LOS ANGELES -- The Hollywood directing duo of Joel and Ethan Coen came away with top honors in this year's awards by the Directors Guild of America.

The brothers shared the guild's annual Best Director award Saturday night in Los Angeles for their crime thriller, "No Country for Old Men."

When he and his brother picked up their Directors Guild trophies, a delighted Ethan Coen noted, "Oh, we get two of them."

The brothers faced off against Tony Gilroy for the legal thriller "Michael Clayton," Paul Thomas Anderson for the oil boom drama "There Will Be Blood," Julian Schnabel for the drama "The Dog and the Butterfly" and Sean Penn for the adventure drama "Into the Wild."

All but Penn went on to receive Oscar nominations.

The Coens' win gives them a boost to "No Country" in the Oscar's Best Picture sweepstakes, since the guild is perhaps the most accurate indicator of which director will go on to win the Best Director Academy Award.

Only six of the previous 59 nominees have not gone on to win the Oscar in the category.

The Coens previously won an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay for "Fargo."

Barry Sonnenfeld was a guild winner in the television category for directing an episode of the comedy, "Pushing Daisies."

Unlike some of the other high-profile awards shows, the Directors Guild awards are not televised.

The fate of the Academy Awards show is still up in the air because of the ongoing Writers Guild strike. The three-month walkout drastically downsized the Golden Globes awards earlier this month.