Awards Season 2026: Directors Guild Awards (DGA) and Independent Spirit Awards Winners

A little bit of a catch-up on how the 2026 awards season has been going, as a couple of major awards have been handed out in the last few weeks. Here's all the news you may have missed:

DIRECTORS GUILD AWARDS

On Saturday 7th February 2026, the Directors' Guild Awards (DGA) were handed out. The film winners are:

Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Feature Films: Paul Thomas Anderson (One Battle After Another)

Michael Apted Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in First-Time Theatrical Feature Film: Charlie Polinger (The Plague)

Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Documentary: Mstyslav Chernov (2000 Meters To Andriivka)

This didn't feel like a surprise, to be honest. Anderson has been a standout winner throughout this awards season (and rightly so), so it feels like another step on the path to Oscar night. 

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INDEPENDENT SPIRIT AWARDS

On Sunday 15th February 2026, the 41st Film Independent Spirit Awards- recognising films made wholly or partly outside the traditional studio system- took place.

Here's a full list of film winners. 

Best Feature: Train Dreams

Best Lead Performance: Rose Byrne (If I Had Legs I'd Kick You)

Best Supporting Performance: Naomi Ackie (Sorry, Baby)

Best Breakthrough Performance: Kayo Martin (The Plague)

Best Director: Clint Bentley (Train Dreams)

Best Screenplay: Eva Victor (Sorry, Baby)

Best First Screenplay: Alex Russell (Lurker)

Best Cinematography: Train Dreams

Best Editing: The Testament Of Ann Lee

Best First Feature: Lurker

Best International Film: The Secret Agent

Best Documentary: The Perfect Neighbor

John Cassavetes Award: This Island (Esta Isla)

Robert Altman Award: The Long Walk

The John Cassavetes Award is given to the creative team of a film budgeted at less than $1 million, whilst the Robert Altman Award is presented to the ensemble cast of the movie, its director, and its casting director(s). 

Train Dreams was the big winner of the evening with three awards, whilst Sorry, Baby and Lurker walked away with two apiece. Despite multiple nominations, Peter Hujar's Day, Blue Sun Palace, One Of Them Days and Twinless didn't win anything. 

Congratulations to all winners!

The next major awards news will come this weekend (Sunday 22nd February) with this year's BAFTA Film Awards. I'll update on those as soon as I can after the ceremony. 

Review: Bad Neighbours (UK Cert: 15)

I blame Jason Biggs getting frisky with an apple-based dessert. Until 1999, gross-out comedies were few and far between; Kevin Smith would release another entry in his View Askewniverse every few years and, in those days, Adam Sandler was still funny, but that was about it. Since American Pie made enough money to wipe out the world’s financial problems, gross-out comedies have appeared at the cinema year-on-year. There has been the odd classic, pride-of-place amongst DVD collections (The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Knocked Up, and Bridesmaids) but most have been a fun while they last, instantly forgettable ninety minutes.  There has also been the odd humourless car crash (School for Scoundrels: all the gags were in the trailer, the rest of its running time was a laugh-free zone).

Bad Neighbours is the first of a number of gross-out comedies to be released in 2014 (Seth MacFarlane’s A Million Ways to Die in the West, and sequels 22 Jump Street and The Inbetweeners 2 are all on their way). New parents Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne find their peaceful, non-eventful lives trampled on when Zac Efron’s sex, drugs and alcohol-fuelled fraternity move in next door; Rogen and Byrne thinking up all sorts of creative (borderline nuts) ways to get their new neighbours to move along. While Bad Neighbours doesn’t re-invent the wheel, what makes it stands out amongst this over-crowded sub-genre is that each and every one-liner and visual gag is side-splittingly funny.  It’s only May and Bad Neighbours already has some of the funniest set pieces you will see this year. A recurring gag involving stolen car airbags will never fail to make cinema audiences roar with laughter, while a scene involving Rogen being forced to milk his wife will burn itself into your memory for all the wrong reasons.

What helps to make Bad Neighbours one of the better comedies is the chemistry between its cast.  Rogen and Byrne are a true-to-life couple: they’re still the party animals from when they both met as students, but they’re new parents with responsibilities. They’re too tired to go on nights out and, on those rare moments when they do have sex, it lasts for a couple of minutes instead of a couple of hours. Usually in comedies, wife roles don’t get to do all that much except smile lots and make sure they’re always in full make up. To screenwriters Andrew J. Cohen and Brendan O’ Brien’s credit, Byrne gets more than her fair share of laughs, being right in the middle of the Radner family’s scheming and delivering plenty of well-observed, foul mouthed one-liners.

Zac Efron, playing up to his bad boy image in the tabloids, also manages to make the laughs look easy. Some of Efron’s ideas to get revenge on Rogen and Byrne are cruel, but they are memorable, and they are definitely funny. The reason you like, even root for, Efron is because, like Rogen, he has a family he cares about, Dave Franco’s vice president being like a brother to him; only his family is a bunch of students whose only worry is where their next beer comes from.

What stops Bad Neighbours from reaching the heights of The Inbetweeners Movie or Ted is that no one in this film changes in any way. While all three leads will keep you watching, the film is an hour-and-a-half of sketch-after-sketch. Kristen Wiig’s Bridesmaids was cringe-inducingly honest about female friendships and the strain they come under in the run-up to a wedding; for all its dick and fart jokes, Superbad was about three friends saying goodbye to their high school years.  Cohen and Brien’s script is good, but it isn’t that good; Bad Neighbours is all about the dick and fart jokes, there’s nothing underneath the surface. That’s not a bad thing – you would have to be a cold shell of a human being not to be laughing virtually the whole way through the film – but if a comedy can make you think as well as laugh, then it gets extra points from me.

If you want a comedy with crude, but very, very smart laughs, then Bad Neighbours is well worth your time and, while it’s not quite up there with the likes of The Hangover, you’ll be glad you gave it a go.

4 out of 5

Matt

Review: The Place Beyond The Pines (UK Cert 15)

Ryan Gosling and director Derek Cianfrance reunite after the emotionally bruising Blue Valentine for The Place Beyond The Pines, a gripping, well-made (if slightly ponderous) crime thriller.

Luke Glanton (Gosling) is a motorbike stunt rider working for a travelling fair. When back in New York, he finds his ex-lover Romina (Eva Mendes) has had a child without telling him. Wanting to provide for his new son, Luke starts pulling off bank robberies. One robbery brings Luke up against policeman Avery Cross (Bradley Cooper), an encounter that has a lasting impact on both their lives- and the lives of their sons fifteen years later.

The film can be roughly broken into three sections- Luke's story, Avery's story and their sons' stories. Gosling is front and centre for the first section, a brooding presence easily bringing to mind his performance in Nicolas Winding Refn's Drive. The Drive comparisons are apt- a laconic stunt driver involved in crime- but luckily there's more to the role (and Gosling's performance) than a mere facsimile. He's a man wanting to do right but going about it in the wrong way. The heists and subsequent chases are thrilling and giddily shot but there is a tendency towards ponderous shots of Gosling looking enigmatically into the distance.

Bradley Cooper proves his dramatic performance in Silver Linings Playbook was not a one-off, with a decent and nuanced turn as an idealistic rookie given a crash course in the murkier side of police life. For me, this second section is the most successful part of the film. It's certainly the best written section, transcending what could be a stock cliched situation (hero cop tempted by the dark side) to something deeper. Cooper's performance is excellent and his clashes with fellow police officers (including Bruce Greenwood and the brilliantly psychotic Ray Liotta) really spark. 

The final section- featuring Luke's now teenage son Jason (Dane DeHaan) and Avery's son AJ (Emory Cohen)- is perhaps the least successful section for me. DeHaan's performance as the conflicted Jason is powerful but I really wasn't sold on AJ. I don't know whether it's because of Cohen's performance or if because the character of AJ, as written, comes across as a spoilt entitled brat. This part of the story has a lot of potential for some real high drama- Jason and AJ's nascent friendship is bound to be ripped apart, due to the revelations of the past- but what should be a gutwrench is more of a damp squib. However, there's a powerful stand-off between Cooper and DeHaan to redeem it.

This is a real Boys Own adventure with the female characters being rather shortchanged- a shame, considering Blue Valentine had such a strongly characterised female lead. Mendes is good with what she's given but it's a slightly thankless role, whilst Rose Byrne doesn't get much to do as Avery's wife Jennifer. Because the thrust of the story is very much 'the sins of the father being visited on the son', the female characters are very incidental. 

There's a few niggles that prevent The Place Beyond The Pines from being truly great for me. Nonetheless, it's still an eminently watchable film, if only for Bradley Cooper's tremendous performance in the second act.

Rating: 4 out of 5

Tez