Los Angeles, Feb 11 (IANS): Auteur Christopher Nolan took home the top prize at the Directors Guild of America Awards, earning his first DGA Award for the historical epic ‘Oppenheimer’.

DGA president Lesli Linka Glatter opened the 2024 DGA Awards ceremony on Saturday with an acknowledgment of last year’s historic double strike, reports The Hollywood Reporter.

He said: “I struggle to find words to address the pain everyone faced in our industry in our collective fight to get what we all deserve,” said Glatter, who noted how great it was to be back on set.

He added: “We are thankful that we are back doing the work that we love with exceptional new creative and economic protections for DGA members and so many others. Our sister guilds, the WGA and SAG-AFTRA, had difficult fights and achieved strong deals on behalf of their members.”

As per The Hollywood Reporter, actor Cillian Murphy honoured his frequent collaborator Christopher Nolan, whose ‘Oppenheimer’ marked their sixth film together.

The actor said: “It’s the same each time: The scripts are always truly extraordinary, the worlds are always challenging and distinctive, they are intelligent and consequential and, always, they are events.”

Nolan called the DGA recognition particularly special because “nobody gets up here on their own.” Nolan thanked his cast, crew and wife Emma Thomas, whom he described as the “lead producer on all these films and lead parent of four kids.”