DGA Nominations Redeem ‘The Bear’ Season 3 — and Provide Insight on Tight Documentary Feature Race
As winter awards season has kicked into full gear, it already seems like voters on the television side of things are looking toward the past more so than anticipating what new series will be feted in the next year.
A look at the nominations for the DGA Awards 2025 show that members of the Directors Guild are still keen on shows like “Shōgun,” “Ripley,” and the 96th Oscars, which all won the Emmys for Directing last year. Same goes for “The Bear” and “Saturday Night Live,” in the Comedy and Variety Series categories, respectively, though this time for episodes from the Emmy winners’ latest seasons (the guild awards and the Emmys abide by different eligibility windows.)
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The DGA’s recognition of the third season of the Chicago-set FX series is particularly notable, as the sentiment coming out of the 2024 Emmys, where “The Bear” broke a record for most wins, yet lost Outstanding Comedy Series, is that the most recent episodes soured voters on the idea that the show was anywhere close to being a comedy. Yet “The Bear” earned three nominations from its peers in the Directors Guild.
Furthermore, star Ayo Edebiri’s directorial debut “Napkins,” centered on the character Tina, played by fellow Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series Emmy winner Liza Colón-Zayas, has been the widely agreed upon highlight of “The Bear” Season 3. The DGA nomination is a good early sign that the actress could break into a new Emmys category come September.
Maybe the most predictive aspect of the DGA Awards TV nominations is the Limited Series category, though pardon the pun referencing a fellow nominee, but the three nods for “The Penguin” should come with a “Disclaimer.” There have already been plenty of comments from executive producer Matt Reeves and showrunner Lauren LeFranc anticipating a greenlight for a second season of “The Batman” spinoff. As exhibited by current Drama Series nominees “Shōgun” and “True Detective: Night Country,” which both started as limited series, a category change seems imminent for “The Penguin” by the time Emmys campaigning begins in March.
As for nominations on the film side, the DGA did already announce their Documentary nominations, which recognized projects that all made the Oscars shortlist. Though last year’s DGA nominations only had two films overlap with nominees that the Academy’s Documentary branch chose to honor, the eventual DGA Award winner Mstyslav Chernov also won the Oscar for his film “20 Days in Mariupol.” Sundance jury winners “Porcelain War” and “Sugarcane” seem the most likely Oscar nominees of the bunch, with “Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat” and “Hollywoodgate” seen more as dark horses in the awards race.
At this point, it seems like only one Netflix film will nab an Oscar nomination for Best Documentary Feature, despite the streaming service having three films on the shortlist that have all won major awards. “Daughters,” Netflix’s sole DGA nominee in the Documentary category, is an undeniably strong contender, as the film won Festival Favorite at Sundance 2024. But the Academy tends to have more of an international taste than the guild, so many see “The Remarkable Life of Ibelin,” a Norwegian documentary currently streaming on Netflix, as the one to make the final cut.
The rest of the film nominations for the DGA Awards 2025 will be announced on Wednesday, January 8.
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