The Globes, which have been around since 1944, honor achievements in both films and television, which make them different from the movies-only Oscars (set this year for April 25). And the Golden Globes are nominated and voted by a relatively small group, some 90 members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, journalists who report on the entertainment industry predominantly outside of the United States. The whole world (all around the “globe”) watches what this selective, somewhat secretive organization determines to be award-worthy—because winners of the Golden Globes often go on to win other big Hollywood honors, like the Oscars. And because the membership is so relatively small, a swing or even 10 to 12 votes can have a major impact on who wins—or doesn’t—in any category. So the Globes also can have some, ahem, interesting nominations and winners, not found in other movie awards. It’s been a particularly tough year for films, with many major theaters temporarily—or even permanently—closed, and all of Hollywood scrambling to figure out how to recover. Most people who saw any of the movies released this year saw them not in theaters, but at home, on their television—surely a first for any “movie year.” But notwithstanding an otherwise devastating pandemic, it was still a year of outstanding movies and performances, rich with diversity, daring and edge; exploding with exciting breakouts, but also rock-solid with reminders of some of our most dependable stars; and providing bracing reminders of why we’ll always love the movies. So here we go: My rundown of the Globe’s major film categories, and predictions on who might take home a Golden Globe—or more.
2021 Golden Globes predictions for movies
Best Motion Picture, Drama
The Father Mank Nomadland Promising Young Woman The Trial of the Chicago 7 Parade’s Golden Globes Prediction: This category is the biggie, the night’s equivalent of “best picture,” since drama is such serious stuff. But first off, it’s impossible to overlook the glaring omission of any of the year’s major Black films, for a year with such a bumper crop. No Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. No One Night in Miami. No Judas and the Black Messiah. No Da 5 Bloods. Wow—talk about whitewashing. Anyway, here’s what we do have: The rape-revenge fantasy Promising Young Woman has been slicing a path of high praise and controversy since its Christmas Day release, and it’s already raked in several top awards from critics’ groups. The Father, the artfully innovative dementia drama, is stately and traditional, anchored with deep-dive performances that hew closely to its theatrical roots. Mixing 1960s history, gripping drama and social relevance, The Trial of the Chicago 7 has a power-punch, all-star ensemble cast, which certainly adds to its voter appeal. But can anything top the magnificent, cinematically majestic Nomadland, an all-around critics’ favorite with its sense of an unsettled, uprooted America during the Great Recession more than a decade ago, that still seems so…now? I doubt it. The needle on my awards compass points to Nomadland.
Best Director, Motion Picture
Emerald Fennell (Promising Young Woman) David Fincher (Mank) Regina King (One Night in Miami) Aaron Sorkin (The Trial of the Chicago 7) Chloé Zhao (Nomadland) Parade’s Golden Globes Prediction: You’ll notice this category differs from Best Picture, Drama, in only one way—The Father is out, replaced—fair enough—by One Night in Miami. Regina King’s acclaimed film directing debut—about what might have happened when boxer Muhammad Ali, football icon Jim Brown, singer Sam Cooke and activist Malcolm X got together one evening, having a lively discussion about the 1960s civil rights movement—is a solid, critically-hailed piece of ensemble filmmaking. But in its long history, the HFPA has only awarded one woman in this category—and that was Barbra Streisand for Yentl (1983). So that doesn’t seem to bode well, either, for Chloé Zhao and Nomadland, her poetic tale of a restless wanderers on the fringes of an economically broken and busted America, even though she, too, richly deserves to be recognized—and she’s the first Asian female to ever be nominated in this category by the Globes. Those long odds make Emerald Fennell (Promising Young Woman) also seem like an outsider. Aaron Sorkin’s Trial is a masterfully made piece of movie craft, with the kind of heft that voters tend to love; David Fincher’s Mank, a black-and-white salute to Hollywood’s golden era, is a cinemaphile’s smorsgabord with echoes of the classic past. But in a crazy year, at an awards show that can sometimes be unpredictable and full of surprises, I wouldn’t be surprised to see a surprise this year: Watch for Zhao and Nomadland to make history.
Best Actor in a Motion Picture, Drama
Riz Ahmed (Sound of Metal) Chadwick Boseman (Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom) Anthony Hopkins (The Father) Gary Oldman (Mank) Tahar Rahim (The Mauritanian) Parade’s Golden Globes Prediction: Anthony Hopkins and Gary Oldman will likely split the “traditional” vote in this category, as established, well-known, actorly actors, both previous Globe winners, in roles that let them show their stuff in prestige productions. In another year, either one of them might have taken home this prize. But likely not this year. The late, great Chadwick Boseman fires on all cylinders, as a temperamental young blues musician with sky-high dreams, in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, his final project before his untimely death from cancer at age 43. If it weren’t for Boseman and his magnum opus of a swan song, Riz Ahmed—a “newcomer” with more than 40 credits—might be the frontrunner; he finally found his breakout in Sound of Metal, a passionate portrait a rock drummer losing his hearing. Tahar Rahim, a relatively obscure French actor in the true-story Guantánamo-detainee drama The Mauritanian, probably doesn’t stand much of a chance. I’m also a drummer, so I’m really pulling for Ahmed, who self-taught himself how to play for his role. But the smart money’s on Boseman, who may finally (posthumously) get an award he never received for Black Panther, 42, Get On Up or Marshall.
Best Actress in a Motion Picture, Drama
Viola Davis (Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom) Andra Day (The United States vs. Billie Holiday) Vanessa Kirby (Pieces of a Woman) Frances McDormand (Nomadland) Carey Mulligan (Promising Young Woman) Parade’s Golden Globes Predictions: Viola Davis and Frances McDormand sit pretty secure at the top of this category, with a slight edge toward Davis, who steams up the screen in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom as a force-of-nature 1920s blues diva who bows to no one. No stranger to awards, McDormand (who already has a pair of Oscars and Golden Globes, plus an Emmy), completely immersed herself in the role of Fern, a woman who loses everything and hits the highway in Nomadland. But there are super-strong contenders nipping at their heels. Vanessa Kirby gives a jaw-dropping performance as a young mother devastated by a tragedy in the searing contemporary domestic drama Pieces of a Woman. Carey Mulligan has been getting a career-high level of buzz for her role as a vengeance-dishing femme fatale in Promising Young Woman. But the real standout performance of the year is from a true newcomer, Andra Day, the Grammy-nominated singer who boldly and confidently steps into her first leading film role in The United States vs. Bille Holiday, about the tragic life of the tortured jazz singer hounded for more than a decade by the FBI. She’s spectacular and deserves to win, but will she? If the HFPA plays it on the safe side, this one might be in the bag for Davis, who could add another Globe to the one she received in the Supporting Actress category in 2017 for Fences. But if voters get hip to the Holiday movie as nominations turn to voting, if they follow the musical muse toward someone newer, making a super-sized splash in a film with some timely overtones in this tinderbox moment—it could be, and should be, Day’s night to shine.
Best Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy
Borat Subsequent Moviefilm Hamilton Music Palm Springs The Prom Parade’s Golden Globes Predictions: This mash-up category never made much sense, mixing musicals with comedies and causing some decent—and distinctly different—films to compete head-to-head, outside their genres. But it is what it is. Some film awards organizations this year (and I vote for a couple of them) don’t even consider Hamilton, a filmed version of the Broadway play, as a “movie.” The (non-musical) time-warp comedy Palm Springs marked Brooklyn Nine-Nine TV star (and SNL alum) Andy Samberg’s breakout into a major, critically-acclaimed movie. The Prom—the over-the-top Netflix adaptation of the Tony Award-winning musical, about a group of Broadway stars puttin’ on the ritz for a Midwestern teen barred from taking her girlfriend to her high school dance—had big stars, lots of big songs and a big message about acceptance and inclusion. Music had music, yes, but its depiction of a teenager with autism (Maddie Ziegler) caused a trainwreck of backlash that led to an apology from its director, the recording artist Sia, and a scramble of post-release re-editing. So: I think the path is pretty clear for Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, Sacha Baron Cohen’s brilliant, brash, brutally funny, taboo-smashing social satire, to rule the roost and scatter everyone else’s feathers—and it even has music, too, a caustically clever song called “The Wuhan Flu.” So, there.
Best Actress in a Motion Picture, Musical/Comedy
Maria Bakalova (Borat Subsequent Moviefilm) Kate Hudson (Music) Michelle Pfeiffer (French Exit) Rosamund Pike (I Care a Lot) Anya Taylor-Joy (Emma.) Parade’s Golden Globes Prediction:Anya Taylor-Joy was a delight in the sparkling period-piece Emma., the latest witty spin on Jane Austen’s 19th century comedy of manners. Michelle Pfeiffer, a veteran with seven previous Globe nominations and one win (for The Fabulous Baker Boys) could repeat for her role as a Manhattan heiress who relocates to Paris in French Exit; there’s something comfortable and familiar about her that voters clearly like. Here’s Music again, and Kate Hudson, in a movie that’s not really a musical, and certainly not a comedy. I don’t think voters will care a lot about Rosamund Pike in the dark-comedy crime caper I Care a Lot. I’m predicting this year’s powerful Borat Effect will wash over into this category and newcomer Maria Bakalova, the young (heretofore) unknown Bulgarian actress who gives such fresh comedic spark, as Borat’s daughter, to the marauding mischief of Borat Subsequent Moviefilm—particularly in the scene where she coaxes embattled Donald Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani into the bedroom. And even if she doesn’t win—but she should—she’ll bring something home to Bulgaria: the distinction of being the first person ever from her country to be nominated for a Globe.
Best Actor in a Motion Picture, Musical/Comedy
Sacha Baron Cohen (Borat Subsequent Moviefilm) James Corden (The Prom) Lin-Manuel Miranda (Hamilton) Dev Patel (The Personal History of David Copperfield) Andy Samberg (Palm Springs)
Best Supporting Actress, Motion Picture
Glenn Close (Hillbilly Elegy) Olivia Colman (The Father) Jodie Foster (The Mauritanian) Amanda Seyfried (Mank) Helena Zengel (News of the World) Parade’s Golden Globes Predictions: Hillbilly Elegy got roasted in reviews, but everyone loves Glenn Close, who memorably played the feisty grandmother, Mamaw—and so, here she is. Olivia Colman is great in The Father, but the focus is mostly on her leading man, Hopkins, losing his marbles. Too bad for Jodie Foster, a fine actress, that her top-tier project this year is The Mauritanian, a grueling real-life story of incarceration and torture—a film that so few people were in the mood to see, when most everyone was looking instead for a little less real life and a little more fantasy and escape. Helena Zengel, the young German newcomer, holds her own as an immigrant sidekick to Tom Hanks in the ripping, wild-West gauntlet of News of the World—and the HFPA would probably love to be first in awarding this 12-year-old her first major acting honor. But ever since Mank first screened for critics, everyone’s been on fire for Amanda Seyfried, as actress Marion Davies, the muse of screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz as he labors over the script for Orson Welles’ masterpiece Citizen Kane. The role has given Seyfried—who’s never yet won a major movie award—the best reviews of her career, and the film leads this year’s Golden Globes nominations, with six overall. All that Mank mass and momentum could mean Feb. 28 will finally be Seyfried’s night, and this could be her year.
Best Supporting Actor, Motion Picture
Sacha Baron Cohen (Borat Subsequent Moviefilm) Daniel Kaluuya (Judas and the Black Messiah) Jared Leto (The Little Things) Bill Murray (On the Rocks) Leslie Odom Jr. (One Night in Miami) Parade’s Predictions: With large ensemble casts in several films (including The Prom, One Night in Miami, The Trial of the Chicago 7 and Da 5 Bloods), this category could have easily stretched to at least a dozen nominees, all of them deserving. But since the field is already so narrowed down, why not winnow it down some more? Baron Cohen, predicted to win in a couple of other categories, probably won’t get this one—and “Supporting Actor” also diminishes his creative engine role in the whole Borat franchise, as creator, writer and star. Bill Murray deserves some kind of award for just being Bill Murray; but I’m not sure voters will think it’s this one, with his laidback acting in On the Rocks not so much of a stretch. Jared Leto is creepy-weird, doing his trippy Jared Leto thing, as the prime suspect in the cop murder-mystery drama Little Things. That leaves Daniel Kaluuya—as Black Panther revolutionary Fred Hampton in Judas and the Black Messiah—and Leslie Odom Jr.—playing soulful singer Sam Cooke in One Night in Miami—coming down to the finish line. I’m betting voters will go for the smooth, soothing sounds of Sam Cooke…because a win for Odom Jr. would also be a way of acknowledging his work in Hamilton (in which he plays Aaron Burr), as well as Music, another of his nominated movie projects, which isn’t likely to get any other Globes love this year. So score this one for Mr. O.
Best Picture, Animated
The Croods: A New Age Onward Over the Moon Soul Wolfwalkers Parade’s Predictions: A mixed bag, all good. But only one will bring home a trophy. Wolfwalkers is a digitally rendered fable that looks like the dazzling work of cartoon master craftsmen. Over the Moon, a Netflix project done by a former Disney artist, celebrates Chinese culture. Tom Holland and Chris Pratt provide the voices for Onward, a respectable Pixar romp about teen elves. In The Croods: New Age, a sequel to the 2013 Dreamworks flick, the adventures of a Flintstones-ish family rock on (voiced by Nicolas Cage, Emma Stone, Ryan Reynolds, Catherine Keener and Leslie Mann). But Pixar—which has won the award every year, except for four, since the Animation category was introduced in 2006—is all set for another win with Soul, the brilliant existential parable about a music teacher (voiced by Jamie Foxx) who meets his untimely end just as he’s about to realize his lifelong dream of becoming a professional jazz musician. A young “soul” (Tina Fey), however, helps him discover a whole new way of looking at life. Like Pixar’s best films, Soul is a soaring masterstroke of animation, storytelling, music, characters and messaging, and it works on several levels, for both children and adults. It’s another clear winner. Next, see which movies we’re most excited to see in 2021.
