'Handmaid's Tale,' 'Veep,' 'Big Little Lies'

DGA Honors 'Handmaid's Tale,' 'Veep,' 'Big Little Lies'

02.05.2018

Hulu's The Handmaid's Tale as well as HBO's Veep and Big Little Lies were the big winners at the Directors Guild of America awards handed out Saturday night in Los Angeles.

Cinematographer Reed Morano was honored for her direction of The Handmaid's Tale pilot, titled "Offred." Since working on the first three episodes of the Emmy-winning drama, which is due to return for season two in April, Morano has gone on to direct I Think We're Alone Now, which opened at Sundance last month. Morano beat out directors for three separate episodes of HBO's Game of Thrones as well as the Duffer Brothers for Netflix's Stranger Things.

Morano also won the Emmy for best direction of a television drama in September.

RELATED: DGA Nominates 'Game of Thrones,' 'Handmaid's Tale,' 'Stranger Things'

Beth McCarthy-Miller received her fourth DGA award (and 12th nomination) for directing the "Chicklet" episode of Veep, starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus. McCarthy-Miller prevailed over Azisz Ansari for Netflix's Master of None, Amy Sherman-Palladino for Golden Globe-winner The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Mike Judge for Silicon Valley.

And Jean-Marc Vallee won for his direction of Big Little Lies, starring Reese Witherspoon, Nicole Kidman, Alexander Skarsgard, Laura Dern and Shailene Woodley. Also nominated in this category were Barry Levinson for HBO's Wizard of Lies, Scott Frank for Netflix's Godless, Kyra Sedgwick for Lifetime's Story of a Girl and George C. Wolfe for HBO's The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.

Brian Smith also won for his direction of Fox's reality competition series, MasterChef, produced by Endemol Shine North America, after being nominated four previous times.

Seven-time Emmy winner Don Roy King won the news/talk/sports/variety category for directing an episode of NBC's Saturday Night Live hosted by former SNL star Jimmy Fallon. King has been nominated for 12 DGA awards and won three other times, also for directing SNL.

On the specials side, Glenn Weiss won for his direction of the 89th Academy Awards, which now are mostly known for the mishap over the naming of the Best Picture winner, which presenters Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway initially read to be La La Land but ultimately went to the correct winner, Moonlight. Weiss has been nominated for 14 DGA awards and won seven prior to this one.

Finally, Niki Caro won in the children's programming category for her direction of Netflix's Anne with an E.

On the film side, Guillermo del Toro won for his direction of Oscar front-runner, The Shape of Water, while Jordan Peele won the first-time film director award for Get Out. The Shape of Water is nominated for 13 Academy Awards, while Get Out is nominated for four, including best picture, director, actor and screenplay.