Robbie Collin and Chris Bennion writes about culture for The Telegraph.
THREE KEY FACTS
The Golden Globes' 82nd ceremony will be hosted by Nikki Glaser on January 5 in Los Angeles.
Leading film nominations include Jacques Audiard’s Emilia Perez with ten, followed by The Brutalist and Conclave.
The Bear leads TV nominations with five, closely followed by Shogun and Only Murders in the Building.
The Golden Globes, the awards that used to be presented by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, is about to hold its 82nd ceremony. Taking place in Los Angeles on January 5 (or the small hours of the morning on January 6 for the UK), the ceremonywill be hosted by American comedian Nikki Glaser (who is also a nominee). She will be hoping to fare rather better than last year’s host, US stand-up Jo Koy, who was pilloried for his “cringeworthy” and “distasteful” jokes.
Leading the film nominations is Jacques Audiard’s drug cartel musical Emilia Perez, with 10 nominations, followed by The Brutalist (seven) and Conclave (six). The half-a-billion-grossing Wizard of Oz prequel Wicked, meanwhile, has four. In the television categories, The Bear is the unsurprising forerunner, with five nominations, followed closely by Japanese-American epic Shogun and comedy-drama Only Murders in the Building, both of which have four. Below are the nominations in full, plus our thoughts on who should – and will – win.
Brady Corbet’s epic feels like the connoisseur’s choice of this year’s awards season. Photo / IMDB
Who should win: The Brutalist
Brady Corbet’s ravishing immigrant epic, starring Adrien Brody as an architect fleeing the Holocaust, feels like the connoisseur’s choice of this year’s awards season, delivering sense-swamping intimacy and novelistic scope – as British audiences will finally discover when it opens in the UK on January 24.
Who will win: The Brutalist
Not least because there’s so much worth rewarding: the incredible performances, the enveloping photography, score and craft, and its luxurious evocation of a bygone era that was somehow achieved on a sub-US$10 million ($17.85m) budget.
Of this category’s three crowd-pleasers with substance – one of which is The Substance – Sean Baker’s modern-day heart-attack screwball feels ever-so-slightly worthier than Coralie Fargeat’s grotesque Hollywood satire and Luca Guadagnino’s love-triangle pro-tennis thriller, Challengers. But there’s really nothing in it.
Who will win: Emilia Perez
As soon as the nominations dropped, Wicked felt (and to many still probably feels) like the most obvious winner here. Given the Globes’ depth of support for Jacques Audiard’s oddball transgender mob boss musical, though – 10 nominations to the Oz prequel’s four – I now suspect they’ll choose the path of chaos. Either way, a dreadful result.
Best Performance in a Motion Picture – Drama: Actor
It’s a tremendous year overall in this category, and Chalamet, Craig and Domingo are equally worthy in their own ways. But the special euphony of a Brody win – it was 21 years ago that he was nominated for his performance The Pianist, in which he played another great artist caught in the Holocaust’s infernal gears – would make him the most poetically satisfying victor of the bunch.
Who will win: Adrien Brody, The Brutalist
Subconsciously, perhaps Globes voters will be swayed by their memories of Władysław Szpilman. But Brody’s performance here is a dazzling epic lead turn in its own right – both big and small in constantly electrifying ways.
Best Performance in a Motion Picture – Drama: Actress
The Globes’ spread-the-love custom of splitting their lead nominees into drama and musical or comedy brackets means the major contenders have been bisected here, and Kidman is by far the best of those above. Babygirl is one of the performances of her career – deeply felt and utterly fearless, yet also toying with the audience at a dry remove.
Jolie would be the obvious pick. But is she too obvious? The well-liked, hard-campaigning Torres is the only contender whose film is mentioned elsewhere in this year’s nominations, so don’t rule out an upset here.
Best Performance in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy: Actor
The trouble with great comedic performances is they often look easy – indeed, that’s the joy of them – which is why in awards season they’re routinely overlooked. Powell’s glowingly funny work in Richard Linklater’s romantic caper is a vintage example: there isn’t more skilfully calibrated work to be found in the list above.
Who will win: Jesse Eisenberg, A Real Pain
Though it’s easier to reward a role with obvious depth, Eisenberg would be a deserving winner here on both comic and dramatic grounds. In one of the later Globes contenders to open in British cinemas (it’s out here on January 10), he directs himself as a neurotic New Yorker making a pilgrimage to his late grandmother’s hometown in Poland.
Best Performance in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy: Actress
Here be the remaining Best Actress big beasts, and it’s hard to pick a favourite between two that tread a delicate line between soul-scouring and uproarious. Do you plump for Amy Adams’ unsparing portrayal of stay-at-home motherhood, or Demi Moore’s demolition of Hollywood ageism as experienced by a fading former starlet? Let’s say Moore, given the stakes feel even higher, and the actress’s go-for-broke approach especially fearless.
Who will win: Mikey Madison, Anora
As Anora’s titular stripper, Mikey Madison’s real prize this awards season is to be constantly mentioned in the same breath as Kidman, Adams, Moore et al. But she could pocket this one outright, given the temptation to participate in an obvious star-of-the-future’s rise may be irresistible to Globes voters’ egos.
Best Supporting Performance in a Motion Picture: Actor
There’s barely a cigarette paper between Norton and Guy Pearce, whose suave but conflicted New England industrialist is one of the great character studies of recent years. But Norton works such subtle, compassionate magic with such a dull-on-paper role – the folk music activist Pete Seeger, and Bob Dylan’s staid mentor figure – that the honour feels even more deserved.
Culkin couldn’t have asked for a more perfect role to mark a new chapter after five years of Succession: playing Eisenberg’s charming yet nightmarish cousin, who remains acutely perceptive even though broken by his grandmother’s death.
Best Supporting Performance in a Motion Picture: Actress
In a category short on credible alternatives, this is the wittiest, most fearless option. Here’s hoping the Globes voters’ unexpected enthusiasm for The Substance makes it happen – though if Qualley were to win and Demi miss out, it would be bittersweet (while arguably backing up the film’s entire thesis).
A Golden Globes without a Wicked win feels impossible. Photo / Getty Images
Who will win: Ariana Grande, Wicked
Because a Golden Globes without a Wicked win feels impossible, and rewarding this amiable enough comic turn from a pop star would do the trick.
A generally solid selection, but no one above dreamed bigger than the 36-year-old Corbet, who moved mountains with terrifyingly limited resources to create a new American epic for the ages. And a comeback for the intermission too! We approve.
Who will win: Brady Corbet, The Brutalist
Weighed against his rivals, the sheer scale of Corbet’s achievement is undeniable.
Who should win: Brady Corbet and Mona Fastvold, The Brutalist
The Brutalist is a film with much on its mind, but it also can’t be stressed enough just how fleet and fun the whole thing is. Corbet and Fastvold keep their mid-century monster barrelling along, even as it sizes up history and rummages through its protagonists’ souls.
The clockwork construction of Straughan’s adaptation is incredibly easy to enjoy – and reward.
The Wild Robot is likely to dominate the season – and deservedly so – so it would be nice to see some love here for this marvellous indie kindred spirit from Latvia’s Gints Zilbalodis, in which a cat traverses a flooded post-human landscape.
Who will win: The Wild Robot
DreamWorks Animation’s 30th-anniversary release is their best film since 1998’s The Prince of Egypt, combining cutting-edge digital and hand-drawn art with storytelling to delight children and turn grown-ups into sentient puddles.
Even when it won the Grand Prix and rave reviews at Cannes, no one had this delicate Mumbai-set drama pegged as a future Golden Globe multi-nominee. But it more than merits the spotlight.
Watch the opening half-hour of Emilia Perez on Netflix and marvel at the skill of the streamer’s awards team.
Who will win: Emilia Pérez
As in Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy, the 10 nominations feel like a sizeable clue. If you haven’t already tried, I dare you to watch the opening half-hour of this on Netflix and marvel at the skill of the streamer’s awards team in making a frontrunner out of this cacophonous hodgepodge.
From the four-note motif that triumphantly blares over the film’s instantly iconic upside-down Statue of Liberty shot, it’s obvious that Blumberg, a young Londoner who previously scored Mona Fastvold’s The World To Come, is an enormous new talent. (Reznor and Ross come a very close second.)
Quizzical sproings and clonks abound in the German composer’s ear-catching latest score: it’s as if you’re listening to Fiennes’s mind chew over Conclave’s mysteries in real-time.
Best Original Song
Beautiful That Way – Andrew Wyatt, Miley Cyrus, Lykke Li (from The Last Showgirl)
Mi Camino – Clement Ducol, Camille (from Emilia Pérez)
Who should win: Compress/Repress
A largely dire selection as always: of the two or three you might actually choose to listen to, Reznor and Ross’s 1980s-inflected techno ballad – from one of the year’s best scores overall – is by far the standout.
Who will win: El Mal
Unless that pair of nominations end up splitting the Emilia Perez vote, this feels the likelier of the two tracks from Audiard’s bizarre Globes fave to win outright. Manically overworked and breathy to the point of hyperventilation, it’s the film it hails from in a nutshell.
Simply because it’s the best film to be listed above with no hope of winning anything elsewhere this season.
Tim Burton’s films have attracted fewer Golden Globes than you might imagine.
Who will win: Beetlejuice Beetlejuice
Tim Burton’s films have attracted fewer Golden Globes than you might imagine: only four from 21 nominations over the years. His 22nd nod was for a film that feels like the sort of thing that would strike a chord with voters, though if Wicked’s luck is out in the less patronising categories, it may snag this consolation prize.
No, I’m not kidding. Television awards lean too heavily towards the serious and the worthy, but Jackal was a big, fun, sexy spectacle, with its 10 hours whizzing by in a haze of popcorn. Slow Horses and Mr & Mrs Smith fit the bill too, but Jackal has the edge for daring to be old-fashioned, straight-faced entertainment.
Who will win: Shogun
The historical epic cleaned up at the Emmys and we can expect it to do well at the Globes. It’s still astonishing that a slow-burning, mainly subtitled drama about the complex machinations of Japanese feudal politics in the year 1600 was such a popular hit, but it turns out we do have attention spans after all.
It’s never quite recaptured the zest of its first two seasons, but Martin Short and Steve Martin’s murder-comedy-drama has zero Golden Globe or Primetime Emmy wins from a combined 27 nominations – though it does have eight Creative Arts Emmy wins. Award ceremonies don’t exist to redress that balance, but… they should. Get the Martins a gong.
It’s a coin toss between The Bear and Hacks, and based on current form Hacks is the more worthy winner. The Bear’s third season was dreary and self-indulgent – and quite the comedown from the brilliance of the first two series – but it’s such a juggernaut that voters now feel compelled to put a tick next to its name. Imagine the scenes if The Gentlemen wins.
Best Limited Series, Anthology Series or Motion Picture Made for Television
A curious list, and one that deepens the suspicion that the Globes simply nominates the most talked-about shows of the year, regardless of quality. As such, because of its sheer quality, Ripley won’t win. But Steve Zaillian’s adaptation – shot in black and white and starring a mesmerising Andrew Scott – was television drama of the highest order. TV you could eat with a spoon.
Baby Reindeer has so far outrun criticism and lawsuits. Photo / Ed Miller, Netflix
Who will win: Baby Reindeer
America has been utterly captivated by Richard Gadd’s “true” story about his experience with a stalker and this plucky little British drama (adapted from Gadd’s own Edinburgh Fringe shows) has so far outrun criticism and lawsuits. It won’t avoid the latter forever, but in the meantime, Gadd will need a reinforced mantelpiece.
Best Performance in a Television Series, Drama – Actor
A list of lovely performances, even if Gyllenhaal and Thornton are doing (extremely enjoyable) variations on their stock characters. Oldman looks set to be perpetually and unfairly bridesmaided for his Jackson Lamb, while Glover will always suffer comparisons to his outstanding work on Atlanta. The performances are what made Shogun special, and Sanada stood out in a superb ensemble.
Who will win: Hiroyuki Sanada
I thought Redmayne’s “James Bond audition” was one of the most entertaining things I saw on a glowing screen in 2024, but there is no denying the depth Sanada brought to his Lord Toranaga. He’s an actor you would watch eat a bowl of cereal and be riveted.
Best Performance in a Television Series, Drama – Actress
The head says Emmy-winner Sawai but the heart says D’Arcy. Photo / HBO
Who should win: Emma D’Arcy
The head says Emmy-winner Sawai for her fine work as the conflicted Mariko, but the heart says D’Arcy. Transplant their performance into the first four seasons of Game of Thrones, and people would rave about it. D’Arcy’s best years are ahead of them, but this is the performance that made us sit up and take notice.
The head says Emmy-winner Sawai, but the gut says … Matlock – a gender-flipped reboot of the late 80s/early 90s courtroom drama – is the sort of gold-standard, middle-of-the-road fare that the Globes used to champion. The awards have flown too close to the more trendy Emmys in recent years and could flex their populist muscles by rewarding Bates.
Best Performance in a Television Series, Musical or Comedy – Actor
In a list of men playing aggressively – albeit superbly – to type, Allen White has the distinction of turning in a performance of absolute, vein-popping commitment. Sure, he’s already got every award under the sun for this role, many of them three times already, but Allen White’s Carmy Berzatto is a television character you will remember for the rest of your life. The others? You’ll fondly remember the actors.
Who will win: Jeremy Allen White
Because The Bear wins everything.
Best Performance in a Television Series, Musical or Comedy – Actress
In a show of salty and very very toxic masculinity, both Edibiri and her character, Sydney Adamu, cleanse the palette. It’s the sort of powerhouse performance that can cripple a young actor at the start of their career – where does Edibiri go from here?
Who will win: Jean Smart
Ok, perhaps The Bear doesn’t win absolutely everything. This one is a three-horse race between the 2021 winner (Smart), the 2022 winner (Brunson) and the 2023 winner (Edibiri). Smart won the Emmy in 2024 and the veteran will edge it here.
Best Performance in a Limited Series, Anthology Series or Motion Picture Made for Television – Actor
Cooper Koch, Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story
Ewan McGregor, A Gentleman in Moscow
Andrew Scott, Ripley
Who should win: Colin Farrell
Forget the prosthetics, this was a stunning turn from Farrell, who waddled onto screen as the ridiculous, grasping Oz Pott, but ended the series as compelling a comic book villain as there ever has been. Farrell can do no wrong at the moment.
Awards voters have always rewarded those who wring themselves dry for a role, and there’s no doubt that Gadd did that, as his cypher, the aspiring comedian Donny Dunn, plumbed the absolute depths. An urgent, energetic, eccentric performance and one that stands out.
Best Performance in a Limited Series, Anthology Series or Motion Picture Made for Television – Actress
For the most recent Emmy Awards, I predicted that Jodie Foster would win for her role as the grizzled Alaskan cop Liz Danvers, but that she shouldn’t. She did indeed win, and now I am going to argue that she should win the Golden Globe for the same role, but that she won’t. And the reason is Sofia Vergara.
Vergara was also up against Foster for the Emmy and lost out. Photo / Netflix
Who will win: Sofia Vergara
And, yes, Vergara was also up against Foster for the Emmy and lost out. But if there is a reason for the Emmys and the TV Golden Globes to exist in the same universe then it is this – the Globes needs to rediscover its championing of the big and the broad. And Vergara never won for Modern Family, despite multiple nominations.
Best Supporting Performance in a Series, Limited Series, Anthology Series or Motion Picture Made for Television - Actor
I think Lowden’s “James Bond audition” is an underrated aspect of Slow Horses and no one could sniff at Asano picking up this award. But Luna was wonderful as the disgraced, dishevelled and fabulously Botoxed boxing manager in the Mexican drama. A vivid performance of a life misspent.
Who will win: Ebon Moss-Bachrach
Because The Bear wins (almost) everything.
Best Supporting Performance in a Series, Limited Series, Anthology Series or Motion Picture Made for Television – Actress
Einbinder is a US awards favourite (as is Hacks), while Colon-Zayas will have huge support, but Gunning’s is the performance you woke up at night thinking about. She managed to turn a dowdy Scottish solicitor into the monster under your bed.
I am predicting the double hat-trick for Baby Reindeer, following its triple win at the Emmys. The fascinating thing now will be watching where Gunning’s career goes from here. She’ll have no shortage of offers.
