Peter Jackson won the top honors for outstanding directorial achievement in feature film for New Line Cinema's "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King" at the 56th annual Directors Guild of America Awards held Saturday night at the Century Plaza Hotel.

Jackson, who also received nominations for each of the first two installments of his epic trilogy based on the novel by J.R.R. Tolkien, took home his first DGA award for the trilogy's grand finale. He prevailed over a competitive field of nominees that included Sofia Coppola for "Lost in Translation," Clint Eastwood for "Mystic River," Gary Ross for "Seabiscuit" and Peter Weir for "Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World."

In accepting the award, Jackson said, "I am so proud to accept this for making a film that, thanks to J.R.R. Tolkien's book, promotes the values of courage, of friendship and faith."

The DGA award makes Jackson the front-runner in the current Oscar race -- where he is nominated as best director and "King" is up for eleven awards -- since only six times since 1949 has the winner of the DGA award not gone on to win the best directing Oscar. Jackson also recently picked up a Golden Globe as best director.

In the category of movies for television, Mike Nichols was honored for the HBO miniseries, "Angels in America." In addition, Nichols was presented with the Guild's Lifetime Achievement Award.

Christopher Misiano picked up the directing award for nighttime drama series for "25," an episode of NBC's "The West Wing," while Timothy Van Patten took home the comedy trophy for the "Boy Interrupted" episode of HBO's "Sex and the City."

The winner for outstanding directorial achievement in documentary proved something of an upset with Nathaniel Kahn taking the prize for "My Architect: A Son's Journey," a portrait of his father, architect Louis Kahn. The film is also nominated for an Academy Award, and in the DGA competition it was up against such highly regarded docus as Sam Green and Bill Siegel's "The Weather Underground," Andrew Jarecki's "Capturing the Friedmans," Errol Morris' "The Fog of War" and Jose Padilha's "Bus 174."

For musical variety, David Mallet was cited for the Emmy-winning "Cher: The Farewell Tour," which aired on NBC; Larry Carpenter claimed the prize for daytime serials for ABC's "One Life to Live, #8849"; the victor in children's programs was Kevin Lima for ABC's "Eloise at Christmastime," and the winner for commercials was David Fincher of Anonymous Content for two Nike spots and a commercial for Xelibri Phones.

Several guild members were honored for their contributions to the guild: Larry Auerbach was named an honorary life member; Jeremy Kagan was presented with the Robert B. Aldrich Award; Stephen Glanzrock was given the Frank Capra Achievement Award, and Peery Forbis was honored with the Franklin J. Schaffner Achievement Award.

Guild president Michael Apted kicked off the ceremonies, with Carl Reiner serving as master of ceremonies for his 19th consecutive year.