Ben Afflecks DGA Award win for Argo prompts Oscars speculation

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And Rian Johnson takes home a TV award for Breaking Bad

Ben Affleck did not get a nod for Best Director in the 2013 Oscar nominations , but that hasn’t stopped him snaffling industry awards for based-on-fact CIA caper Argo .

Following the film’s triumph at the Screen Actors Guild Awards , Affleck has now collected the DGA Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Feature Film.

In the years that the Director's Guild of America prize has been handed out since 1948, only six winners (including Affleck) have failed to subsequently take home the Best Director Oscar.

This latest trophy has left some commentators to speculate that Argo is now the front runner for the Best Picture award at the Oscars. If it does win that particular accolade, it will be only one of three films to do so without getting a directing nomination.

Elsewhere, Rian Johnson ( Looper , Brick ) won the DGA Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Dramatic Series for an episode of Breaking Bad , while Jay Roach took the Movies For Television and Mini-Series award for Game Change .

Lena Dunham picked up the Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Comedy Series award for the pilot of Girls .

The Oscars will be handed out on 24 February 2013.

Matt Maytum
Matt Maytum

Matt Maytum is the former Editor of Total Film magazine. Over the past decade, Matt has worked in various roles for TF online and in print, including at GamesRadar+. Bucket-list-ticking career highlights have included reporting from the set of Tenet and Avengers: Infinity War, as well as covering Comic-Con, TIFF and the Sundance Film Festival.