2020’S GOLDEN GLOBE WINNERS
Big-screen epics ‘1917’ and ‘Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood’ take top honours at annual award ceremony
THE 77th Golden Globes were meant to be a coronation for Netflix.
Instead, a pair of big-screen epics took top honours on Sunday, as Sam Mendes’s technically dazzling World War I tale 1917 won best picture, drama, and Quentin Tarantino’s radiant Los Angeles fable Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood won best film, comedy or musical.
The wins for 1917 bested favourites such as Noah Baumbach’s Marriage Story (the leading nominee with six nods) and Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman. Both are acclaimed Netflix releases but they took home just one award, for Laura Dern’s supporting performance as a divorce attorney in Marriage Story; 1917 also won best director for Mendes.
Brad Pitt won for best supporting actor for Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood, set around the 1969 Manson murders. Tarantino also won best screenplay.
Those who took the stage used the moment to speak about current events, including the wildfires in Australia, rising tension with Iran, women’s rights and the importance of LGBT trailblazers.
Patricia Arquette, a winner for her performance in Hulu’s The Act, referenced the US’s targeted killing of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani, saying history wouldn’t remember the day for the Globes but would see “a country on the brink of war”. She urged all to vote in November’s presidential election.
Ricky Gervais, hosting the ceremony, said Netflix had taken over Hollywood, a fair appraisal given the streaming service’s commanding 34 nominations.
“This show should just be me coming out going: ‘Well done, Netflix. You win everything tonight’,” he said. He was wrong.
Netflix won only two awards: Dern’s win plus one for Olivia Colman’s performance in The Crown. The awards were spread out among Hollywood studios, indie labels like A24, cable heavyweights like HBO and relative newcomers like Hulu.
Renée Zelleweger (Judy) took home best actress in a drama.
Taron Egerton won best actor in a comedy or musical for his Elton John in Rocketman.
Awkwafina, the star of the hit indie family drama, The Farewell, became the first woman of Asian descent to win best actress in a comedy or musical.
The winners were otherwise largely white, something the Globes have been criticised for before.
No other category has been more competitive this year than that for best actor. Joaquin Phoenix won for his loose-limbed performance in Joker in a category that included Adam Driver (Marriage Story) and Antonio Banderas (Pain and Glory).
Michelle Williams, who won best actress in a limited series for Fosse/ Verdon, stood up for women’s rights in her acceptance speech.
“When it’s time to vote, please do so in your self-interest,” Williams said. “It’s what men have been doing for years, which is why the world looks so much like them.”
Dern’s best supporting actress award for her performance as a divorce attorney in Marriage Story, was her fifth Globe.
The first award of the night went to a streaming service series. Ramy
Youssef won best actor in a TV series comedy or musical for his Hulu show Ramy. Best actor in a limited series went to Russell Crowe for the Showtime series The Loudest Voice.
He wasn’t in attendance because of raging wildfires in his native Australia. “Make no mistake, the tragedy unfolding in Australia is climate-change based,” Crowe said in a statement that was read out.
Phoebe Waller-Bridge won best comedy series and best actress in a comedy series.
Stellan Skarsgard took the supporting actor award for HBO’s Chernobyl. HBO was also triumphant in best TV drama, where the second season of Succession bested Netflix’s The Crown and Apple TV Plus’s first Globe nominee, The Morning Show. Brian Cox, the Rupert Murdoch-like patriarch of Succession, also won best actor in a drama series. The Crown took some hardware home, too, with Olivia Colman winning best actress in a drama series.
Best foreign language film went to Bong Joon Ho’s Parasite.
Tom Hanks received the Cecil B DeMille lifetime achievement award.
The Carol Burnett Award, a similar honorary award given for television accomplishment, was given to Ellen DeGeneres. She was movingly introduced by Kate McKinnon who said DeGeneres’s example guided her in her own coming out. “The only thing that made it less scary was seeing Ellen on TV,” said McKinnon.
Hanks’s speech had its own emotional moment when he caught sight of his wife and four children at a table near the stage and choked up.
“A man is blessed with the family’s sitting down front like that,” Hanks said.
Elton John and Bernie Taupin won the evening’s most heavyweight battle, besting Beyoncé and Taylor Swift. Their I’m Gonna Love Me Again won best song .
The Hollywood Foreign Press Association is known for packing its show with as much star power as possible, occasionally rewarding the likes of The Tourist and Burlesque.
Sunday’s show might have added to the history with an unexpected award for Missing Link for best animated feature film over films like Toy Story 4 and Frozen 2.|