens…The fact that I had never seen a film that addresses the fears of the modern African American experience was a signal to me that the conversation about race was broken.” When Peele later won First-Time Feature Film Director, he did away with his bowtie mid-speech, and revealed he decided to quit acting when offered the role of the poop emoji in “The Emoji Movie.”

Nolan also earned a standing ovation; his medallion’s presenter was his wife and producing partner since 1990, Emma Thomas. “I now have four of these,” he said. “We have four kids, so if I kick the bucket tomorrow, there will be no arguing over DGA souvenirs, which is great.”

Best Supporting Actor Oscar favorite Sam Rockwell gave McDonagh his medallion. “I thought being a film director was all about shouting through bullhorns at people and being a bully, generally, until I found out you could just have your first AD do that,” quipped the Brit, who also wrote his film. With more earnestness, he admitted, “If there are any girls or boys out there who think they’re too quiet or too shy, or even too vaguely alcoholic to be a film director, don’t worry about it, because apart from having to get up early in the mornings, directing isn’t as frightening as you might think.”

“Lady Bird” writer-director Greta Gerwig got her medallion from Saoirse Ronan. “The people in this room, your films have broken me apart and put me back together again, and healed me,” Gerwig said. “Storytellers are healers, and I am so grateful to be included among you.” After spending most of her speech leaning down into the microphone, Gerwig stretched out her spine and concluded, “I’m tall and I make movies, thank you.”

Hosting duties fell to Apatow, he believed, because, “They wanted someone that they knew would not get in trouble before the event…’Who is the least sexy guy in this business? Who are we sure had no sex — consensual or any other kinds?” He also theorized that Mel Gibson is a surprise benefactor of the #MeToo and Time’s Up movements (“It’s so much harder when you’re the only asshole in town, but when everyone’s an asshole, suddenly you have some cover.”)

Apatow ended his set by waxing facetious about “the most politically correct film of all time,” with “Kevin Spacey starring as a trans veteran battling cancer. It would be directly by Brett Ratner, from a script by Woody Allen. With a soundtrack by R. Kelly, catering by Mario Batali, Bill Cosby will play the president. You have that dentist who shot the lion in there. Jared Fogle from Subway will lose weight to play a part. It’ll premiere on Matt Lauer’s YouTube channel.”

The writer and lead of Apatow’s 2015 film, “Trainwreck,” Amy Schumer, casually improvised a sincere and poignant speech that touched on both today’s headlines and longtime injustices that the industry is just beginning to address. “We need to promote women and people of color to the very top positions of power, and we need to do it yesterday,” said Schumer, who lost a DGA Award at the Beverly Hilton ceremony for directing herself in “The Leather Special.” 

She continued, “I know you’re like, ‘Amy, why are you saying this? Shut the fuck up.’ Because I’m up here, and I can and it’s all I’m thinking about right now. I’m thinking about the survivors that have been coming out, and Uma, and everybody, and I’m so grateful to them and proud of them.” (In The New York Times, Uma Thurman came forward February 3 with both sexual assault allegations against Weinstein, and a claim that an oversight by her “Kill Bill” series director, Quentin Tarantino, led to her to a life-threatening car crash in Mexico. Prior to hosting the DGA Awards, Apatow criticized Tarantino on Twitter.)

Then Schumer said, “I’m thinking also about the [fact that] 50 percent of the people who buy movie tickets are people of color, and they’re so crazy-underserved, because they people with the taste who are making things at the top are all white…Children deserve to be able to see someone that looks like them in movies and on television.”

Read on for the full list of winners.

Feature Film Director

Guillermo del Toro, “The Shape of Water” (Fox Searchlight Pictures)

Greta Gerwig, “Lady Bird” (A24)

Martin McDonagh, “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” (Fox Searchlight Pictures)

Christopher Nolan, “Dunkirk” (Warner Bros.)

Jordan Peele, “Get Out” (Universal Pictures)

 

First-Time Feature Film Director

Geremy Jasper, “Patti Cake$” (Fox Searchlight Pictures)

William Oldroyd, “Lady Macbeth” (Roadside Attractions)

Jordan Peele, “Get Out” (Universal Pictures)

Taylor Sheridan, “Wind River” (Acacia Entertainment)

Aaron Sorkin, “Molly’s Game” (STX Entertainment)

 

Dramatic Series

The Duffer Brothers, “Stranger Things,” “Chapter Nine: The Gate” (Netflix)

Reed Morano, “The Handmaid’s Tale,” “Offred” (Hulu)

Jeremy Podeswa, “Game of Thrones,” “The Dragon and the Wolf” (HBO)

Matt Shakman, “Game of Thrones,” “The Spoils of War” (HBO)

Alan Taylor, “Game of Thrones,” “Beyond the Wall” (HBO)

 

Comedy Series

Aziz Ansari, “Master of None,” “The Thief” (Netflix)

Mike Judge, “Silicon Valley,” “Server Error” (HBO)

Melina Matsoukas, “Master of None,” “Thanksgiving” (Netflix)

Beth McCarthy-Miller, “Veep,”  “Chicklet” (HBO)

Amy Sherman-Palladine, “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” (Amazon)

 

Movies for Television and Miniseries

Scott Frank, “Godless,” (Netflix) 

Barry Levinson, “The Wizard of Lies,” (HBO)

Kyra Sedgwick, “Story of a Girl” (Lifetime)

Jean-Marc Vallée, “Big Little Lies,” (HBO)

George C. Wolfe, “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks,” (HBO)

 

Variety/Talk/News/Sports – Regularly Scheduled Programming

Andre Allen, “Full Frontal with Samantha Bee,” “#2061,” (TBS)

Paul G. Casey, “Real Time with Bill Maher,”#1527,” (HBO)

Jim Hoskinson, “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” “Joe Biden/Elton John,” (CBS)

Don Roy King, “Saturday Night Live,” “Host: Jimmy Fallon” (NBC)

Paul Pennolino, “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver,” “French Elections” (HBO)

 

Variety/Talk/News/Sports – Specials

Stan Lathan, “Dave Chappelle: The Age of Spin,” (Netflix)

Linda Mendoza, “Kennedy Center Mark Twain Prize Honoring David Letterman,” (PBS)

Paul Pennolino, “Full Frontal with Samantha Bee Presents Not the White House Correspondents’ Dinner,” (TBS)

Amy Schumer, “Amy Schumer: The Leather Special,” (Netflix)

Glenn Weiss, “The 89th Annual Academy Awards,” (ABC)

 

Reality Programs

Hisham Abed, “Encore!” “Pilot,” (ABC)

John Gonzalez, “Live PD,” “Episode 50,” (A&E)

Brian Smith, “MasterChef,” “Vegas Deluxe & Oyster Shucks” (FOX)

Adam Vetri, “Dare to Live,” “Chainsmokers,” (MTV)

Kent Weed, “Spartan: The Ultimate Team Challenge,” “Season Premiere” (NBC)

 

Children’s Programs

Niki Caro, “Anne with an E,” “Your Will Shall Decide Your Destiny” (Netflix)

Benjamin Lehmann, “The Magical Wand Chase: A Sesame Street Special,” (HBO)

Lily Mariye, “Just Add Magic, “Just Add Meddling” (Amazon)

Alison McDonald, “An American Girl Story: Summer Camp, Friends for Life,” (Amazon)

Matthew O’Neill and Thalia Soldi, “15: A Quinceañera Story: Zoey,” (HBO)

 

Commercials

Martin de Thurah (Epoch Films), “Festival, StubHub – Goodby Silverstein,” “Machines, StubHub – Goodby Silverstein,” “Mad World, WealthSimple – WealthSimple In House” 

Alma Har’el (Epoch Films), “Love Without Bias, P&G”

Hoffman/Metoyer (MJZ), “Anthem, KitchenAid – DigitasLBi,” “Go Further, Ford – GTB”

Miles Jay (SMUGGLER), “Alive, Bose QuietComfort 35 Headphones – Grey,” “Calling JohnMalkovich.com, Squarespace – John X Hannes,” “Who is JohnMalkovich.com?, Squarespace – John X Hannes”

Isaiah Seret (Biscuit Filmworks), “Growing Up, Samsung Galaxy – Wieden + Kennedy Portland,” “I Love You, Samsung Great – Wieden + Kennedy Portland,” “Never Too Composed, Kohler – DDB Chicago”

 

Documentary 

Ken Burns & Lynn Novick, “The Vietnam War,” (PBS)

Bryan Fogel, “Icarus,” (Netflix)

Matthew Heineman, “City of Ghosts,” (Amazon Studios)

Steve James, “Abacus: Small Enough to Jail,” (PBS)

Errol Morris, “Wormwood,” (Netflix)

 

Frank Capra Achievement Award

Dwight Williams

 

Franklin J. Schaffner Achievement Award

Jim Tanker

 

Honorary Lifetime Member Award

Michael Apted

 

Sign Up: Stay on top of the latest breaking film and TV news! Sign up for our Email Newsletters here.