Slumdog's Danny Boyle Wins DGA Award

• Feb 2, 2009 01:59 PM ET
• by Joyce Eng

Danny Boyle

Notch another one for Slumdog Millionaire.

The runaway hit cemented its status as Oscar frontrunner with another key precursor win, this time for helmer Danny Boyle at the Directors Guild of America Awards. Boyle was singled out for outstanding directorial achievement in a feature film, besting David Fincher (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button), Ron Howard (Frost/Nixon), Christopher Nolan (The Dark Knight) and Gus Van Sant (Milk).

He'll go toe-to-toe with all of them except for Nolan at the Academy Awards again (The Reader's Stephen Daldry is the other Oscar nominee). Boyle's win bodes well for Oscar glory as the DGAs have only mismatched with Oscar winners six times in 60 years. The last time was six years ago when The Pianist's Roman Polanski won the Oscar over the DGAs' choice of Rob Marshall (Chicago).

On the TV side, The Office edged out 30 Rock, for once, as Paul Feig won comedy honors. The Wire's Dan Attias won in the drama category, while Recount's Jay Roach topped John Adams' Tom Hooper in the TV movie category. America's Next Top Model clinched its first industry award in the reality race for Tony Croll, and Brent "Bucky" Gunts won in musical variety for the Opening Ceremony of the Beijing Olympics.

Other winners include Ari Folman (Waltz with Bashir) in documentary, Peter Thwaites for commercials, Amy Schatz for Classical Baby (I'm Grown Up Now) — The Poetry Show in children's programming, and Larry Carpenter (One Life to Live) in daytime.

Film critic Roger Ebert received the DGA Honorary Life Member Award for his "outstanding creative achievement or contribution to the guild or the profession of directing."