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Source: The Los Angeles Times
When it comes to the award season celebrating the films of 2020, to quote a familiar saying, it’s better late than never. Despite a significant shortage of films as a result of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, there was still just enough for the major film associations to deem worthy of awards recognition. Granted, most of these films have been released through streaming services as opposed to traditional theatrical exhibition, a means of distribution that has become quite controversial over the past few years, but with the majority of theaters closed throughout 2020 and the major studios holding back most of their high-profile products, streaming has been, for the most part, the only source from which most of these films can be safely viewed. All this has resulted in the year’s biggest awards ceremonies having to be pushed back. In fact, in a normal year, the Academy Award nominations would have been announced, and the Golden Globes would’ve already been handed out.
However, as a result of significant postponements due to the pandemic, the Golden Globes nominations were only just recently announced, and the Oscar nominations won’t come out for another month. Still, as previously stated, it’s better these events happen late instead never, and sure enough, on Wednesday February 3rd, the nominees for the 78th Golden Globes were announced, and sure enough, streaming services proved to be the dominant force, as the grand majority of films nominated, as well as the majority of nominations, overall, were from streaming platforms.
Of these services, it was Netflix, arguably the most popular film streaming service currently operating, that took the lion’s share of the major nominations. Of the films nominated, it was Netflix’s “Mank”, David Fincher’s dramatic biopic about “Citizen Kane” writer Herman J. Mankiewicz, that ended up being the most heavily nominated film, earning a total of six nominations, the most prominent being Best Motion Picture – Drama. Other films released by Netflix that also scored at least one Golden Globe nomination include “The Trial of the Chicago 7”, which had also been nominated for Best Motion Picture – Drama, and “The Prom”, which became a nominee for the other film category, Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy. In addition, Viola Davis and the late Chadwick Boseman were both nominated for Best Actor and Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama for their film “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom”, a film also distributed by Netflix. Overall, Netflix films ended up receiving a total of nineteen nominations, more than any other film distributor.
Joining “Mank” and “The Trial of the Chicago 7” as nominees for Best Motion Picture – Drama were the British drama “The Father”, Searchlight Pictures’ “Nomadland” directed by Chloe Zhao, and the black comedy/thriller “Promising Young Woman”. On the opposite end of the spectrum, in the category of Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy, joining “The Prom” are “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm”, the sequel to the 2006 film “Borat”, the live recording of the popular Broadway musical “Hamilton”, the musical drama from popular singer Sia “Music”, and “Palm Springs”, an Andy Samberg sci-fi comedy that premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival.
In the acting categories, the nominees for Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama were Riz Ahmed for “Sound of Metal”, the aforementioned Chadwick Boseman, Anthony Hopkins for “The Father”, Gary Oldman for “The Mank”, and Tahar Rahim for “The Mauritanian”, whereas the nominees for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama included the previously mentioned Viola Davis, Andra Day for “The United States vs. Billie Holiday”, Vanessa Kirby for “Pieces of a Woman”, Frances McDormand for “Nomadland”, and Carey Mulligan for “Promising Young Woman”. Meanwhile, in the acting categories for Musical or Comedy, the Best Actor nominees were Sacha Baron Cohen for “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm”, James Corden for “The Prom”, Lin-Manuel Miranda for “Hamilton”, Dev Patel for “The Personal History of David Copperfield”, and Andy Samberg for “Palm Springs”; as for the Best Actress nominees, those included were Maria Bakalova for “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm”, Kate Hudson for “Music”, Michelle Pfeiffer for “French Exit”, Rosamund Pike for “I Care a Lot”, and Anya Taylor-Joy for “Emma”.
Perhaps the most notable category in terms of who was nominated was Best Director; not only is this the first time that the majority of nominated directors are female, but two of them are women of color, making this one of the most diverse line-ups in the history of the category. Said nominees consist of African-American director Regina King for “One Night in Miami”, Chinese director Chloe Zhao for “Nomadland”, and Emerald Fennell for “Promising Young Woman”, who will be competing against each other, as well as David Fincher for “Mank” and Aaron Sorkin for “The Trial of the Chicago 7”. Zhao, Fennell, and Sorkin, will also be competing amongst each other for the award for Best Screenplay, for which Jack Fincher for “Mank” and Florian Zeller and Christopher Hampton for “The Father” will also be competing for.
Who will end up being the winners in these categories and several others? Nobody will know until the end of the month on February 28th, when the ceremony will be held for the first time with a bi-coastal presentation, with Amy Poehler hosting from The Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, California, and Tina Fey hosting from the Rainbow Room in New York City. It will certainly be a unique Golden Globes ceremony as a result of this decision to hold it in two different locations, and it’s hard not to see this as a result of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. How well the organizers will be able to pull this off is still yet to be known, but hopefully it will not detract from the films that are nominated and will hopefully go on to be the year’s biggest winners.
