Linklater and Eastwood among Directors Guild nominees

Linklater's Boyhood follows a boy and his family and used the same actors over 12 years

Richard Linklater has received his first Directors Guild of America (DGA) nomination for his coming-of-age film Boyhood.

Two-time DGA winner Clint Eastwood is nominated for war film American Sniper.

Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, previously nominated for Babel, is shortlisted again for Birdman.

Also nominated for the prize, to be announced on 7 February, are Morten Tyldum for The Imitation Game and Wes Anderson for The Grand Budapest Hotel.

Boyhood won Linklater his first Golden Globe for best director on Sunday and also won the coveted best drama award, while Patricia Arquette picked up the award for best supporting actress.

The film, which follows a boy and his family and used the same actors over 12 years, is a frontrunner for this year's best picture Oscar.

Clint Eastwood receives his fourth nomination for outstanding directorial achievement

Eastwood, 84, is nominated for his Iraq war film American Sniper, having previously won the DGA's top award for Unforgiven in 1992 and Million Dollar Baby in 2004.

Inarritu, 51, is also considered a strong contender for director accolades for his first comedy, about a former superhero actor attempting a Broadway comeback.

But the Mexican filmmaker's awards season fortunes took a blow when Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel won the Golden Globe for best comedy or musical.

Anderson's film, which won the Golden Globe for best comedy or musical, is a star-studded adventure set in a famous European hotel between the wars.

The Imitation Game is a British biopic of World War Two codebreaker Alan Turing, played by Benedict Cumberbatch.

The Directors Guild Award has correctly predicted the best director Oscar for 10 of the last 11 years.

Gravity film-maker Alfonso Cuaron picked up the top film honour in 2014, before going on to win the best director Oscar.

Nominations for the Academy Awards will be announced on Thursday, with the ceremony to be held on 22 February.