Oscar-winning Christopher Nolan takes the helm, pledging to defend members’ creative and economic rights ahead of talks on streaming residuals, set safety and tax incentives.
Christopher Nolan has been elected president of the Directors Guild of America, succeeding Lesli Linka Glatter after a biennial convention where 167 delegates representing more than 19,500 members voted.
Nolan — an Oscar-winning filmmaker and long-standing DGA national board member — called the honor “one of the greatest” of his career and stressed the need to safeguard creative and economic protections for the guild’s membership during a period of rapid industry change.
Nolan’s elevation is notable: it’s a rare instance of an A-list director taking the helm of the union while at the height of his commercial and critical powers. He arrives fresh from the massive awards and box-office success of Oppenheimer — for which he won two Oscars — and remains one of the most bankable directors working across genres, from the cerebral (Memento, Inception, Tenet) to large-scale historical films (Dunkirk).
Nolan’s next project, The Odyssey, is set for a wide release from Universal Pictures, underscoring his continued prominence in mainstream filmmaking.
During the past four years under Glatter — who served two terms after first being elected in 2021 — the DGA has prioritized set safety, lobbying in Sacramento for a pilot program that requires a safety supervisor on certain productions and pushing to expand California’s film and TV tax credit to cover a broader range of projects.
Those efforts reflect the guild’s dual focus on workplace safety and securing incentives that keep production local.
Labor negotiations will be an early test of Nolan’s leadership. The DGA has signaled a principal bargaining aim of expanding foreign streaming residuals, and tradition suggests the guild will open initial talks with the Alliance for Motion Picture and Television Producers by early next year.
The DGA’s current collective bargaining agreement runs through June 30, 2026; notably, in the last cycle the DGA was the only one of the industry’s “Big Three” unions to reach a deal in 2023 without a work stoppage.
The convention also produced a slate of officer results: Laura Belsey was re-elected National Vice President; Paris Barclay was re-elected Secretary-Treasurer; and newly ratified vice-presidents include Todd Holland (First VP), Ron Howard (Second VP), Gina Prince-Bythewood (Third VP), Seith Mann (Fourth VP), Millicent Shelton (Fifth VP), Lily Olszewski (Sixth VP), and Joyce Thomas as Assistant Secretary-Treasurer.
Nolan’s presidency marks a high-profile chapter for the guild as it navigates shifting economics, technology, and safety expectations in film and television.