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Considerations
Covering the annual film industry awards races, with sharp commentary on the pictures, the players, the money and the spectacle. by Tyler Coates
Considerations: The Golden Globes Silly Season
Adam Pearson in A Different Man Every Tuesday Tyler Coates publishes his new Filmmaker newsletter, Considerations, devoted to the awards race. To receive it early and in your in-box, subscribe here.
It’s now primetime for FYC campaigning. I was inundated with digital codes and old-school DVDs early last week; studios know that voters—at least American ones—might have had lots of downtime and perhaps visiting family members to entertain. What better way to treat your guests than showing them A24’s entire 2024 slate (with the exceptions of the still-unreleased Babygirl, The Brutalist and Queer)? There were also a slew of FYC events in Los Angeles ahead of Thanksgiving. As we head into December, when the first onslaught of actual awards presentations begins, there’s a desperation in the chilly air. It’s time you get as many people as possible to see your movie.
It’s also time for the ridiculous part of the season: the Golden Globes brouhaha. The nominations for the 82nd ceremony (taking place Jan. 5) will be unveiled on Dec. 9, launching the first real discourse of the season thanks to the genre classification of “drama” and “musical or comedy.” It’s the latter that always causes some sort of grief, and this year will see potential comedy nominees in Anora, Challengers, A Different Man and The Substance. I can see why all of them are classified as such, but I also expect that people will think one (or all of them) to be too serious to be seen alongside the likes of Wicked.
But, to be honest, are the Globes worth anything more than star-studded spectacle set to annoy audiences across the globe?
I was working at The Hollywood Reporter when the Globes saw their fall from grace following an L.A. Times exposé on widespread corruption within the Hollywood Foreign Press Association and its membership’s lack of diversity. It was admittedly a blessing when the Globes lost their broadcast partner for the 2022 ceremony after facing an industry boycott, because it was one less awards show to have to worry about. When THR’s parent company was involved in the purchase of the Golden Globes, a colleague asked me how that would affect my job. I replied that it was above my pay grade, and that was something for the top editors to figure out. The answer was business as usual—but we did have a convenient boilerplate disclaimer language to paste into any post we ran about the awards. And to be honest, I never quite understood the deal because caring about the Golden Globes is already a lot to ask of someone.
There have now been two semi-successful Globes since the boycott, both of which grabbed the most headlines for their respective emcees’ Jerrod Carmichael and Jo Koy’s unremarkable hosting abilities. (I’m more excited for upcoming host Nikki Glaser, who has proven adept at roasting celebrities.) As for the ceremonies themselves, they were a return to the loose, boozy, celebrity-filled dinner parties of the past. And as is per usual, the awards proved spotty predictors for the Oscars—which is understandable, as the 300-something voting body is made up of people who do not vote for the Academy Awards.
January’s Golden Globes winners saw a lot of overlap with those who picked up Oscars. Oppenheimer, which won best picture prizes at both ceremonies (it won the Globe for drama, while Poor Things took the musical/comedy prize), also earned Globes and Oscars for director Christopher Nolan and actors Cillian Murphy and Robert Downey Jr. Anatomy of a Fall scored screenplay prizes at both ceremonies, as did actresses Emma Stone (for Poor Things) and Da’Vine Joy Randolph (for The Holdovers). Even Globes winners Paul Giamatti (best actor, musical/comedy, for The Holdovers) and Lily Gladstone (best actress, drama, for Killers of the Flower Moon) were widely seen as the runners-up to Murphy and Stone in their Oscar categories.
But in 2023, only four Golden Globe winners went on to pick up Oscars: Everything Everywhere All at Once’s Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan (Yeoh won best actress, musical or comedy, while Quan won best supporting actor, which is not split into two groups), Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio (best animated feature) and RRR’s “Naatu Naatu” (best original song). The Fabelmans and The Banshees of Inisherin took best picture for drama and musical/comedy, respectively; other winners include Elvis’s Austin Butler, Tár’s Cate Blanchett and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’s Angela Bassett. The Daniels, who would win Oscars for directing and writing EEAAO, lost those Globes categories to The Fabelmans’ Steven Spielberg and The Banshees of Inisherin’s Martin McDonagh, respectively.
A Golden Globe doesn’t guarantee an Oscar, but a win serves as another campaign tool on the long road to the Academy Awards. The Globes are also an excuse to gather together a lot of famous people under one televised roof. The more awards to reward upon people the better, which is presumably why Barbie, which led the Globes noms with nine and won best original song (which it’d repeat at the Oscars), also landed the inaugural “cinematic and box office achievement” award—a prize for making the most money, I guess, even though all that money is the prize. Barbie was one of eight nominated films, a list that also included box office hit Oppenheimer—the only other film to earn noms outside of that category. Both films went up against Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour, a concert documentary that was ineligible for Oscar consideration and was probably nominated in an effort to get Swift to show up to the ceremony.
Another change to the Globes in an effort to attract more stars: the expansion of all categories from five nominees to six. That allowed for more wacky Golden Globe nominations like Timothée Chalamet and Joaquin Phoenix’s respective star turns in Wonka and Beau Is Afraid, which earned them best actor (musical/comedy) noms. But it also meant extra space to honor the great performances from No Hard Feelings’s Jennifer Lawrence, Fallen Leaves’s Alma Pöysti, All of Us Strangers’s Andrew Scott and Priscilla’s Cailee Spaeny—plus May December trio Charles Melton, Julianne Moore and Natalie Portman, all of whom were passed over by the Academy.
For awards pundits like myself, it’s also a little more work; rather than 10 best picture nominees, I’ve got to predict 12 across two categories. For drama, I expect Blitz, A Complete Unknown, Conclave, Dune: Part Two, Gladiator II and Sing Sing—the Globes tend to favor more commercial and less cerebral features. In musical or comedy, I think Anora, Emilia Pérez and Wicked are sure-things, and it’d be nice to see A Real Pain, The Substance and Thelma work their way in, too.
There are several major Oscar contenders who will find themselves in the lead acting categories, like The Brutalist’s Adrien Brody, Queer’s Daniel Craig, Sing Sing’s Colman Domingo and Conclave’s Ralph Fiennes, plus Wicked’s Cynthia Erivo, Hard Truths’s Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Babygirl’s Nicole Kidman, Maria’s Angelina Jolie and Anora’s Mikey Madison. The nice thing about having 12 nominees for best actor and best actress is that you’re covering all of your bases.
That also means we might see some underdogs sneak in, namely A Different Man’s Sebastian Stan and Thelma’s June Squibb. The same goes for the supporting acting categories, although there will be only six for each; I’d love to see The Piano Lesson’s Danielle Deadwyler and Samuel L. Jackson land noms, plus Anora’s Yuriy Borisov, Nickel Boys’ Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor and Sing Sing’s Clarence Maclin. But the Globes love their unexpected nominations—might that mean a nod for Longlegs’ Nicolas Cage? Maybe Deadpool & Wolverine could get a best picture nom and a mention for one or both of its actors? Michael Keaton had Beetlejuice Beetlejuice this year. Why not give him a Globe nomination, too?
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