As expected, Alfonso Cuaron won at the Directors Guild Awards tonight, solidifying Gravity's frontrunner status at the Oscars, while The Square won for Best Documentary Feature. Historically, the DGA in its 65 year history has nearly always predicted the Best Picture winner (90% of the time actually), and Gravity's win combined with the PGA win last week would seem to launch it into first place. But since this year is a three way race, with two other very strong movies in the hunt- 12 Years a Slave and American Hustle- there may be time for things to shift before Oscar voting begins on February 14th. The smart money would be to bet on Gravity at this point, but with the guilds splitting up all over the place, the BAFTA awards may become the most important precursor now, which take place on February 16th. Because it happens during voting, that show will tell us which film has the momentum at that point, and since Gravity and 12 Years a Slave are both considered "British" productions, there's no telling what they'll prefer. I think 12 Years a Slave is still very much in contention here, as that PGA tie showed there's quite a lot of passion for it. But maybe Gravity is too big to be stopped? Stay tuned, as the most wide open Oscar race in years continues to play out.
