Tom Hooper wins the DGA Award for The King's Speech

The Director's Guild of America announced the recipients of their awards last night, with English filmmaker Tom Hooper taking home the DGA Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Feature Film for his work on the acclaimed period drama The King's Speech.

It was believed that The Social Network's David Fincher was a strong favourite to receive the accolade, particularly after his success at the Golden Globes earlier this month, while Hooper also fended off competition from fellow nominees Darren Aronofsky (Black Swan), Christopher Nolan (Inception) and David O. Russell (The Fighter).

It is very rare that the winner of the DGA's top prize doesn't go on to claim the Best Director gong at the Academy Awards (in fact, it's only happened on six occasions to date), and Hooper must now be considered favourite to collect the Oscar. The King's Speech received the most nominations with twelve including Best Picture, and February 27th is starting to look like it could be a very successful night indeed for the British film.

Check out the full list of winners from last night's DGA Awards evening...

Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Feature Film
Tom Hooper (The King’s Speech)

Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Documentary
Charles Ferguson (Inside Job)

Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Movies for Television and Mini-Series
Mick Jackson (Temple Grandin, HBO)

Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Dramatic Series
Martin Scorsese (Boardwalk Empire, HBO)

Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Comedy Series
Michael Spiller (Modern Family, “Halloween”, ABC)

Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Musical Variety
Glenn Weiss (64th Annual Tony Awards, CBS)

Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Reality Programs
Eytan Keller (The Next Iron Chef, “Episode #301”, Food Network)

Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Daytime Serials
Larry Carpenter (One Life to Live, “Episode #10,687”, ABC)

Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Children’s Programs
Eric Bross (The Boy Who Cried Werewolf, Nickelodeon)

Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Commercials
Stacy Wall (Imperial Woodpecker, Nike)

We are currently running an in-depth tw-part filmmaker's profile on the career of Tom Hooper, which you can read here.