For film lovers, the seasonal awards race is basically the Olympics. The Golden Globes, an important milestone before the finish line at the Oscars in March, are a key bellwether for the emergent trends of the season: who’s up and who’s down, essentially, but also whose personal narratives will provide the strongest engines for success. This isn’t to say that the movie awards aren’t meritocratic, but Hollywood is a storytelling business, and that doesn’t stop with the films.
As usual, the stories of the season have crystallized with the Golden Globes, undergirded by a smattering of stand-out speeches and surprise wins that have put wind in the sails of a few underdogs. We’ll break it down below, but here’s the tl;dr: you wouldn’t want to be Wicked; there’s real substance to the prospect of a Demi Moore win for Best Actress; the first round in the Best Actor match-up goes to Adrien Brody; and, in a year where awards bodies are leaning into the artfully weird, Emilia Pérez has stuck its nose out in front. Read on as we break down the gold-plated runners and riders—and who looks to have fallen at the first hurdle—heading into the Academy Awards.
There ain’t no zest for the Wicked
It was a somewhat bracing night for Jon M. Chu’s glossy movie-musical adaptation Wicked, which became the highest-grossing musical film of all time over the festive season (and spawned a plethora of memes about “holding space”). You might’ve thought that its commercial success and broad audience appreciation might aid it on its way to a decent run at the Oscars akin to 2002’s Chicago or 2012’s Les Misérables—but a lukewarm evening at the Golden Globes, where it was beaten to Best Musical or Comedy by Emilia Pérez, will see its chances dulled.
Hail to the underdogs
The acting categories at the Golden Globes were strong across the board, as they have been throughout awards season, filled with seasoned vets and stand-out performances in otherwise so-so movies. Such is why it came as such a welcome surprise that two actors previously considered underdogs emerged from the pack in their respective categories.
Sebastian Stan won Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy for A24 drama A Different Man, beating out favorite Jesse Eisenberg (A Real Pain) and 2024’s man-of-the-moment Glen Powell (Hit Man). And, in the enormously competitive race for Best Actress in a Drama, veteran Brazilian actress Fernanda Torres—who has a staggering online support network of compatriot superfans—beat the likes of Angelina Jolie (Maria), Nicole Kidman (Babygirl) and Tilda Swinton (The Room Next Door) to the gong to her competitors’ earnest surprise. At the very least, we can now expect to see both of them among the Oscar nominees.
Gimme, gimme Moore
Perhaps the most heartening win of the night went to Demi Moore, the 62-year-old actress enjoying a career renaissance apropos of her leading part in gross-out elevated body horror flick The Substance. Despite this being her first big taste of sustained award recognition in her 45 year career—as she acknowledged in her delightful speech which, as pointed out by The New York Times‘ Kyle Buchanan, will be catnip to Oscar voters—it’s tough, now, to consider Moore an underdog. Nevertheless, reservations may remain as to whether the Oscars votership would be open to handing a major award to an out-and-out genre movie, not least one that ends with a literal bloodbath.
The stacked Best Actor race has an early frontrunner, but don’t write off Chalamet
The men’s lead actor race is just as formidable as that of the women, featuring excellent performances across the prospective Oscar nominees, from Daniel Craig in Luca Guadagnino’s swoony, subversive love story Queer to Ralph Fiennes in papal melodrama Conclave. But conventional wisdom suggests that there are presently two stand-out candidates: Gen Z darling Timothée Chalamet, who has mounted an excellent campaign—astutely described by a GQ colleague as “delightfully unserious”—for his Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown, and enigmatic actors’ actor Adrien Brody, who stars in Best Picture favourite The Brutalist. At the Golden Globes, Brody won the first round, taking home Best Actor in a Drama, but you’d be a fool to count out Chalamet at this early stage.
Among the oddest films of 2024, Emilia Pérez could actually win Best Picture…
A “trans Mexican cartel musical,” or something to that effect; this is how Emilia Pérez is usually described in casual online conversation, but how else do you capture the kooky formal and thematic juxtaposition of Jacques Audiard’s crime-comedy, which is just as crazy as it sounds? While it has proven divisive among critics and card carrying Twitter cinephiles, Pérez was the second-most nominated film in Golden Globes history, ultimately winning four awards, including Best Musical or Comedy — to which, as we’ve already established, it beat the juggernaut of Wicked. Such a strong showing sets it up for similar success at the Oscars, where it will likely court appreciation from cineastes and musical lovers alike.
…If The Brutalist doesn’t sweep, that is
If Emilia Pérez is the crowd-pleasing people’s champ, consider The Brutalist—Brady Corbet’s three-and-a-half hour migrant epic about a Hungarian-Jewish architect who moves to the United States in the wake of the Holocaust—the steely arthouse behemoth. It had a similarly successful night at the Globes, taking home Best Drama, and Corbet beat Audiard to the combined Best Director award. It stands to reason, then, that Perez and The Brutalist look to be our two top contenders going into the Oscars, but no doubt there’ll be a twist or two en route.
This story originally appeared in British GQ.
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