Hollywood’s awards season kicks into high gear on Monday when nominations for the Golden Globes are announced, with hit musical Wicked: For Good, Shakespeare family tragedy Hamnet and period horror film Sinners leading early projections.
Paul Thomas Anderson’s politically charged One Battle After Another, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, and the mid-century sports dramedy Marty Supreme, featuring Timothée Chalamet and Gwyneth Paltrow, are also strong contenders.
The Globes, set for January 11, are widely viewed as a bellwether for the Oscars, and many of the films expected to feature on Monday are already appearing on insider lists for Academy Award nominations.
As always, the Globes’ split between drama and comedy/musical races broadens the pool of potential nominees and heightens the suspense.
“The headline of this year is: Comedy is where the drama is,” Variety senior awards editor Clayton Davis told AFP.
Wicked: For Good will compete for top comedy-musical honours against One Battle After Another and Marty Supreme. Also in the mix is apocalyptic satire Bugonia, the latest quirky project from Greek auteur Yorgos Lanthimos, starring Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons — both tipped for nominations.
Davis said Wicked, the blockbuster conclusion to the hit Broadway adaptation, remains “probably the populist choice” thanks to its broad appeal. Ariana Grande, as Glinda, and Tony winner Cynthia Erivo, as Elphaba, are considered strong contenders, despite Erivo’s surprise omission from the Critics’ Choice Awards shortlist.
For Davis, the best actress category at both the Globes and the Oscars will be a “Murderers’ Row,” with an unusually crowded field.
Each main category at the Globes will feature six nominees this year instead of the traditional five.
Drama contenders led by Hamnet and Sinners
On the drama side, the leading films all take audiences into the past.
Hamnet, from Oscar-winning Chloé Zhao, stars Paul Mescal as a young William Shakespeare struggling to build a career, while his wife Agnes, played by Jessie Buckley, battles the dangers of plague and childbirth in Elizabethan England.
The film, adapted from Maggie O’Farrell’s novel, draws on evidence that the couple had a son named Hamnet, a name scholars say would have sounded nearly identical to “Hamlet” at the time.
Sinners, from Black Panther director Ryan Coogler, casts Michael B. Jordan as twins navigating the criminal underworld who confront a sinister force on their return to racially segregated 1930s Mississippi.
The film was a runaway box office hit and led Friday’s Critics’ Choice nominations with 17. Jordan is seen as a lock for a nomination, and Davis said he “will not sleep a wink” until Coogler receives an Oscar nod for directing.
Guillermo del Toro’s new adaptation of Frankenstein, starring Oscar Isaac and Jacob Elordi, is also expected to feature prominently.
With Oscar nominations due on January 22, the Globes list is set to further clarify the awards-season landscape.
The Globes will also recognise television, with leading Emmy contenders — Severance and The Pitt in drama, The Studio and Hacks in comedy, and the limited series Adolescence, expected to dominate.
Actors Marlon Wayans and Skye Marshall will unveil the key nominees from 1315 GMT on Monday.
The Globes are now in the third year of their ongoing revamp.
Last year’s ceremony, hosted by comedian Nikki Glaser, drew more than 10 million viewers. Glaser returns to host this year’s gala in Beverly Hills on January 11.