Chinese-born filmmaker and Oscar-winning director Chloe Zhao is nominated for Best Director for her film Hamnet
Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another scored a leading nine nominations to the 83rd Golden Globe Awards on Monday, adding to the Oscar favourite’s momentum and handing Warner Bros a victory amid Netflix’s acquisition deal.
In nominations announced from Beverly Hills, California, One Battle After Another landed nominations for its cast – Leonardo DiCaprio, Teyana Taylor, Sean Penn and Chase Infiniti – and for Anderson’s screenplay and direction. It’s competing in the category for comedy and musicals.
Close on its heels was Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value, a Norwegian family drama about a filmmaking family. The Neon release’s eight nominations included nominations for four of its actors: Stellan SkarsgArd, Renate Reinsve, Elle Fanning and Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas.
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The Globe nominations, a tattered but persistent rite in Hollywood, are coming on the heels of a potentially seismic shift in entertainment. On Friday, Netflix struck a deal to buy Warner Bros Discovery for US$72 billion. If approved, the deal would reshape Hollywood and put one of its most storied movie studios in the hands of the streaming giant.
Warner Bros, Netflix and the Golden Globes
Both companies are prominent in this year’s awards season. Along with One Battle After Another, Warner Bros has Sinners, Ryan Coogler’s acclaimed vampire hit. It was nominated for seven awards, including box office achievement, best actor for Michael B. Jordan and Coogler for best director.
Netflix’s contenders include Noah Baumbach’s Jay Kelly, which landed nominations for George Clooney and Adam Sandler, Guillermo del Toro’s “Frankenstein“, which has five nominations, and the streaming smash hit, KPop Demon Hunters.
Arguably the most-watched movie of the year, the three nominations for KPop Demon Hunters included one for cinematic and box office achievement – an oddity for Netflix, which typically gives its films only small, limited theatrical runs but found a No 1 box office weekend in singalong screenings for the animated film.
The two studios led all others in nominations across film and television on Monday. Netflix landed 35 nominations, boosted by its expansive film slate and television nominees like the British limited series Adolescence, which has five nominations. Warner Bros had 31 nominations, including 15 from HBO Max for series such as The White Lotus, the lead TV nominee with six.
The proposed deal for Warner Bros has stoked concern throughout the industry that Netflix might devote one of the most theatrical-focused studios to streaming. Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos has pledged a theatrical commitment to many Warner releases, but the leading trade group for exhibitors has called the deal “an unprecedented threat”.
On Sunday, US President Donald Trump said the market share created by the merger “could be a problem”, and Paramount said on Monday it was mounting a hostile bid for Warner Bros.
Neon shines on a bad day for Wicked: For Good
Yet the studio that triumphed on the movie side of the Globe nominations was Neon. The indie film company has emerged as a dominant force in international releases, winning a string of Palme d’Or awards at the Cannes Film Festival. It earned 21 nominations on Monday, including five of the six international film nominees.
Some of those nominations came at the expense of some high-profile studio films. Wicked: For Good was nominated for five awards, including two nominations for its songs and acting nominations for Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande. But it was overlooked for an award it was presumed to be in contention for: best comedy or musical.
The nominees instead were One Battle After Another, Yorgos Lanthimos’ Bugonia, Josh Safdie’s Marty Supreme, Park Chan-wook’s No Other Choice (a Neon release) and a pair of Richard Linklater films in Blue Moon and Nouvelle Vague.
In the drama category, Chinese-born filmmaker Chloe Zhao’s Hamnet scored six nominations, including for its stars, Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal. It was nominated for best film, drama, along with Frankenstein and three Neon titles: The Secret Agent, Sentimental Value and It Was Just an Accident.
Jafar Panahi’s It Was Just an Accident, the acclaimed Iranian revenge drama, was nominated for a total of four awards. At different times, Panahi has often been imprisoned, put under house arrest and prohibited from leaving Iran by the Islamic Republic while making films over the past two decades. Earlier this month, while travelling outside Iran with the film, he was sentenced to a year in prison and a new two-year travel ban.
Podcasters and A-listers mingle
As the Globes continue to transition out of their scandal-plagued past, there’s one notable change this year. For the first time, the Globes are giving a best podcast trophy. The inaugural nominees are Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard, Call Her Daddy, Good Hang with Amy Poehler, The Mel Robbins Podcast, SmartLess and NPR’s Up First.
Many of those nominees aren’t exactly outsiders to Hollywood. But they’ll mingle with a wide array of stars that the Globes, long known for packing their red carpet with A-listers, were sure to nominate.
Those include Timothee Chalamet, nominated for his performance in Marty Supreme, Jennifer Lawrence in Die My Love, Julia Roberts for After the Hunt, Tessa Thompson in Hedda, Jeremy Allen White for his role in Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere, Emma Stone for Bugonia, Ethan Hawke in Blue Moon and the two stars of The Smashing Machine, Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt.
After a series of controversies for the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, the group that previously put on the ceremony, the Globes were sold in 2023 to Todd Boehly’s Eldridge Industries and Dick Clark Productions, a part of Penske Media. A new, larger voting body of more than 300 people now vote on the awards, which moved from NBC to CBS on a shorter, less expensive deal.
Nikki Glaser is returning as host to the January 11 Globes, airing on CBS and streaming on Paramount+. This past January, Glaser won good reviews for her first time emceeing the ceremony. Ratings were essentially unchanged, slightly dipping to 9.3 million viewers, according to Nielsen, from 9.4 million in 2024.
Helen Mirren will receive the Cecil B. DeMille Award in a separate prime-time special airing January 8. Sarah Jessica Parker will be honoured with the Carol Burnett Award.
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