Ang Lee, director of Brokeback Mountain and Life of Pi, to receive DGA Lifetime Achievement Award

Ang Lee won two Oscars for Best Director, for Brokeback Mountain and Life of Pi.

Ang Lee, the protean filmmaker of “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” and “Brokeback Mountain,” will receive the Directors Guild of America's lifetime achievement award. (Also read: Wicked named best film, Daniel Craig best actor by National Board of Review)

John Schlesinger Britannia Award for Excellence in Directing honoree Ang Lee poses at the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA). (REUTERS)

The announcement

The guild announced Tuesday that Lee, 70, will be given the award at the 77th DGA Awards on Feb. 8. The DGA, which considers the award its highest honor, has given it to 36 filmmakers over its 88-year history. The last director to receive it was Spike Lee in 2022.

“Ang Lee is truly a master filmmaker,” said Lesli Linka Glatter, DGA president, in a statement. “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.”

“I am honored to be recognized in such an incredible way by my beloved guild,” said Lee. “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.”

More details

Lee's films also include 1995's “Sense and Sensibility,” 1997's “The Ice Storm," 2003's “Hulk” and 2012's Life of Pi." The Taiwan-born filmmaker has twice won the Oscar for best director, for “Brokeback Mountain” and for “Life of Pi.” His last film was 2019's “Gemini Man,” a Will Smith-starring action film shot at 120 frames per second.

At a recent ceremony in Tokyo where Lee received the Praemium Imperiale Award, he lamented that he hasn't made a movie recently.

“I haven’t made a movie for six years, and I don’t know where to start again,” Lee said, according to the Hollywood Reporter. “Cinema needs a drastic change. If we continue down the same path, it will be a dead end. We need something that will make audiences marvel again.”

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