Hollywood kick-starts the awards season with the Golden Globes 2024
Kicking off Hollywood's award season, the 81st Golden Globes convened with much fanfare after the resolution of twin labour strikes that had stilled the Hollywood film industry for much of the last year. While the historical drama 'Oppenheimer' dominated with five globes, the gothic comedy 'Poor Things' upset the summer blockbuster 'Barbie' with its twin wins, and Lily Gladstone became the first indigenous person to win a Globe for her role in 'Killers of the Flower Moon'
Image: Atsushi Nishijima / Searchlight PicturesBest motion picture - musical or comedy, and Best performance by a female actor in a motion picture - Musical or comedy - Poor Things; Emma Stone
Based on Alasdair Gray's novel, this comedy-drama riff remixes the Frankenstein tale into a young woman's journey of self-discovery.
Image: Melinda Sue Gordon /Universal PicturesBest director - Motion picture - Christopher Nolan for Oppenheimer
The story of Oppenheimer was staggering in its ambition and scale. It was plotted by Nolan, writing the script in first person, with a nuanced understanding of the moral and political struggles of the physicist.
Image: Courtesy Universal PicturesBest male actor in a motion picture - drama - Cillian Murphy for Oppenheimer
After a call 'out of the blue' from Nolan, Murphy was quoted as saying he knew he "had six months to really go in." Known for portraying morally ambiguous characters, Murphy delved into the complex character with exceptional skill and dedication.
Image: Courtesy Apple TVBest female actor in a motion picture - drama - Lily Gladstone for Killers Of The Flower Moon
Coming from a native background herself, Gladstone plays Mollie Burkhart, an Osage woman who lives through the murders of dozens of Osage people in Oklahoma in the 1920s. This breakout role has received much critical acclaim to date.
Image: Courtesy HBOBest television series - drama - Succession
It is a series that centres on the Roy family, the owners of global media and entertainment conglomerate Waystar RoyCo, and their fight for control of the company amidst uncertainty about the health of the family's patriarch. A mastery of narrative form characterised Succession, and the series was structured like a news cycle.
Image: Courtesy HBOBest male actor in TV series - drama - Kieran Culkin for Succession
As one of the three self-involved adult siblings vying to take over the family-run media conglomerate, Culkin plays a character who "grew up never having to suffer consequences, and so he doesn't really know what that means to suffer consequences."
Image: Courtesy HBOBest female actor in TV series - drama - Sarah Snook for SuccessionPlaying a billionaire media tycoon's only daughter in the series, Snook plays a character who is "prickly and needs a bit of a hug", in her words.
Image: Courtesy TVDBBest television series - musical or comedy - The Bear
The soul-crushing realities of small business ownership, strong-willed and recalcitrant kitchen staff and strained familial relationships all add up to this frantic, fine soup of a series.
Image: Courtesy HuluBest male and female actors in TV series - musical or comedy - Jeremy Allen White and Ayo Edebiri for The BearThe platonic chemistry between White and Edebiri in The Bear's claustrophobic kitchen grips the audience right into its third season.
Image: Andrew Cooper / NetflixBest television limited series or movie and best performance by a female actor - Beef; Ali Wong
A dark comedy that follows two strangers as their lives converge during a road rage incident, Beef's immense success has thrust the spotlight on Wong, a star stand-up comedian. Wong said, "In terms of preparing, the thing that worried me the most was memorising all those lines. Sometimes, I'd have to memorise ten pages of dialogue in one day.…"
Image: Courtesy Warner Bros. PicturesCinematic and box office achievement, and Best original song - Barbie; What was I made for? by Billie Eilish
Greta Gerwig's fantasy comedy smash hit ended the year as the highest-grossing film of 2023, having raked in more than $1.4 billion since hitting theaters in July, which was described by Warner Bros as "reaching a barbillion". But that wasn't criterion enough to turn those nominations into globes.
