Christopher Nolan becomes President of Directors Guild of America before upcoming TV and film contract negotiations

On September 20, 2025, in front of a packed house in a convention hall in Los Angeles, Christopher Nolan, the director of Oppenheimer and Inception, was nominated and voted in as the next president of the Directors Guild of America (DGA). This was ratified by a vote of 167 DGA delegates of the Guild's 19,500 members. His election is a main event as the DGA begins organizing for startup negotiations with the DGA’s good studio clients for their 2026 collective bargaining agreements

Nolan has been a member of the DGA since 2001 and a member of the National Board since 2015. He is taking over the presidency from Lesli Linka Glatter, who solidified DGA's position on set safety and ensuring California’s continued film and TV tax credits. Nolan’s unprecedented influence will bring much to the position, especially during these upcoming negotiations, as he has already had over $5 billion in gross revenue from his films. In the midst of this launch into a leadership role, Nolan is also working on producing The Odyssey, a mythic picture

This upcoming leadership role will hopefully give him a better perspective of labor issues that the industry faces and relates to, including residuals from streaming services and the impact of AI on creative services, combined with emerging technology related to all the above.

Christopher Nolan’s new role: Leading the DGA into a pivotal era

Nolan’s ascent to DGA president was a foregone conclusion at the 2025 convention, where delegates chose him by acclamation, reflecting his deep guild roots and industry stature. In the DGA press release Nolan said:

“To be elected President of the Directors Guild of America is one of the greatest honours of my career. Our industry is experiencing tremendous change, and I thank the Guild’s membership for entrusting me with this responsibility. I also want to thank President Glatter for her leadership over the past four years. I look forward to collaborating with her and the newly elected Board to achieve important creative and economic protections for our members.”

Glatter’s legacy includes a California safety supervisor program, reducing on-set incidents by 15% since 2022. Nolan, supported by officers such as Ron Howard (second vice president) and Paris Barclay (secretary-treasurer), is trying to strengthen this momentum. The Marquee or marquee priorities Nolan cites include establishing fair streaming residuals, crucial as platforms such as Netflix essentially upend traditional pay structures, and providing protection for directors' creative authority in the face of encroaching AI.

As a filmmaker and director advocate, Nolan can function as a bridge between the independent and blockbuster director communities, helping to ultimately express the voices of all directors.

However, the complexities facing Nolan in doing this are not insignificant. For starters, the DGA's 2026 negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) will be codifying issues such as streaming residuals, the role of AI in the creation of filmed entertainment, and workplace protections. Streaming platforms like Netflix and Disney+ have disrupted traditional pay practices, which tend to have mostly flat fees, including no residuals based on the actual audience viewing. 

Nolan, an ideological believer that films should only be seen in the theatre, will likely promote a hybrid model of letting directors and others experience some of the value proposition of a successful streaming release. The DGA was also successful in its lobbying efforts in Sacramento for an expanded California film tax credit, expected to add $1.1 billion of economic activity by 2027. His leadership will test his ability to balance cinematic innovation with labor advocacy, potentially defining Hollywood’s next chapter.

Nolan is working on The Odyssey, his $250 million adaptation of Homer’s epic, for IMAX release through Universal on July 17, 2026, while continuing to lead the DGA.

Stay tuned for more such updates!