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Source: The Hollywood Reporter
If there were any awards ceremony that was tailor-made for something like the Barbenheimer phenomenon, it’s easily the Golden Globe Awards. The reason for this: the Golden Globes are among the few organizations that hand out not one, but two Best Picture prizes: one for Drama, and the other for Musical and/or Comedy films. When the nominations for the 81st Golden Globe Awards were announced just over a month ago, many were pleased to find that both of the films at the heart of Barbenheimer – specifically Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie” and Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” were nominated in at least one of these categories, with the former being listed as a contender for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy and the latter being listed under Best Motion Picture – Drama. In theory, both of these films could win their respective awards and stand together as they are recognized by the Golden Globes as being the best films that the year 2023 had to offer, bringing the Barbenheimer phenomenon to its highest point yet. When the time actually came for the awards ceremony however, things didn’t quite play out like many were hoping. Granted, as each winner was announced throughout the evening of Sunday, January 7th, both “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” could be heard multiple times, but while one of these films was able to come out on top and take the Best Motion Picture prize it had been nominated for, the other sadly fell short of such an accomplishment, ultimately holding Barbenheimer back from a complete domination of the Golden Globes.
Fortunately for one of these films, not only did it win a Best Motion Picture award, but it took home four additional prizes and came out as the most successful film of the evening. That film was “Oppenheimer”, which not only won Best Motion Picture – Drama, but also received Best Director for Nolan, Best Performance by a Male Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama for Cillian Murphy, Best Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role in Any Motion Picture for Robert Downey, Jr., and Best Original Score for Ludwig Goransson. In spite of all these wins though, it was not a perfect evening for “Oppenheimer”, as the film ended up losing in the Cinematic and Box Office Achievement, Best Screenplay, and Best Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role in Any Motion Picture categories (the latter being specifically for Emily Blunt). Regardless, “Oppenheimer” still succeeded in taking five of the eight awards it had been nominated for, all of which demonstrate the film’s strength as an award-winning powerhouse and strengthen its chances of winning Best Picture at the upcoming Academy Awards ceremony in March.
One half of Barbenheimer may have been able to triumph during the evening, but while the other half was not entirely without success, its greatest ambitions were stopped by another film that vied for many of those same awards. Winning Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy was not “Barbie” like so many had hoped, but rather Yorgos Lanthimos’ “Poor Things”, which had received seven nominations in total prior to the start of the Golden Globes. “Poor Things” also hindered “Barbie” from taking the award for Best Performance by a Female Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy, with the former’s leading actress Emma Stone earning the accolade over the latter’s leading actress Margot Robbie. On the bright side, “Barbie”, as was previously stated, did not leave the Golden Globes completely empty-handed, as it managed to receive two prizes before the evening came to a close. Those awards were for Cinematic and Box Office Achievement (an admittedly controversial category that many have accused of being more focused on a film’s financial success rather than its artistic quality) and Best Original Song, the latter going to Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell for their song “What Was I Made For?”
In addition to “Barbie”, “Oppenheimer”, and “Poor Things”, two other films proved fortunate enough to take multiple prizes over the course of the Golden Globes. The first of these films was Justin Triet’s “Anatomy of a Fall”, a French production that was named Best Non-English Language Film while also winning the award for Best Screenplay. The second of these films was Alexander Payne’s “The Holdovers”, which proved successful in taking home two of the acting accolades: Best Performance by a Male Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy for Paul Giamatti, and Best Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role in Any Motion Picture for Da’Vine Joy Randolph. Finally, there were two more films took the remaining two prizes: Martin Scorses’s “Killers of the Flower Moon”, which earned leading actress Lily Gladstone the award for Best Performance by a Female Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama, and Hayao Miyazaki’s “The Boy and the Heron”, which was named Best Animated Feature. Given the Golden Globes’ claims that it would be striving for greater diversity in terms of its voters and winners, these latter two awards are at least some proof that such efforts are having some impact, as Gladstone is the first person of Indigenous descent to win an acting the award, while “The Boy and the Heron” is the first non-English language film to win Best Animated Feature.
It should go without saying that this was a rather interesting year for the Golden Globes, and that’s before one takes the winning films and individuals into consideration. Not only was this the first ceremony held outside of the control of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, the group that founded the awards (with Dick Clark Productions and Eldridge Industries now in charge of organizing the event), but it was also the first to be aired on the CBS television network (as well as on its sister streaming service Paramount+) in over forty years, with most of the previous ceremonies airing on rival network NBC. As evidenced by these factors, the Golden Globes have had to undergo quite a few changes as of lately (many of them the result of significant controversies that have popped up over the past few years), but while there are still some things that the Golden Globe Awards continue to receive criticism for, one can at least find relief in knowing that the films and people that won its awards are as strong as they are and will hopefully to prove their worth as the remainer of the awards season continues into the coming weeks.
