It’s that time again, it’s the 81st annual Golden Globes, the official kick-off for award season! 2023 was a stand-out year for films, with huge hits like Barbie, Oppenheimer, Killers of the Flower Moon, and so many more, so it’ll be interesting to see who makes it out with awards this year. With Jo Koy hosting and many of the biggest stars gathered, tonight is bound to be one to remember. (5:05 pm)

Jo Koy starts the show throwing out a lot of jokes, throwing punches at Barry Keoghan, Robert De Niro,  and Bradley Cooper’s fake nose for Maestro. Koy is an interesting host, who started a little weak but seemed to slowly build the crowd up and get them laughing instead of cringing. The host role for these shows is always hit or miss, but with this opening monologue, he seems promising. (5:12 pm)

Angela Basset and Jared Leto are starting the night off with “Female for Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture” and they are great together with solid chemistry. This category is pretty cutthroat, but the globe went to Da’vine Joy Randolph for her performance in The Holdovers. This award went to Angela Bassett last year for her role in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. Randolph delivers a quick, but heartfelt speech thanking her family, co-stars, and director Alexander Payne.

“Male Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture” went to Robert Downey Jr. for his role in Oppenheimer truly one of the strongest performances of the year. Downey shout-outs his cast and calls the film “A Goddamn Masterpiece!” His speech is much more biting and witty than Randolph’s, but what else did we expect from Downey? This award went to Ke Huy Quan for his role in Everything Everywhere All at Once, which would later snowball into him winning an Academy Award in the same category. History may repeat itself with this win, but we’ll have to wait and see. (5:24 PM)

The biggest announcement going into this year’s Golden Globes was not a nomination, but a new category, the “Cinematic and Box Office Achievement”. This award is strange? The idea is to give an award to a “popular” movie, but many have stated that the award for them is a giant box office return. Thus, it will be interesting to see who they decided to give this award to, with the nominees being John Wick: Chapter 4, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3, Barbie, Oppenheimer, Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour, The Super Mario Bros. Movie, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-verse, and Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part 1. (5:50 pm)

The award for Best Screenplay of a Motion Picture was given to Justine Trient and Arthur Harari for their work on Anatomy of a Fall, beating out Oppenheimer, Killers of the Flower Moon, Poor Things, Past Lives, and Barbie. The previous winner was The Banshees of Inisherin, so the award continues to go international this year. It’s great to see international cinema shine in this category, especially this film, a French courtroom thriller that is making waves in the critical world. (5:58 pm)

The next category being presented is “Foreign Language Film” which was awarded to the French titan Anatomy of a Fall, which just won Best Screenplay. This is really shaking out to be a big night for them, potentially setting them up to be the winner for Drama Motion Picture, but we’ll have to see.  Last year’s winner was the film Argentina, 1985, from, well, Argentina, which was a sneaky contender for many awards last year. (6:18 pm)

Natalie Portman and Florence Pugh arrive to present the award for Motion Picture – Animated with the winner being The Boy and The Heron from Studio Ghibli. Unfortunately, Hayao Miyazaki and the rest of the team were not there in attendance to accept the award. This is the second time the Japanese studio has been nominated, with the first being for The Wind Rises in 2014 for Best Motion Picture – Non-English Language. The previous winner was the beautifully sweet, stop-motion film Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio. 

Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, also known as the best duo of the 90s, came out to give the award for Best Director. This is possibly the most cutthroat category of the night, but the winner turned out to be Christopher Nolan for his work on Oppenheimer. This is Nolan’s first win, who himself noted the last time he was on this stage was to accept an award for Heath Ledger’s performance of the Joker in The Dark Knight. Cillian Murphy and Robert Downey Jr. look up at their friend with giant smiles, proud of their leader for his triumph tonight.  (6:38 PM) 

Best Performance from a Female Actor – Comedy or Musical went to Emma Stone for her sensational performance as Bella Baxter in Poor Things. This will be her second win, with much of the crowd giving her a standing ovation. Stone gives great praise to Yorgos Lathimos, her director, and she shares her love for the character of Bella, while also stating that she considers the film a rom-com.

Best Performance from a Male Actor – Drama went to Cillian Murphy for his role as J. Robert Oppenheimer in Oppenheimer. His first win, Murphy notes that he has been working with a visionary in Christopher Nolan and shares his respect to all the other actors there tonight, “even if they’re not Irish”.

The previous year’s winners of the last two awards were Michelle Yeoh from Everything Everywhere All at Once (who presented the award to Stone) and Austin Butler from Elvis.  It’s kind of funny to think that history continues to repeat itself at the Globes with the comedy/musical going to an actress in a bonkers genre flick and male in drama going to another biopic performance. (6:49 PM)

Onto Best Score for a Motion Picture, which goes to another first-time winner Ludwig Goransson for his work on Oppenheimer. Goransson has worked on Nolan’s previous film Tenet and Ryan Coogler’s two most recent franchises Creed and Black Panther. Last year’s winner was 2-time winner Justin Hurwitz for his work on Babylon.

Best Original Song in a Motion Picture, which has 3 songs from Barbie nominated, was awarded to, you guessed it a song from Barbie, “What Was I Made For”. This song was performed by Billie Eilish and produced by her brother Finneas. This follows up the absolute triumph of a win from India’s international sensation last year, “Naatu Naatu” from RRR.

Mark Hamill arrives to present Cinematic and Box Office Achievement, the new award from the Golden Globes this year. This new achievement was presented to Barbie, with Margot Robbie accepting the award. Robbie thanks the fans for dressing up and going to the movies. Greta Gerwig, the director, thanks all the people who went out of their way to support and love this movie, as well as thanking her partner Noah Baumbach for “showing his inner Barbie-girl.” (7:09 pm)

With Barbie winning Cinematic and Box Office Achievement, one has to wonder if this award was created to solely give an award to Barbie or will the Golden Globes continue to give out an award to a film if they pass over a billion dollars. This might help alleviate the usual argument as to why most people do not care to keep up with the awards season every year, which is that they do not watch the films that are nominated. Maybe this could help bump the ever dwindling viewer numbers up, and possibly convince the Academy to do the same. We’ll just have to wait and see. (7:28 pm)

Will Ferrell and Kristen Wiig are here to present the Best Performance by a Male Actor in Comedy or Musical which went to Paul Giamatti for his performance in The Holdovers. This is Giamatti’s 3rd win at the Golden Globes, and the second win tonight for The Holdovers after De’vine Joy Randolph’s win for Best Supporting Actress. He follows up last year’s winner Colin Farrell for his role in The Banshees of Inisherin.

Big award time! Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy goes to Poor Things? Not to downplay the film, but this is a mild shock after seeing Barbie win the cinematic and box office achievement award. Yorgos Lanthimos accepts the award and immediately shouts out Bruce Springsteen, whom he shares a birthday with, as well as his crew and producers. Poor Things follows the previous year’s winner The Banshees of Inisherin.  (7:54 PM)

Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama was awarded to the one and only Lily Gladstone, the first ever Indigenous actress ever to win a Golden Globe, for her performance in Killers of The Flower Moon. Gladstone is showered in a standing ovation and screams of joy. She speaks of few sentences in the language of the Blackfeet people, showing her love and respect for her heritage and culture, and Gladeston thanks all of her collaborators on the film for allowing her to be in this role and to tell this story which was personal to her. Gladestone’s speech is followed by a huge standing ovation. She follows the previous year’s winner Cate Blanchett for her performance in Tar.

Oprah Whinphy presents the award for Best Motion Picture – Drama which was awarded to Oppenheimer! Emma Thomas, the producer of the film, accepts the award and is met with thunderous applause. Thomas is overjoyed to receive the award and states how happy she is to have worked with Nolan on this project. This was a very intense category with many strong contenders, but Oppenheimer fought its way to the top.

Overall, the Golden Globes provided a rather solid spread of appreciation across numerous films from 2023. As many awards were spread pretty evenly amongst various films, there is one clear winner of the night and that has to be Oppenheimer, which won Best Supporting Actor, Best Actor – Drama, Best Score, Best Director, and Best Picture – Drama. Other films that made off pretty well were The Holdovers, with two wins in the acting categories, Anatomy of a Fall which won Best Screenplay and International Feature, and Barbie which won the new award Best Cinematic and Box Office Achievement Award and Best Song. The only films that could be considered losers tonight would have been Netflix’s Big Award Darling Maestro, which got no awards, and Scorcese’s Killers of The Flower Moon, which only received one award for Best Actress.

The Golden Globes provided a solid show with fun presenters and great choices for winners tonight.  Not the greatest award show, nothing too over the top or flashy, but a good show at the end of the day. Hopefully, the rest of the award shows can follow suit. (8:20 PM)