Bradley Cooper Snubbed By the Directors Guild of America but Picks Up a SAG Nod for Best Actor for MAESTRO

Bradley Cooper Misses DGA Nod but Gets Best Actor Nom from SAG

Bradley Cooper had both a good day and a bad day today when considering that he received a Best Actor nod from the Screen Actors Guild but he failed to receive a nom from the Directors Guild of America.

At one point last year, it almost felt like two Oscar nods were guaranteed for Bradley Cooper: One for his work in front of the camera and another for behind it for the new Netflix drama about Leonard Bernstein, Maestro. At this particular juncture, things look really good in terms of Cooper receiving an Academy Award nomination for his brilliant acting in Maestro. However with the Directors Guild of America revealing their nominations today, Cooper was suspiciously absent from the list of directing contenders. The DGA chose, instead, to honor directors other than Cooper with nods which makes the actor’s chances of winning an Academy Award for Best Director very slim at this particular point in time.

It seems that pretty much the whole list of Directors Guild of America nominations feels like a bunch of pretty obvious contenders. Even if Cooper was included in the top 5 candidates by the DGA, it would have felt just. However, Greta Gerwig directed a “little” film called Barbie and Alexander Payne directed his biggest hit in years with The Holdovers. The DGA decided to go that route, instead, and added Gerwig and Payne to a list that included the usual group of suspects: Martin Scorsese (Killers of the Flower Moon), likely winner Christopher Nolan (Oppenheimer) and Yorgos Lanthimos (Poor Things).

With the Netflix hit, Maestro, Cooper directed one of the most well-received films of 2023. Well, at least it seemed that way for a while with people at publications like ours honoring it as one of the year’s ten best movies. Cooper’s movie seems to be suffering a bit of a backlash due to Cooper’s controversial presentation of the great composer, Leonard Bernstein. Most agree that the acting in Maestro is nothing short of superb. Carey Mulligan also received a SAG nomination for Best Actress in the film, but probably since it wasn’t a movie with a very large cast, it didn’t receive a nod from SAG for Best Motion Picture Cast.

Cooper’s snub by the Directors Guild doesn’t mean he couldn’t get a nomination from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for Best Director for Maestro. There has been a lot of love in Hollywood for the competitors, Barbie and The Holdovers, these days, though.

It’s still not entirely fair to think that Cooper couldn’t get into one of the five Best Director slots at the upcoming Oscar nominations. However, Cooper stands a much greater chance of being nominated for his acting. Cooper’s movie remains one that many people love even though it does have some detractors. Time will tell if the Academy will snub him for Best Director similarly to the way that the DGA has just done.

Leave your thoughts on Bradley Cooper’s SAG nod for Best Actor and his snub from the DGA for Best Director below in the comments section. Readers seeking to support this type of content can visit our Patreon Page and become one of FilmBook’s patrons. Readers seeking more movie news can visit our Movie News Page, our Movie News Twitter Page, and our Movie News Facebook Page. Want up-to-the-minute notifications? FilmBook staff members publish articles by Email, Feedly, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, Pinterest, Reddit, Telegram, Mastodon, and Flipboard. This news was brought to our attention by Entertainment Weekly and Variety.