Ang Lee (Courtesy of the Directors Guild of America)
Grad Film alum Ang Lee received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 77th Annual DGA Awards. As the guild's highest honor, this award recognizes extraordinary achievements in the art of cinema and motion picture direction. Lee is now the award's 37th recipient, following the 2022 recipient and Grad Film alum and faculty Spike Lee.
“I am honored to be recognized in such an incredible way by my beloved Guild,” said Ang Lee in an interview with the DGA. “To be given the DGA Lifetime Achievement Award is a momentous achievement for me personally, and an opportunity to reflect on what my work has meant to this amazing community of my fellow filmmakers.”
Ang Lee is widely recognized for his artistic risk-taking, and filmmaking achievements across a wide array of genres. His directing credits include Brokeback Mountain, for which he won the DGA Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement and the Academy Award in 2005; Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, for which he won the DGA Award in 2000; Life of Pi, for which he won the Academy Award and was nominated for the DGA Award in 2012; Sense and Sensibility, for which he was nominated for the DGA Award in 1995; the technologically groundbreaking Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, which was shot at 120 frames per second and combined 3D and 4K technology; and Lust, Caution, which swept Asia’s Golden Horse Awards in 2007. Lee’s other films include Pushing Hands, The Wedding Banquet, Eat Drink Man Woman, Hulk, Taking Woodstock, Ride with the Devil, The Ice Storm and Gemini Man.
Lee earned his Master of Fine Arts degree in film production from New York University. His short film Fine Line won Best Director and Best Film awards at the annual NYU Film Festival.
Read more at Directors Guild of America.