Oscar season is in full swing, and so is amateur prognostication about who will win. But for all the box office numbers, awards show results, and ever-elusive buzz, there's never been a predictor so reliable as the winner of the Director's Guild of America's top prize, the DGA Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures. On Saturday night that award went to Alfonso Cuaron, for his terrifying sci-fi film Gravity.

The Guild has given the award 65 times, the Hollywood Reporter found, and 58 times the winning film has gone on to win Best Director at the Oscars. 52 times, the film has won Best Picture. The award is decided by the Guild's 15,000-some members, which includes virtually every major-studio director on the planet. They decide awards for TV, documentary film, and even children's programming, but the most coveted — and most prescient — is for directors like Cuaron.

This year's Oscar race has been famously close, with a handful of deserving movies and directors. 12 Years a Slave and Gravity are thought to be the two front-runners, but this may indicate Cuaron has the race won. Of course, this year's presenter was Ben Affleck, who won the DGA Award last year and didn't go on to win Best Director (for Argo, which did win Best Picture), so Cuaron's nerves may not be totally calmed yet.