Guillermo del Toro’s cold war fantasy The Shape of Water emerged as the frontrunner for the Oscars after picking up a total of seven nominations for the 75th Golden Globes. However, the film looks set to face strong opposition from Steven Spielberg’s Pentagon Papers drama The Post and Martin McDonagh’s Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, at a Globes ceremony that will provide the entertainment industry with its first major opportunity to respond to the sexual abuse scandal plaguing Hollywood.
Two months after the emergence of allegations against producer Harvey Weinstein that would prompt a further torrent of claims against men in the film industry, the nominations exhibited an already changed landscape in Hollywood. As expected none of the Weinstein-produced films eligible for inclusion received nominations, however there were multiple nominations for Ridley Scott’s All the Money in the World, which was forced to replace star Kevin Spacey at short notice, after he was accused of multiple counts of sexual assault and harassment.
At the same time, the widely predicted shift towards a more female-focused list of nominees in the wake of the Weinstein scandal did not materialise. Though there were nods for a number of films with female protagonists, including The Shape of Water, Three Billboards, I, Tonya, a biopic of disgraced ice skater Tonya Harding and coming-of-age comedy-drama Lady Bird, there was no room in the nominees for any female directors, while Patty Jenkins’s feminist superhero movie Wonder Woman was snubbed entirely.
Leading the way with seven nominations is the Shape of Water, which stars British actor Sally Hawkins as a mute cleaner at a governmental research facility who falls in love with a captured sea creature. Both Del Toro and Hawkins have been nominated in the drama category, for best director and best actress respectively, while Richard Jenkins and Octavia Spencer have received supporting actor and actress nominations. The film has also received best screenplay and score nominations, as well as best picture in the drama category.
It is joined in that latter category by 70s-set drama The Post, which stars Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep as Washington Post higher-ups who clash over whether to publish classified documents about the war in Vietnam. Both leads have received nods for best actor and actress, while Spielberg is nominated for best director.
Revenge drama Three Billboards, which stars Frances McDormand as a mother who tries to track down the person who raped and murdered her daughter, also performed strongly. As well as a best picture (drama) nod, the film also picked up five other nominations, including a best actress (drama) inclusion for McDormand, and a best director nomination for McDonagh.
There will be a solid representation of British talent at the Globes. Allied evacuation epic Dunkirk picked up three nominations, including best picture (drama) and a best director nod for Christopher Nolan, while Gary Oldman received a best actor (drama) nod for his performance as Winston Churchill in another second-world-war-themed drama, Darkest Hour. Daniel Day Lewis also was the recipient of a best actor (drama) nomination for his turn in Phantom Thread, said to be his final appearance before retirement from acting, and there were best actress (musical or comedy) nods for Judi Dench (Victoria & Abdul) and Helen Mirren (The Leisure Seeker). Appearing in the same category is Irish actor Saoirse Ronan, who received a nomination for her performance in Lady Bird. Daniel Kaluuya received a best actor (musical or comedy) nod for his appearance in Get Out.
Perhaps the surprise success of this year’s nominations is All the Money in the World. A dramatised account of the real-life kidnapping of the grandson of millionaire John Paul Getty, the film had to be recast and shot at the last minute after the allegations against Spacey came to light in October. Christopher Plummer, who replaced Spacey in the role of Getty, has received a best actor nod (drama) for his performance, while Scott and star Michelle Williams have also received nominations.
Voted on by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, a group of 90 international journalists based in LA, the awards tend to deviate from those handed out at the Oscars, which are determined by around 7,000 academy members. Unlike the Oscars, which does not offer separate categories for genres, the Globes chooses to split its categories into separate drama and comedy/musical categories, giving more prominence to the sort of lighter fare that tends to be overlooked by the Academy.
However, the decision to split categories has caused controversy in the past. In 2016, the Globes was forced to change its rules after a widely criticised decision to award sci-fi epic The Martian best comedy or musical, while last month Get Out director Jordan Peele had to defend the decision by studios Blumhouse and Universal to submit the satirical horror film in the same category. Get Out received a lower-than-expected two nominations at this year’s awards. Other films to be snubbed included acclaimed cross-cultural rom-com The Big Sick and Kathryn Bigelow’s race-riots drama Detroit, neither of which received any nominations.
In the TV section of the awards, HBO’s murder mystery Big Little Lies leads the way with six nominations, including nods for stars Nicole Kidman and Reese Witherspoon, who face off in the best actress in a limited series category. There were also multiple nominations for Feud: Bette and Joan, about the rivalry between Bette Davis and Joan Crawford, Aziz Ansari’s comedy Master of None, dystopian drama The Handmaid’s Tale and Jessica Biel-starring thriller The Sinner.
The winners of this year’s Golden Globes will be announced on Sunday 7 January in a ceremony hosted by late-night talk show host Seth Meyers. A former SNL comic, Meyers is perhaps best known for an appearance at the 2011 White House Correspondents’ Dinner in which he repeatedly mocked then-US Apprentice host Donald Trump, and has been a frequent critic of Trump during his presidency.
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