Everything Everywhere All at Once gets another Oscar boost at directors guild awards

It's Everything Everywhere All at Once's universe, and we're just living in it.

The acclaimed sci-fi comedy has earned another boost in the 2023 Oscar race after Saturday's Directors Guild of America Awards, where filmmakers Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert took the top prize of best directing for a feature film.

This confirms the Daniels are the frontrunners to win Best Director at the Academy Awards. After all, since 2014, all but one DGA winner went on to win the equivalent directing Oscar. Everything Everywhere is also considered the frontrunner to win Best Picture at the Oscars, having previously scored victories at the Critics' Choice Awards and Gotham Independent Film Awards and led the Academy Award nominations. So it's now an even stronger candidate, although the film that wins Best Director doesn't always win Best Picture.

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The Daniels' DGA win is also yet another blow to Steven Spielberg's The Fabelmans. The director's semi-autobiographical drama was once viewed as the Best Picture frontrunner, but it has since seemingly lost that momentum to Everything Everywhere after numerous key setbacks, including a poor showing at the British Academy Film Awards. But many experts thought Spielberg would still win the Best Director Oscar, even if Everything Everywhere won Best Picture. After the DGAs, though, it's looking increasingly likely that The Fabelmans will walk away from the Oscars empty-handed, a surprising reversal of fortune for a film that entered the race so strong in September with a top Toronto International Film Festival victory.

With only a few weeks remaining until the Academy Awards, the key precursors to watch next are the Producers Guild of America Awards on Feb. 25 and the Screen Actors Guild Awards on Feb. 26. Should Everything Everywhere score wins at one or both of those ceremonies, especially at the PGAs, the Best Picture race may be all over, and the time for another film to have a late surge is ticking away.