Alfonso Cuaron wins top prize for ‘Gravity’

Alfonso Cuaron has won the Directors Guild of America award for feature film for his high-tech space thriller “Gravity.”

The Mexico native won over Paul Greengrass (“Captain Phillips”), Steve McQueen (“12 Years a Slave”), David O. Russell (“American Hustle”) and Martin Scorsese (“The Wolf of Wall Street”).

“This is truly an honor and I’m humbled by it,” Cuaron said in his acceptance speech. “I still have this teen crush on other directors.”

Cuaron, who spent five years developing “Gravity,” noted that photos from space show that the Earth is “absolutely beautiful” but do not depict the human experience.

“It’s a bizarre experiment of nature, that is the human experience,” he noted. “And it’s what we as directors try to sort out as filmmakers.”

The winner was announced by last year’s winner Ben Affleck at the conclusion of the 66th DGA Awards ceremonies at the Century Plaza Hotel, based on voting by the 15,000 DGA members.

“Breaking Bad,” “30 Rock” and “Behind the Candelabra” won the major TV awards and “The Square” took the feature documentary award.

The DGA win comes a week after “Gravity” and “12 Years a Slave” tied for the top award by the Producers Guild of America while “American Hustle” won the SAG cast ensemble award. Two weeks ago, “12 Years a Slave” won the Golden Globe for best drama and “American Hustle” won for best comedy.

Affleck won the DGA award last year for “Argo,” becoming only the seventh DGA winner not to also receive a directing Oscar in the 65 years of the DGA Awards. The DGA and Oscar had matched for the nine previous years, last diverging in 2003, when it selected Marshall for “Chicago” and the Oscar went to Roman Polanski for “The Pianist.”

Cuaron, Greengrass, McQueen and Russell have been nominated for the directing Oscar along with Alexander Payne for “Nebraska.” Directors make up about 6% of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences with 377 directors out of 6,028 members.

Cuaron’s 91-minute film has overperformed at the box office with $678 million worldwide. He co-wrote the script with his son Jonas Cuaron as an exploration of “adversity and the possibility of rebirth as an outcome of adversities.”

“Gravity” was Cuaron’s first film since 2006′s “Children of Men.” He’s been nominated for six Academy Awards: original screenplay for “Y Tu Mamá También,” adapted screenplay and editing for “Children of Men” and Best Picture, director and editor for “Gravity.”