Birdman has received a much-needed boost in its Oscar campaign by winning the PGA Award. More than six and a half thousand producers picked the film, which lost out to The Grand Budapest Hotel at the Golden Globes, as their best film of the year.

It was chosen over American Sniper, Boyhood, Foxcatcher, Gone Girl, The Grand Budapest Hotel, The Imitation Game, Nightcrawler, The Theory of Everything and Whiplash.

The award has been a reliable Oscar predictor over the past seven years, when the PGA Award winner went on to take the Academy Award for Best Picture.

The Lego Movie – which missed out on an Oscar nomination – won the best animated feature category. The PGA picked a film about the late film critic Roger Ebert, Life Itself, as its best documentary. Fargo repeated its Golden Globes success, winning the best TV movie or miniseries category, while Breaking Bad was named the best TV drama. Orange is the New Black won the best TV comedy series, while Jerry Seinfeld’s Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee was chosen as the best digital series.

The next guilds to hand out awards in the run-up to the Oscars are the actors, directors and writers.