Golden Globes Close Calls Decided: ‘Anora,’ The Apprentice,’ ‘Heretic,’ ‘A Real Pain,’ Others Stake Claims As Dramas or Musical/Comedies (Exclusive)
Filmmakers and distributors of awards-hopefuls have until Nov. 4 to submit their category preference — drama versus musical or comedy — to the Golden Globes organization, which reserves the right to overturn any classification that it finds egregiously inaccurate.
Some of this year’s cases are inarguable — for instance, Netflix’s Emilia Pérez, in which characters spontaneously burst into song, is clearly a musical (if not a comedy), and A24’s The Brutalist, in which an immigrant faces all sorts of harrowing hurdles, is clearly a drama. There are, however, also plenty of close-calls, about which many have made assumptions, but, in most cases, not confirmed.
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The Hollywood Reporter has been working the phones and can now report which way almost every contender is breaking. This intel is, of course, subject to change prior to Nov. 4, and to being overturned by the Globes thereafter — but it is current as of this writing.
Joining Emilia Pérez in the the musical/comedy field will be several other musicals, including Universal’s Wicked; Warners’ Joker: Folie à Deux; Sony Classics’ Kneecap; Disney’s Mufasa: The Lion King; and Paramount’s Better Man and Mean Girls. But THR can confirm that a number of pretty dark films will also be entered there, most notably Neon’s Anora, the story of a sex worker who gets mixed up with shady Russians; Searchlight’s A Real Pain, about cousins who visit Poland to pay tribute to their late grandmother; A24’s A Different Man, the story of a man with neurofibromatosis who undergoes surgery to reverse it, and Heretic, a horror flick in which a home visit by Mormon missionaries goes wrong; and, as Gold Derby previously reported and some are likely to raise objections to, Amazon/MGM’s Challengers, in which young tennis players wind up in a love triangle.
Also in the musical/comedy field: dramedies (Netflix’s Hit Man; Searchlight’s Nightbitch and Kinds of Kindness; Focus’ Dìdi and Piece by Piece; Magnolia’s Thelma; Sony’s Saturday Night and Fly Me to the Moon; and Sony Classics’ Between the Temples); broader comedies (Disney’s Deadpool & Wolverine; Universal’s The Fall Guy and Argylle; Warners’ Beetlejuice Beetlejuice; Amazon/MGM’s My Old Ass; Apple’s Wolfs; and Sony Classics’ Wicked Little Letters); and, as was made possible by a rule change in 2021, animated features (Universal’s The Wild Robot; Disney/Pixar’s Inside Out 2; Disney’s Moana 2; and Focus’ Piece by Piece).
Some films that perhaps could have been pushed for a musical/comedy classification, but will instead be entered as a drama, include Briarcliff/Rich Spirit’s The Apprentice, which is essentially a buddy film about Donald Trump and Roy Cohn; A24’s Queer, a trippy film about the colorful escapades of a William S. Burroughs stand-in; and Sony Classics’ Daddio, in which a taxi driver (Sean Penn) and passenger (Dakota Johnson) banter during a long ride.
There are a bunch of movies this year that contain a lot of music but will not be entered in the musical/comedy race — an acknowledgement that they are really dramas with music: Searchlight’s Bob Dylan portrait A Complete Unknown; Netflix’s Maria Callas biopic Maria (meaning its leading lady, Angelina Jolie, will not have to go up against the streamer’s Emilia Pérez leading lady, Karla Sofía Gascón); Focus’ Amy Winehouse biopic Back to Black; and Paramount’s Bob Marley biopic Bob Marley: One Love.
In a different era of the Globes, some films of this sort were able to sneak past the guardians and land in the musical/comedy category, which was usually thinner — for example, A Complete Unknown director James Mangold’s 2005 Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash biopic Walk the Line. But these days, the revamped organization behind the Globes doesn’t let that sort of thing happen. Films in which characters play musicians who perform songs, as opposed to films that feature characters who spontaneously break into song, almost always wind up classified as dramas whether they like it or not (see 2018’s Bohemian Rhapsody and A Star Is Born).
The drama field was always, of course, going to include Focus’ Conclave, Nosferatu and The Bikeriders; Paramount’s Gladiator II and September 5; Sony Classics’ The Room Next Door, I’m Still Here and The Outrun; Apple’s Blitz; Warner’s Dune: Part Two, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1 and Juror #2; A24’s Babygirl, Civil War, Sing Sing, Babygirl and We Live in Time; Amazon/MGM’s Nickel Boys, The Fire Inside and Unstoppable; Netflix’s The Piano Lesson, His Three Daughters and Shirley; Disney’s Young Woman and the Sea; Vertical’s The Order; Sideshow/Janus’ All We Imagine as Light; Kino Lorber’s Oh, Canada; Neon’s The Seed of the Sacred Fig and Longlegs; Roadside’s The Last Showgirl; Roadside/Vertical’s Lee; Shout!’s The Dead Don’t Hurt; Falling Forward’s Day of the Fight; Bleecker Street’s Hard Truths; Lionsgate’s Small Things Like These and White Bird; IFC/Sapan’s Ghostlight; and Sony’s Here.
There is really only one wild-card still out there: MUBI’s The Substance, in which Demi Moore plays an aging movie star who goes to extreme measures to try to retain her viability in the industry. I can see arguments on both sides for this one, and apparently so can MUBI and Moore’s team, who are still deliberating about what to do. On the one hand, one could argue that it’s a very dark drama turned horror flick. But on the other hand, one could certainly call it a satire, sending up a business in which youth and beauty are prioritized above all else. To me, it’s a modern-day Sunset Blvd. (1950), which straddled those two descriptions — and ultimately competed at the Globes as a drama and took home four awards, including best actress.
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