Ang Lee will receive the Directors Guild of America’s highest honor, the Lifetime Achievement Award, it announced Tuesday. He will receive the award, which recognizes extraordinary achievements in the art of cinema and motion picture direction, at the 77th Annual DGA Awards on Saturday, Feb. 8, 2025.
The visionary director has more than 20 credits to his name and is known for making films with emotional depth across a variety of genres. Lee’s most well-known works include 2005’s “Brokeback Mountain” and 2013’s “Life of Pi,” both of which earned him directing Oscars, as well as 1995’s “Sense and Sensibility”; 2000’s “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” which won the Oscar for best foreign language film; 2003’s “Hulk”; 2007’s “Lust, Caution”; and 2016’s “Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk.” Lee, 70, made his feature directorial debut with the 1991 indie, “Pushing Hands,” and his most recent film was 2019’s sci-fi thriller, “Gemini Man.”
“Ang Lee is truly a master filmmaker. For over 30 years, he has directed a dynamic body of work that boldly cuts across genres – from period drama to comedy, adventure to western, superhero to martial arts – always fearlessly taking on new challenges, never repeating himself, and consistently achieving cinematic excellence,” DGA president Lesli Linka Glatter said in a statement.
“Through his films, Ang invites his audiences to explore complex characters that linger in your heart and mind long after the screen has gone dark. From his earliest features like ‘The Wedding Banquet’ to artistic and commercial successes like ‘Brokeback Mountain,’ ‘Life of Pi’ and ‘Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,’ Ang’s work is consistently recognized by critics, festivals and audiences for its brilliant storytelling and technological innovations,” Glatter’s statement continued. “His unique approach has left an indelible mark on the history of cinema that will be celebrated for generations to come. The DGA couldn’t be prouder to honor Ang Lee as a recipient of our Lifetime Achievement Award.”
For his part, Lee expressed gratitude for receiving the honor, calling it a “momentous achievement.”
“I am honored to be recognized in such an incredible way by my beloved Guild,” Lee said in a statement. “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.”
Lee will be the 37th recipient of the DGA’s Lifetime Achievement Award, joining filmmakers like Spike Lee (2022), Ridley Scott (2017), Miloš Forman (2013), Clint Eastwood (2006), Martin Scorsese (2003), Steven Spielberg (2000), Billy Wilder (1985), Orson Welles (1984), Alfred Hitchcock (1968) and Frank Capra (1959). He is the second Asian director to be feted with this honor after Akira Kurosawa, who is Japanese, was lauded in 1992.
Since becoming a guild member in 1996, Lee has collected numerous awards from the DGA. Lee won the DGA Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement for “Brokeback Mountain” and “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” and was nominated for the same honor for “Life of Pi” and “Sense and Sensibility.” In 2018, he was awarded a DGA Honor for his contributions to American culture through his support of the New York film and television industry.