Ben Affleck Wins 65th Annual Directors Guild of America Award

The winners of the Directors Guild of America Outstanding Directorial Achievement Awards for 2012 were announced on Saturday evening during the 65th Annual DGA Awards Dinner at the Ray Dolby Ballroom at Hollywood & Highland in Los Angeles. Ben Affleck won the DGA’s Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Feature Film for ARGO. Director/producer/actor Kelsey Grammer hosted the ceremony before an audience of more than 1,600 guests.

What effect does Affleck’s DGA win have on the Oscars? The Hollywood Reporter’s Awards Season analyst, Scott Feinberg, explains:

In so doing, it completed a sweep of the top prizes of all of the season’s major precursor awards — it had already won the Critics’ Choice Award for best picture (and best director), the Golden Globe Award for motion best picture drama (and best director), the Producers Guild of America Award for best produced picture and the Screen Actors Guild Award for best ensemble — and it now heads into the final round of Oscar voting, which begins Feb. 8, with undeniable momentum. No film ever has been awarded the top prizes of all of the aforementioned precursor groups — and only one film, Apollo 13 (1995), has won the top prizes of the PGA, SAG and DGA — and not won the best picture Oscar. (Braveheart won Best Picture).

Only one film in the past 80 years — Driving Miss Daisy (1989) — ever has won the best picture Oscar without also receiving a best director Oscar nomination.

There is still a lot of time left for anything to happen before Oscar Sunday, Feb. 24th. Final balloting will begin on Friday, February 8, at 8 a.m. PT, and close on Tuesday, February 19, at 5 p.m. PT. ARGO’s momentum may dwindle by the time voting closes, giving a boost to the other Best Picture nominees. It’s the stuff of which movies are made of, a nail-biter up until the last envelope is opened and the iconic words “And the Oscar goes to” are read.

Based on real events, the dramatic thriller ARGO chronicles the life-or-death covert operation to rescue six Americans, which unfolded behind the scenes of the Iran hostage crisis, focusing on the little-known role that the CIA and Hollywood played—information that was not declassified until many years after the event.

Academy Award® winner Ben Affleck (“The Town,” “Good Will Hunting”) directs and stars in the film, which is produced by Oscar® nominee Grant Heslov (“Good Night, and Good Luck.”), Affleck, and Oscar® winner George Clooney (“Syriana”).

Affleck directed the film from a screenplay by Chris Terrio, based on a selection from The Master of Disguise by Antonio J. Mendez and the Wired Magazine article “The Great Escape,” by Joshuah Bearman.