The 72nd Directors Guild of America Awards, honoring the outstanding directorial achievement in feature films, documentary, television and commercials of 2019, were presented on January 25, 2020, at the Ritz-Carlton in Downtown Los Angeles, California.

[4] The nominations for most of the television and documentary categories were announced on January 6, 2020,[5][6] while the nominations for the feature film categories were announced on January 7, 2020.

[7][8] The nominations announcement for three television awards (Comedy Series, Drama Series, and Variety/Talk/News/Sports – Specials) was moved to January 10, 2020, due to a re-vote delay.

[9] Sam Mendes – 1917 Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert – American Factory Alma Har'el – Honey Boy Nicole Kassell – Watchmen for "It's Summer and We're Running Out of Ice" Bill Hader – Barry for "ronny/lily" Johan Renck – Chernobyl Don Roy King – Saturday Night Live for "Eddie Murphy/Lizzo" James Burrows and Andy Fisher – Live in Front of a Studio Audience: Norman Lear's All in the Family and The Jeffersons Jason Cohen – Encore!

for "Annie" Amy Schatz – Song of Parkland Spike Jonze – Squarespace's "Dream It" and MedMen's "The New Normal"