The British film-maker Tom Hooper has won the Directors’ Guild of America award for the Best Director, for The King’s Speech — about King George the Sixth’s relationship with his Australian speech therapist.
The award is seen as the most reliable pointer to who might win correspondent Oscar.
Only six times in the award’s sixty two year history has the Oscar not gone to the winner of the DGA’s top honour.
Hooper missed out on the Golden Globe, which went to David Fincher for The Social Network, which is up against The King’s Speech in many other categories at the Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Actor.