Five big takeaways from the SAG Awards — and what they might mean for the Oscars

The Screen Actors Guild Awards happened on Sunday night — the first of the guilds to give out their big prizes this season. The guilds — your Screen Actors Guild, but also your Directors Guild and your Producers Guild and your Writers Guild — make particularly interesting predictors of Oscar season (unlike, for instance, the Golden Globes), because they are chosen by some of the same voters. That can make guild awards solid predictors, or at least as solid as any. For instance, before “Parasite” won what was originally considered a longshot best picture Oscar two years ago, it picked up a win at the SAG Awards, and that’s when its win for best picture started to look like a shot that was not quite so long.

So what can we take away from Sunday night’s wins?

1. Here comes “Squid Game.” The South Korean drama series about a game that offers participants the chance to get out of debt or literally die trying won big in television drama: Lee Jung-jae and Jung Ho-yeon won for lead actor and actress, and the show’s stunt ensemble won in their category as well. (The SAG Awards are one of the only places where stunt performers are honored, a regrettable omission elsewhere that was noted by my colleague Glen Weldon in a recent lament about the Oscars.)