If you haven’t been hearing about it yet, you soon will be. The PGA, DGA and SAG awards form an interesting trifecta of guild awards. The Producers Guild gives out an award for Best Picture, the Directors Guild gives out a prize for Best Director and the Screen Actors Guild give out a trophy for Best Cast. These three categories are as different as night and day when it comes to award recipients, but they have a far stronger connection than you might otherwise imagine.

SAG is the newest, so I’m going to use its first year in 1994, but they didn’t give a Best Cast prize until 1995, so I will be using that year as a reference point for all discussions here. I won’t talk about DGA or PGA beyond that year despite having longer histories themselves.

Here is how the three guilds have voted. The wins are in order of SAG / DGA / PGA

2010 – The King’s Speech / The King’s Speech / The King’s Speech
2009 – Inglourious Basterds / The Hurt Locker / The Hurt Locker
2008 – Slumdog Millionaire / Slumdog Millionaire / Slumdog Millionaire
2007 – No Country for Old Men / No Country for Old Men / No Country for Old Men
2006 – Little Miss Sunshine / The Departed / Little Miss Sunshine
2005 – Crash / Brokeback Mountain / Brokeback Mountain
2004 – Sideways / Million Dollar Baby / The Aviator
2003 – The Return of the King / The Return of the King / The Return of the King
2002 – Chicago / Chicago / Chicago
2001 – Gosford Park / A Beautiful Mind / Moulin! Rouge
2000 – Traffic / Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon / Gladiator
1999 – American Beauty / American Beauty / American Beauty
1998 – Shakespeare in Love / Saving Private Ryan / Saving Private Ryan
1997 – The Full Monty / Titanic / Titanic
1996 – The Birdcage / The English Patient / The English Patient
1995 – Apollo 13 / Apollo 13 / Apollo 13

3/3 – 2008, 2007, 2003, 2002, 1999, 1995
2/1 – 2009, 2006, 2005, 1998, 1997, 1996
1/1/1 – 2004, 2001, 2000

Six times, the three guilds have agreed on prizes. Of those six, only once has the trifecta recipient not won Best Picture and Best Director. And that was the year the Academy ignored Ron Howard as a Best Director nominee.

Matter of fact, of the last 15 years of Academy Best Picture/Director splits, they have never coincided with a trifecta year: 2005, 2000, 1998. Of those three split years, it was always the SAG Cast award that differed from either of the other two.

What this means statistically is that not only has The King’s Speech moved into a strong position to win Best Picture, it will also very likely claim Best Director as well. This is bolstered by the fact that the DGA has only 7 times in its 61-year history failed to pick the eventual Best Director winner. While PGA and SAG are less accurate, there’s no denying that for The Social Network to pull of a win at this juncture, it would be the biggest upset since Shakespeare in Love triumphed over Saving Private Ryan and what an odd situation that would be (Harvey Weinstein orchestrated the Shakespeare in Love win over Saving Private Ryan and in this case, it would be Scott Rudin triumphing over Weinstein’s The King’s Speech.)