Oscar Predictions: Best Director — DGA Gives Boost to James Mangold, With Payal Kapadia Surging

Variety Awards Circuit section is the home for all awards news and related content throughout the year, featuring the following: the official predictions for the upcoming Oscars, Emmys, Grammys and Tony Awards ceremonies, curated by Variety senior awards editor Clayton Davis. The prediction pages reflect the current standings in the race and do not reflect personal preferences for any individual contender. As other formal (and informal) polls suggest, competitions are fluid and subject to change based on buzz and events. Predictions are updated every Thursday.

Best Director Commentary (Updated Jan. 9, 2025): It will be a nail-biter.

The Directors Guild of America (DGA) has revealed its nominees for the upcoming 2025 awards, and it’s a high-stakes Oscar season, proven by the notable snubs and surprises. The five filmmakers contending for the prestigious DGA Award for Directorial Achievement in Feature Film are the following: Jacques Audiard (“Emilia Pérez”), Sean Baker (“Anora”), Edward Berger (“Conclave”), Brady Corbet (“The Brutalist”) and
James Mangold (“A Complete Unknown”).

It’s a category entirely of first-time DGA nominees. Most notably, this is significant for Mangold, who nabbed the first of his career for the Bob Dylan biopic “A Complete Unknown,” which continues to pick up momentum coming after its haul at the SAG Awards noms. After helming films like “Walk the Line” (2005), “Logan” (2017) and “Ford v Ferrari” (2019), this piece of notoriety seemed long overdue.

This is also huge for German auteur Berger, who missed out on a director nom for “All Quiet on the Western Front” (2022) despite winning the BAFTA Award for directing. Now, with the religious thriller “Conclave,” he seems poised to land his first career nom.

Among the notable omissions were the two directors of the biggest blockbusters of the year — Jon M. Chu for the musical “Wicked” and Denis Villeneuve for the sci-fi sequel “Dune: Part Two” — offering considerable blows to their awards campaigns. But will this year also leave out the women directors?

Following the much-discussed Oscar snub of Greta Gerwig for “Barbie” in 2023, it’s another stark reminder of the challenges women continue to face in maintaining a steady presence in Oscar history.

Looking at the Academy’s nearly century-long track record, the statistics are telling. Since the inception of the Oscars, 601 films have been nominated for best picture, but only 22 of those were directed by women — a figure that underscores the ongoing disparity. So, which female auteurs might break through this year in a director lineup? We begin with the two that were nominated for the Golden Globe — Coralie Fargeat (“The Substance”) and Payal Kapadia (“All We Imagine as Light”).

Kapadia is another hopeful in the running, whose film has drawn acclaim since premiering at Cannes, where it won the runner-up prize. Although India’s selection committee did not submit it as the country’s official entry for international feature, distributors Janus Films and Sideshow have mounted a significant campaign for Kapadia, with their strategy mirroring Justine Triet’s “Anatomy of a Fall,” which won the Oscar for original screenplay despite not being chosen by France for the international feature category. “All We Imagine as Light” has picked up considerable heat over the last few weeks, which could be this year’s “Triangle of Sadness” (2022), landing best picture, director and original screenplay nominations. Not a bad day at all. If nominated, Kapadia would be the second Indian, after M. Night Shyamalan for “The Sixth Sense” (1999), and the first Indian woman nominated for directing.

Fargeat, whose genre-defying horror film “The Substance” has captivated audiences. Though genre bias and the film’s graphic content pose substantial obstacles, Fargeat’s work offers an arresting vision that challenges traditional cinematic boundaries. Her imaginative storytelling and daring visuals make “The Substance” a unique, although polarizing, contender that some argue would be a refreshing addition to the Best Director race.

The 97th Oscars will be held on Sunday, March 2. All movie listings, titles, distributors, and credited artisans are not final and are subject to change.