Awards season heated up today with the announcement of the nominees for the Directors Guild of America Award.

DGA President Taylor Hackford announced the five nominees for the DGA Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Feature Film for 2011 this morning, and the five people nominated represent an interesting spectrum of film industry veterans, legends, upstarts and newcomers.

"The directors nominated this year for the Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Feature Film Award have each demonstrated an inspired command of the medium.  The fact that their prodigious talents have been recognized by their peers is the highest honor a director can achieve," said Hackford.  "I offer my most sincere congratulations to each of the nominees."

Competing for the DGA Award in 2012 are Woody Allen (Midnight in Paris), David Fincher (Girl With the Dragon Tattoo), Michel Hazanavicius (The Artist), Alexander Payne (The Descendants) and Martin Scorsese (Hugo). Meanwhile, expected favourites for the award, Steven Spielberg (War Horse) and Terrence Malick (Tree of Life) didn't get a nomination.

So why is the DGA Award so important? But there have been only six exceptions where ther winner hasn't gone on to win the Best Director Oscar:

• 1968: Anthony Harvey won the DGA Award for The Lion in Winter while Carol Reed took home the Oscar for Oliver!
• 1972: Francis Ford Coppola received the DGA's nod for The Godfather while the Academy selected Bob Fosse for Cabaret.
• 1985: Steven Spielberg received his first DGA Award for The Color Purple while the Oscar went to Sydney Pollack for Out of Africa.
• 1995: Ron Howard was chosen by the DGA for his direction of Apollo 13 while Academy voters selected Mel Gibson for Braveheart.
• 2000: Ang Lee won the DGA Award for his direction of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon while Steven Soderbergh won the Academy Award for Traffic.
• 2002: Rob Marshall won the DGA Award for Chicago while Roman Polanski received the Academy Award for The Pianist.

So unless the Oscar voters go really off script, Allen, Fincher, Hazanavicius, Payne and Scorses are the likely Oscar contenders for Best Director.

The winner will be named at the 64th Annual DGA Awards Dinner on Saturday, January 28, 2012, at the Grand Ballroom at Hollywood and Highland.

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