Golden Globes film predictions 2024: who will win in each category?
Who cares about the Golden Globes? Absolutely no one, many commentators will breezily assure you, before going on to discuss them in granular detail for weeks. The truth is, even after the last three years of scandals and chaos, the Globes still hold a talismanic role in Hollywood – both as the last remaining bastion of old-fashioned star power (only they could have nominated the Taylor Swift concert movie in one of their five Best Film categories), and as the first major event of the annual awards season, when the coming race starts to take shape.
Speaking of race, the ceremony has been on manoeuvres on that front, after a 2021 newspaper investigation revealed a lack of diversity among its voting members. There are now 300, up from 90 – all drawn, as before, from the valiant ranks of international show-business journalists, for whom buttering up George Clooney in the ballroom at the Beverly Hilton remains the noblest calling in the world.
Previously, that manufactured intimacy had a dark edge that cut in a number of directions. For years, there had been tales of voters being wooed with cartoonishly lavish gifts and trips, while far more seriously, in 2018, the actor Brendan Fraser accused the awards’ former president Philip Berk of having sexually harassed him at the 2003 ceremony.
By 2022, the Globes had become such a PR liability that the US television network NBC decided not to even screen them, before offloading the broadcast rights to CBS later the following year. Even so, they’re back again this evening, with exactly the sort of enjoyably wacky set of nominees their trademark split nominations system (in which every film is pigeonholed as either a drama or a comedy/musical) tends to produce. Here’s what will win – probably – and what should.
Best Motion Picture – Drama
The nominees
Anatomy of a Fall
Killers of the Flower Moon
Maestro
Oppenheimer
Past Lives
The Zone of Interest
Who should win: Oppenheimer
It’s often been said, but bears repeating: Christopher Nolan made cinema almost $1bn at the box office this summer with an expressionistic three-hour period piece about a theoretical physicist. Nothing has boded better for the future of cinema in years.
Who will win: Killers of the Flower Moon
This is a flawless shortlist with no bad options, but the sheer Hollywood royalty wattage of Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro and Martin Scorsese will be hard for voters to resist.
Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy
The nominees
Air
American Fiction
Barbie
The Holdovers
May December
Poor Things
Who should win: Poor Things
If the Globes’ new voting membership proves as daring as the recent Oscars recruits who rallied behind Everything Everywhere All at Once last year, there’s a chance the bawdy and provocative Poor Things could slip to the fore here.
Who will win: Barbie
Barbie’s gaiety, glamour and bulldozing global success, however, is all traditional Golden-Globe catnip – and rewarding it would be a handy way for the ceremony to rubber-stamp its own cultural relevance.
Best Performance in a Motion Picture – Drama: Actor
The nominees
Bradley Cooper, Maestro
Leonardo DiCaprio, Killers of the Flower Moon
Colman Domingo, Rustin
Barry Keoghan, Saltburn
Cillian Murphy, Oppenheimer
Andrew Scott, All of Us Strangers
Who should win: Cillian Murphy, Oppenheimer
This rare lead performance, comprehensively aced, gives the business the perfect opportunity to pay tribute to one of cinema’s most quietly dependable talents.
Who will win: Bradley Cooper, Maestro
But it’s likelier that six-time nominee Cooper will finally win outright this year, with the old-school show-business setting of his Leonard Bernstein biopic and the overtly transformative nature of the performance heaving him over the line.
Best Performance in a Motion Picture – Drama: Actress
The nominees
Annette Bening, Nyad
Lily Gladstone, Killers of the Flower Moon
Sandra Hüller, Anatomy of a Fall
Greta Lee, Past Lives
Carey Mulligan, Maestro
Cailee Spaeny, Priscilla
Who should win: Sandra Hüller, Anatomy of a Fall
The depth and ambiguity of Hüller’s work in Justine Triet’s back-to-front whodunit is what leaves the film wriggling in your head for weeks: do we know her character intimately well by the end, or not at all?
Who will win: Annette Bening, Nyad
A firm Globes favourite – ten noms, two wins – since she was first shortlisted for 1992’s Bugsy, Bening is the doughty veteran in a field which, Mulligan aside, is otherwise made up of newcomers.
Best Performance in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy: Actor
The nominees
Nicolas Cage, Dream Scenario
Timothée Chalamet, Wonka
Matt Damon, Air
Paul Giamatti, The Holdovers
Joaquin Phoenix, Beau is Afraid
Jeffrey Wright, American Fiction
Who should win: Paul Giamatti, The Holdovers
The Globes have rallied behind Giamatti as often as the Oscars have overlooked him: crazily, the latter body didn’t even nominate him for 2005’s Sideways. And his reunion with director Alexander Payne – an uproarious boarding school comic-drama opening here in two weeks – contains his finest work since.
Who will win: Paul Giamatti, The Holdovers
Victory tonight seems likely, but what also excites about a Giamatti win is the prospect of it nudging his work under the noses of the British and US Academies too. It’s a performance that shouldn’t be overlooked, and the Globes might make it impossible to do so.
Best Performance in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy: Actress
The nominees
Fantasia Barrino, The Colour Purple
Jennifer Lawrence, No Hard Feelings
Natalie Portman, May December
Alma P?ysti, Fallen Leaves
Margot Robbie, Barbie
Emma Stone, Poor Things
Who should win: Emma Stone, Poor Things
The unexpected but welcome appearance of Finland’s P?ysti among the more obvious names here proves that voters have been doing their homework. But as Poor Things’s nymphomaniac Frankenstein’s feminist, Stone outshines everyone else here: it’s the obvious choice, but also the right one.
Who will win: Emma Stone, Poor Things
True, the Globes adore Jennifer Lawrence: statistically speaking, whenever the Hunger Games star is nominated, there’s a better than 50-50 chance she’ll win. But the sheer daring of Stone’s work in Poor Things will surely swing this in her favour.
Best Director
The nominees
Bradley Cooper, Maestro
Greta Gerwig, Barbie
Yorgos Lanthimos, Poor Things
Christopher Nolan, Oppenheimer
Martin Scorsese, Killers of the Flower Moon
Celine Song, Past Lives
Who should win: Christopher Nolan, Oppenheimer
Many Barbenheimer showdowns were averted by the Globes’ eccentric drama-comedy-musical rubric, but the two summer smashes are facing each other in four categories, including here. And Nolan’s faith in audiences – amply rewarded – makes him the truest visionary filmmaker of the year.
Who will win: Greta Gerwig, Barbie
Both Nolan and Gerwig impressively bent the studio system to their will, but when it comes down to it, the Barbie auteur – and who thought we’d be describing anyone as that a few years ago – will probably clinch it on fun points.
Best Screenplay
The nominees
Barbie
Poor Things
Oppenheimer
Killers of the Flower Moon
Past Lives
Anatomy of a Fall
Who should win: Christopher Nolan, Oppenheimer
This one could deservingly go a lot of ways, with each nominee boldly upturning the genre in which they’re theoretically sat. But I’d personally plump for Nolan, if only because it’s his best script to date, with style, concision, quotability and punch to match its (expected) structural brilliance.
Who will win: Tony McNamara, Poor Things
The mad comic energy and meme-ability of McNamara’s Poor Things script may just give it the edge, though, and few observers will be mad about that.
Best Supporting Performance in a Motion Picture: Actor
The nominees
Willem Dafoe, Poor Things
Robert De Niro, Killers of the Flower Moon
Robert Downey Jr, Oppenheimer
Ryan Gosling, Barbie
Charles Melton, May December
Mark Ruffalo, Poor Things
Who should win: Robert Downey Jr, Oppenheimer
After giving up his 40s and early 50s to Marvel, Downey’s mesmerisingly complex (and unflattering) supporting turn as atomic energy advisor Lewis Strauss was the best possible beginning to his next career phase.
Who will win: Robert Downey Jr, Oppenheimer
It was also exactly the sort of understated remember-how-great-I-can-be coup that makes awards bodies sit up. The man’s a winner with the public: at last here’s a plausible way for them to say so too.
Best Supporting Performance in a Motion Picture: Actress
The nominees
Emily Blunt, Oppenheimer
Danielle Brooks, The Color Purple
Jodie Foster, Nyad
Julianne Moore, May December
Rosamund Pike, Saltburn
Da’Vine Joy Randolph, The Holdovers
Who should win: Rosamund Pike, Saltburn
Comic roles in this category tend to be thin on the ground: this year furnished us with three knockouts. One is Julianne Moore, whose work in May December is an unsettling, mischievous delight. The second is Da’Vine Joy Randolph, whose recently bereaved dinner lady Mary in The Holdovers is brought to life with the sort of natural precision around time and class you’d swear you were actually watching a performance from the 1970s. But it’s Pike in Saltburn – every one of her lines doubling as dark psychological tell and note-perfect gag – that impresses the most.
Who will win: Da’Vine Joy Randolph, The Holdovers
With the clearest-cut ‘serious’ notes to play of the three, first-time nominee Randolph probably has this.
Best Motion Picture – Animated
The nominees
The Boy and the Heron
Elemental
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
Super Mario Bros
Suzume
Wish
Who should win: The Boy and the Heron
The Globes are just chaotic enough to rally behind Hayao Miyazaki’s eye and soul-popping (probable) swan song – and its recent unexpected triumph at the western box office may provide it with the final push such a statement pick requires.
Who will win: Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
But the dizzying fusion of artistry and technology in Sony Animation’s superhero sequel makes it a likelier (and also wholly credible) choice.
Best Motion Picture – Non-English Language
The nominees
Anatomy of a Fall (France)
Fallen Leaves (Finland)
Io Capitano (Italy)
Past Lives (United States)
Society of the Snow (Spain)
The Zone of Interest (United Kingdom/Poland/United States)
Who should win: The Zone of Interest
Jonathan Glazer’s first feature in 11 years – which coolly observes the family life of the longest-serving commandant at Auschwitz – is one of the rare contemporary films that makes you feel like it leaves the entire medium changed. If a better film than this surfaces over the next 12 months (it opens in the UK in February), cinema will be in a good place indeed.
Who will win: The Zone of Interest
The director of Under the Skin and Birth winning a Golden Globe sounds impossible. But the very obvious importance of his latest should reassure voters who might otherwise be thrown by its more experimental moves.
Best Motion Picture – Cinematic and Box Office Achievement
The nominees
Barbie
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
John Wick: Chapter 4
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One
Oppenheimer
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
Super Mario Bros
Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour
Who should win: Barbie
The original pink lady’s $1.4bn global take also makes her the leader here on sheer brute fiscal force.
Who will win: Barbie
AKA Best Film that Made Lots of Money. If Tay-Tay wins the screaming will be heard on Jupiter, but Barbie’s cultural impact in this category is peerless.
Best Original Score
The nominees
Jerskin Fendrix, Poor Things
Ludwig G?ransson, Oppenheimer
Joe Hisaishi, The Boy and the Heron
Mica Levi, The Zone of Interest
Daniel Pemberton, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
Robbie Robertson, Killers of the Flower Moon
Who should win: Ludwig G?ransson, Oppenheimer
G?ransson has been buzzing round the fringes of the pantheon for a while, but this wildly innovative violin-driven electro-orchestral suite instantly made him one of the most exciting composers in his field.
Who will win: Joe Hisaishi, The Boy and the Heron
It’s almost a pity to pull a winner from this extraordinary vintage, but the internationally beloved Hisaishi feels likeliest, given his knack for melodies both sweeping and intimate that get right to every scene’s emotional heart.
Best Original Song
The nominees
Addicted to Romance, Bruce Springsteen (She Came to Me)
Dance the Night, Dua Lipa (Barbie)
I’m Just Ken, Ryan Gosling (Barbie)
Peaches, Jack Black (Super Mario Bros)
Road to Freedom, Lenny Kravitz (Rustin)
What Was I Made For?, Billie Eilish (Barbie)
Who should win: I’m Just Ken, Ryan Gosling (Barbie)
It wouldn’t have hurt to include something from Wonka here, but the uproarious power ballad from Barbie’s himbo in limbo is the boldest and funniest by far of the available options.
Who will win: What Was I Made For?, Billie Eilish (Barbie)
Since Barbie is responsible for half of this year’s nominees, it makes sense that one of them will end up winning – and for whatever reason, in awards season, soppiness tends to prevail.