After the full-scale revamp of the past few years, the Golden Globes have finally entered the 21st century — which is to say, they’ve stopped being a cloistered club for sex pests with zero Black members, and become a vertically-integrated corporate brand with its own media monopoly and shady ties to authoritarian regimes.
But despite all these changes, the Globes’ role in the awards circus remains largely the same: They’re a dress rehearsal, a campaign event, and a two-minute warning all at once, preparing everyone for the final push to Oscar-nomination morning. They don’t matter at all — except when they do. That’s what makes them fun!
So who’s going to win this year? I’ll be handling the predictions on the film side. My colleague Joe Reid, the Jay Penske to my Todd Boehly, returns from the Cinematrix trenches to give his take on the TV categories, which are possibly even more meaningless. I hope you had a good holiday break, because the two weeks between now and Oscar noms are going to be the most unpredictable period of this anything-goes year. —Nate Jones
Movies
Best Motion Picture – Drama
The Brutalist
A Complete Unknown
Conclave
Dune: Part Two
Nickel Boys
September 5
Have you gotten sick of pundits declaring the Best Picture race “wide-open” yet? If so, thank the Globes, which have the opportunity to put their stamp on the race in a major way. The field is evenly split between dramas and musicals/comedies, so there will be plenty of suspense in both of the top categories. This race at least has a clear No. 1 seed: The Brutalist, which not only got in everywhere it could have hoped at the Globes, but comes into the night as one of our presumed Best Picture heavyweights, something Globes voters tend to pay attention to. (The conglomerate that owns the Globes also owns a slice of A24, which I don’t think affects the results — voters all-but-snubbed the studio’s Sing Sing — but is still worth noting.)
Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama
Adrien Brody, The Brutalist
Timothée Chalamet, A Complete Unknown
Daniel Craig, Queer
Colman Domingo, Sing Sing
Ralph Fiennes, Conclave
Sebastian Stan, The Apprentice
This is the Globes category that most directly mirrors the Oscar race this year. You’ve got the five guys everyone assumes will get nominated, plus Sebastian Stan. Voters could make a spicy pick by going with Chalamet (remember, since 2019 music biopics have competed as Dramas at the Globes), which would ramp up the chatter around Timmy potentially becoming the Academy’s youngest-ever Best Actor winner. But my bet is still the assumed frontrunner, Adrien Brody, for whom this would be something of a make-up award: The year he won the Oscar for The Pianist, Brody lost the Globe to About Schmidt’s Jack Nicholson.
Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama
Pamela Anderson, The Last Showgirl
Angelina Jolie, Maria
Nicole Kidman, Babygirl
Tilda Swinton, The Room Next Door
Fernanda Torres, I’m Still Here
Kate Winslet, Lee
Since so many formidable Actress contenders are over in Musical/Comedy, the Drama race feels like the undercard this time around. We’ve got a field of four past Oscar winners plus two intriguing dark horses, all of whom are floating around the middle tier of the overall race. If this was the old Globes, we might be looking at a victory for Angelina Jolie, whose Tourist nomination epitomized the blatant starfuckery of the dearly departed HFPA. But the newer voters’ tastes are more in line with critics’ groups, which leads me to believe that it’ll be National Board of Review winner and longtime Globe fave Nicole Kidman who bolsters her chance at an Oscar nom by triumphing here.
Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy
Anora
Challengers
Emilia Pérez
A Real Pain
The Substance
Wicked
Four movies scored the Globes’ Holy Trinity of Picture, Director, and Screenplay noms. Three of them are competing here: Anora, Emilia Pérez, and The Substance. The nominations feel like the win for The Substance, so we’re likely in for a Globe-tacular face-off of screwball comedy versus Spanish-language musical. Anora has a little more Oscar heat, which makes it the safer bet, but I’m leaning towards Emilia Pérez, for two reasons. One, because voters handed it 10 nominations, the second-most in Globes history. And two, because the Globes’ new membership is still almost entirely international, and every time Emilia Pérez has gotten in front of overseas voters, it’s cleaned up.
Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy
Jesse Eisenberg, A Real Pain
Hugh Grant, Heretic
Gabriel LaBelle, Saturday Night
Jesse Plemons, Kinds of Kindness
Glen Powell, Hit Man
Sebastian Stan, A Different Man
In a mirror of the Drama race, this field features five guys unlikely to make a splash at the Oscars, plus Sebastian Stan. It’s essentially a free hit for voters, and in that situation the edge often goes to the nominee people most want to see up at the podium. After Hugh Grant stole November’s Governors Awards with a caustic roast of honoree Richard Curtis, I can see the English actor benefiting from voters’ desire to hand him an encore.
Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy
Amy Adams, Nightbitch
Cynthia Erivo, Wicked
Karla Sofía Gascón, Emilia Pérez
Mikey Madison, Anora
Demi Moore, The Substance
Zendaya, Challengers
The most intriguing award of the night, which features as many as four women with legitimate shots to win. Voters could embrace transgender actress Karla Sofía Gascón’s history-making bid, or they could choose to upend the Actress race’s perceived hierarchy by going with Cynthia Erivo or Demi Moore. But even more than most precursors, the Globes love an ingénue, and all the better that 25-year-old Mikey Madison is also fronting a top-tier contender.
Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture
Yura Borisov, Anora
Kieran Culkin, A Real Pain
Edward Norton, A Complete Unknown
Guy Pearce, The Brutalist
Jeremy Strong, The Apprentice
Denzel Washington, Gladiator II
Sometimes, there’s nothing for the Globes to do but rubber-stamp the presumed Oscar frontrunner. They didn’t let anyone distract them from Oppenheimer’s Robert Downey Jr. in this category last year, and I suspect the same will hold true for Kieran Culkin this year.
Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture
Selena Gomez, Emilia Pérez
Ariana Grande, Wicked
Felicity Jones, The Brutalist
Margaret Qualley, The Substance
Isabella Rossellini, Conclave
Zoe Saldaña, Emilia Pérez
Whether or not it wins the top prize, you have to figure Emilia Pérez is going home with multiple trophies. One of the likeliest spots is here, where Zoe Saldaña — who is the movie’s POV character, but we’ve talked about that — is expected to ride a wave of light category fraud and I’m-finally-taking-myself-seriously press to a strong showing in the Supporting Actress race. Ariana Grande could surprise, but I think there will be a place to reward Wicked elsewhere on the night.
Best Director – Motion Picture
Jacques Audiard, Emilia Pérez
Sean Baker, Anora
Edward Berger, Conclave
Brady Corbet, The Brutalist
Coralie Fargeat, The Substance
Payal Kapadia, All We Imagine As Light
What becomes a Best Director winner? Usually some combination of bold ambition, auteur cred, and technical derring-do. I can see the case for Audiard or Baker, but Brady Corbet is the one who fits that mold the best, and he’s picked up the bulk of precursor prizes thus far. (Besides, having appeared in films like Melancholia and Force Majeure in a past life, he’s basically an honorary European.)
Best Screenplay – Motion Picture
Anora
The Brutalist
Conclave
Emilia Pérez
A Real Pain
The Substance
Sometimes movies win screenplay prizes because they’re small-scale, dialogue-driven dramas. And sometimes movies win screenplay prizes because voters like them, but not enough to give them one of the more important trophies. (Listen, I’m a writer, I’m allowed to say it.) If it’s the former, then we could be in for a Conclave or Real Pain victory. But if, as I think, the Musical/Comedy trophy goes to Emilia Pérez, then awarding Anora here is a way to ensure Sean Baker’s film still has a good night. Watch out for The Substance, though, which won this same prize at Cannes for similar reasons.
Best Song – Motion Picture
“Beautiful That Way,” from The Last Showgirl
“Compress/Repress,” from Challengers
“El Mal,” from Emilia Pérez
“Forbidden Road,” from Better Man
“Kiss the Sky,” from The Wild Robot
“Mi Camino,” from Emilia Pérez
The two Emilia Pérez nominees could split the vote, but that didn’t happen with the Barbie songs last year, and given the advantage musicals usually have in this category, I’m comfortable predicting one of them to take it. But which one? “El Mal” is the more memorable number in the film itself, but I think its impact comes from the direction, performance, and staging, rather than the songwriting. So just like last year, when Barbie’s “What Was I Made For?” beat “I’m Just Ken,” let’s give it to the emotional number, “Mi Camino.”
Best Score – Motion Picture
Conclave
The Brutalist
Emilia Pérez
Challengers
Dune: Part Two
The Wild Robot
Ordinarily you’d assume the musical is a shoo-in, especially one that garnered double-digit nominations. However, the orchestrations are far from the most noteworthy element of Emilia Pérez, which leaves room for another contender to slide in. Like, say, The Brutalist, whose musical compositions by Daniel Blumberg feel every bit as towering as its hero’s designs.
Best Motion Picture – Animated
Flow
Inside Out 2
Memoir of a Snail
Moana 2
Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl
The Wild Robot
One under-the-radar story of this awards season is the surprising strength of Flow, the wordless Latvian entry about a bunch of animals trying to survive a flood. The film has taken the bulk of critics’ prizes, and could continue its run here. But a larger voting body brings fewer left-field picks, so I expect the more widely seen The Wild Robot, which was also nominated in three other categories at the Globes, to prevail.
Best Motion Picture – Foreign Language
All We Imagine As Light
Emilia Pérez
The Girl With the Needle
I’m Still Here
The Seed of the Sacred Fig
Vermiglio
It’s tempting to overcomplicate this one. Since voters have so many other places to reward Jacques Audiard’s opera, the thinking goes, might they use this category to give some shine to an underappreciated gem like All We Imagine As Light? I say: Don’t get fancy. If voters liked Emilia Pérez enough to make it the most nominated film in the field, they’re going to hand it a trophy in the category where it has the least competition.
Best Cinematic and Box Office Achievement – Motion Picture
Alien: Romulus
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice
Deadpool & Wolverine
Gladiator II
Inside Out 2
Twisters
Wicked
The Wild Robot
Eighty-two years in, the Golden Globes keep innovating, finding new things for us to make fun of them for. The newest one is this category, introduced last year, which follows in the footsteps of the Academy’s misbegotten plan to create an Oscar for “Popular Film.” Just like last year, when Barbie was a no-brainer, there’s little mystery about what movie will take it this time: As the only nominee in the Best Picture conversation, Wicked has this on lock. Congratulotions!
Television
Best Television Series — Drama
The Day of the Jackal
The Diplomat
Mr. & Mrs. Smith
Shōgun
Slow Horses
Squid Game
The tug-of-war at the heart of the Globes TV categories is between co-signing the establishment pick (i.e. the most recent Emmy winner, if it’s eligible) or picking the shiniest new object in the box. This year, that struggle manifests as a contest between Shōgun (the record-breaking Emmy winner) and either Squid Game or The Day of the Jackal. In many ways, Shōgun is a show the Globes would’ve loved to have gotten to first: big, expensive, international. It’s reminiscent of how they gave Squid Game three nominations and one win the year before the Emmys got the chance to do the same. Since 1998, only four shows have ever won Best Drama Series more than once, so that knocks Squid Game down a peg. Despite being the newer show, The Day of the Jackal hasn’t made a fraction of the splash Shōgun did, making this an easy call.
Best Television Series — Musical or Comedy
Abbott Elementary
The Bear
The Gentlemen
Hacks
Nobody Wants This
Only Murders in the Building
Did Hacks beating The Bear at the Emmys transform The Bear from The Only Comedy That Matters into just another show? Maybe! The Bear, Abbott Elementary, and Hacks won this category the last three years, so there isn’t much urgency to reward any of them a second time. (It should be noted that The Bear is repping its third, more divisive season here, where at the most recent Emmys they were still up for season two.) The Hollywood Foreign Press of old, the ones who gave this award to Mozart in the Jungle in 2015 and The Kominsky Method in 2018, would jump on Nobody Wants This in a heartbeat. And honestly, maybe these new voters will as well. It’s the newest show of the bunch, and sometimes the rule of thumb with the Globes is “what winner would make the most people tweet out ‘LOL Globes’?”
Best Limited or Anthology Series or Television Film
Baby Reindeer
Disclaimer
Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story
The Penguin
Ripley
True Detective: Night Country
Baby Reindeer took this category at the Emmys, where it was up against Ripley and True Detective. But that was before The Penguin bulldozed its way into the landscape as the buzziest new show of the fall. Disclaimer has the Alfonso Cuaron star factor, while Monsters has the fact that the Globes have always been incredibly friendly to Ryan Murphy’s work. But this feels like a very easy call for Gotham’s preeminent piece of shit criminal.
Best Actor in a Television Series – Drama
Donald Glover, Mr. & Mrs. Smith
Jake Gyllenhaal, Presumed Innocent
Gary Oldman, Slow Horses
Eddie Redmayne, The Day of the Jackal
Hiroyuki Sanada, Shōgun
Billy Bob Thornton, Landman
The Drama awards belonged to Succession last year, so it’s a clear playing field this time around. Glover and Thornton both won Best Actor Globes back in 2017 for their performances on Atlanta and Goliath (a show that existed!), respectively. Oldman and Redmayne are also former Globe winners in the movie categories. Jake Gyllenhaal, whose only major award wins in his whole career have come from BAFTA and the MTV Movie Awards (both for Brokeback Mountain), was incredible as a morally suspect defendant in Presumed Innocent, but he probably won’t get a win for that either. I think Shōgun continues to roll here with another welcome victory for Hiroyuki Sanada.
Best Actress in a Television Series – Drama
Kathy Bates, Matlock
Emma D’Arcy, House of the Dragon
Maya Erskine, Mr. & Mrs. Smith
Keira Knightley, Black Doves
Keri Russell, The Diplomat
Anna Sawai, Shōgun
Do I have the guts to predict it? Do the Globes voters have the guts to pull it off? A Kathy Bates win for the Matlock reboot seems so perfectly Globes-y. And not without merit! She’s beloved in the industry, her show is a hit, and in a category packed with streaming shows about spies and backstabbing internal politics, she’s the one who stands out as not like the rest. Emmy winner Anna Sawai feels like the odds-on favorite, but I’m taking the plunge for Bates.
Best Actor in a Television Series – Musical or Comedy
Adam Brody, Nobody Wants This
Ted Danson, A Man on the Inside
Steve Martin, Only Murders in the Building
Jason Segel, Shrinking
Martin Short, Only Murders in the Building
Jeremy Allen White, The Bear
Jeremy Allen White won this award the last two years for The Bear’s spectacular first two seasons. Will the (modest) backlash to this most recent season prevent the three-peat? The only actors to ever win this award three years in a row were M*A*S*H’s Alan Alda and Spin City’s Michael J. Fox. I’m betting against White joining those ranks and instead flipping a coin between first-time nominee Brody and 10-time nominee (and two-time winner for Cheers) Ted Danson. Danson is a nimble delight going undercover in an old folks’ home in A Man on the Inside and probably is the most deserving. But an Adam Brody win would signal that a Nobody Wants This comedy series victory is on the way.
Best Actress in a Television Series – Musical or Comedy
Kristen Bell, Nobody Wants This
Quinta Brunson, Abbott Elementary
Ayo Edebiri, The Bear
Selena Gomez, Only Murders in the Building
Kathryn Hahn, Agatha All Along
Jean Smart, Hacks
Ayo Edebiri won this award last year, with Quinta Brunson winning the year before that and Jean Smart the year before that. A Kathryn Hahn win for Agatha would be a fun shake-up for the category (and provide the always-excellent Kathryn Hahn the rare occasion to actually get on stage and collect a trophy), but the Globes have never been all that enthralled with the MCU thing. Kristen Bell winning alongside Brody and Nobody Wants This would make for a Comedy sweep that feels a bit too effusive, so maybe the voters just run it back with Jean Smart.
Best Actor in a Limited or Anthology Series or Television Film
Colin Farrell, The Penguin
Richard Gadd, Baby Reindeer
Kevin Kline, Disclaimer
Cooper Koch, Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story
Ewan McGregor, A Gentleman in Moscow
Andrew Scott, Ripley
Richard Gadd was the Emmy champ back in September, while Andrew Scott has quietly amassed three Golden Globe nominations in the last six years for Ripley, Fleabag, and the film All of Us Strangers. He’d be a strong prediction to win if not for Colin Farrell (a two-time Globe winner himself for the films In Bruges and The Banshees of Inisherin) and the Penguin sweep I see coming. Won’t it be nice to see Colin’s beautiful face for once!
Best Actress in a Limited or Anthology Series or Television Film
Cate Blanchett, Disclaimer
Jodie Foster, True Detective: Night Country
Cristin Milioti, The Penguin
Sofía Vergara, Griselda
Naomi Watts, Feud: Capote vs. The Swans
Kate Winslet, The Regime
The real winner of this year’s Globe nominations was Kate Winslet, who managed to nab acting nominations for the film-festival ghost Lee and the failed HBO Emmy-bait The Regime all on the back of her reputation as an actress. Jodie Foster won the Emmy in this category back in September, with Naomi Watts and Sofía Vergara nominated as well. Foster is a four-time Globe winner, including a Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2013, so underestimate her chances at your peril. Cate Blanchett would stand a better chance if Disclaimer hadn’t attained a reputation as the vegetables of the fall TV season and she weren’t up against Cristin Milioti, whose ferocious, emotionally on-the-brink performance as Sofia Gigante (née Falcone) was the performance of the year on TV. I’m not fully counting out Foster — who was also pretty damn excellent on Night Country — but I’m placing a bet on a Milioti win and the universe making sense for once.
Best Supporting Actor in a Television Series — Musical-Comedy or Drama
Tadanobu Asano, Shōgun
Javier Bardem, Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story
Harrison Ford, Shrinking
Jack Lowden, Slow Horses
Diego Luna, La Máquina
Ebon Moss-Bachrach, The Bear
Ah, the Golden Globes supporting TV categories, where performances of all genres are locked in a room together and forced to fight it out. In the old days, the HFPA’s tendency rewarded the oldest, most British actor it could find in these categories. The last ten winners here have come from three cable dramas, two cable limited series, one streaming drama, three streaming limited series, and one network comedy. Ebon Moss-Bachrach was the rare Bear nominee to lose last year, going up against Succession’s Matthew Macfadyen. The voters might want to cash in their IOU here, but something tells me the Globes have one truly trashy TV pick in them for this year and will get their Ryan Murphy on with a win for Javier Bardem as the domineering Menendez patriarch.
Best Supporting Actress in a Television Series — Musical-Comedy or Drama
Liza Colón-Zayas, The Bear
Hannah Einbinder, Hacks
Dakota Fanning, Ripley
Jessica Gunning, Baby Reindeer
Allison Janney, The Diplomat
Kali Reis, True Detective: Night Country
Liza Colón-Zayas pulled off the Emmy upset over Hannah Einbinder in the Comedy category in September, while Jessica Gunning bested Kali Reis and Dakota Fanning in the Limited category. For as much of an Emmy juggernaut as Allison Janney has been throughout her career, she’s only won one Globe, and that was for I, Tonya, so though she stole a bunch of scenes on The Diplomat, it’s no guarantee she’ll steal this award. The smart money is on Jessica Gunning to be the Baby Reindeer representative at the podium on Sunday night, though at some point Hannah Einbinder will win one of these, right?
Best Performance in Stand-up Comedy on Television
Jamie Foxx , Jamie Foxx: What Had Happened Was…
Nikki Glaser, Nikki Glaser: Someday You’ll Die
Seth Meyers, Seth Meyers: Dad Man Walking
Adam Sandler, Adam Sandler: Love You
Ali Wong, Ali Wong: Single Lady
Ramy Youssef, Ramy Youssef: More Feelings
The wrinkle here is that Nikki Glaser is not only a nominee in this two-year-old category, but she’s also the ceremony’s host. Last year’s winner was Ricky Gervais, a five-time Globes host himself. Perhaps this is a pattern! (If so, don’t count out Seth Meyers, who hosted in 2018.) I won’t pretend to have any great expertise in stand-up comedy, though my guess is most of the Globes voters won’t either. What I do know is that both Ali Wong and Ramy Youssef won Golden Globes for acting in recent years, and Jamie Foxx was once nominated for three in a single year. If I had $100, I’d split it up evenly on bets for Meyers, Wong, and Glaser, and then they’d say “Sir, you can’t tear a hundred dollar bill into thirds, it doesn’t work that way.” Whatever, it’s funnier if Seth Meyers wins and Nikki takes shots at him for the rest of the night.