2024 Golden Globe Awards Predictions

Watch the nominations live at the bottom of this article.

For as long as I can remember, the Golden Globe Awards have had a variety of stigmas attached to them. There have been a handful of embarrassing moments, like Pia Zadora winning 1982’s New Star of the Year award eighteen years into her career after her rich husband flew voters to his casino. Multiple nominations for 2010’s The Tourist gave the illusion that big movie stars would always have an easy path to recognition.

The Globes’ real undoing came in 2021 when it became known that the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, the nonprofit organization behind the awards, had not had a single black voter in its ranks for decades. Longtime partner NBC announced they would not air the ceremony unless major reform occurred. Amazon, Netflix, and other studios announced fashionable boycotts. Tom Cruise symbolically returned the three Globes he had won over the years.

Matters of representation were addressed and the Globes aired on a Tuesday this past January to record lows in ratings. The Hollywood Foreign Press was folded in June, but that’s not where the story ends, because the 80 years of Globes assets and intellectual property were acquired by Dick Clark Productions, who are continuing the annual awards now as a for-profit event.

Despite this rocky history, I have always been compelled to defend the Globes as the industry’s most fun precursor to the Academy Awards. It’s not a hip stance to take at a time when all awards shows, television broadcasts, and even movies continue to experience clear and widely-documented declines in viewership. But one need only to look over the lists of past Globes winners and nominees. It is there you’ll find an abundance of outstanding, highly entertaining films that the Oscars never gave a serious thought to recognizing.

Personal favorites of mine, like The Lion King and Mrs. Doubtfire have won the Globes’ Best Picture – Musical or Comedy award, before settling for mere crumbs in Makeup and music categories at the Oscars. Through other Musical or Comedy categories, the Globes have awarded Best Actor awards to such iconic performances as Tom Hanks in Big, Robin Williams in Doubtfire, Gene Hackman in The Royal Tenenbaums, Bill Murray in Lost in Translation and Colin Farrell in In Bruges. All of those turns had to settle for nominations, if that, from the Academy Awards, which have always prioritized drama.

The list of Globes-nominated performances completely snubbed by the Academy is incredibly long and distinguished, including such modern triumphs as perpetual Oscars bridesmaid Amy Adams (a back to back Globes winner for American Hustle and Big Eyes) in Enchanted, Greta Gerwig in Frances Ha, Elsie Fisher in Eighth Grade, Julie Deply in Before Midnight, and Charlize Theron in Tully. There is also enduringly entertaining work like Gene Wilder in Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, Michael J. Fox in Back to the Future, Matthew Broderick in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Bill Murray in Ghostbusters, Macaulay Culkin in Home Alone, and Robert De Niro in Midnight Run, none of which even competed for the equivalent Oscar award.

It was the Globes, not the Oscars, that awarded Gloria Swanson’s haunting turn as Sunset Boulevard‘s Norma Desmond, The Social Network over The King’s Speech, Michael Keaton’s career-reviving work in Birdman, Janet Leigh’s shower victim in Psycho, Jack Lemmon at his all-time best in The Apartment, Anne Bancroft as Mrs. Robinson in The Graduate, Sylvester Stallone’s pitch-perfect Rocky reprisal in Creed, Ryan Gosling’s dynamic jazz lover in La La Land, and Tom Cruise’s quotable eponymous sports agent Jerry Maguire.

So if you care about movies and especially aren’t oblivious to the artistic worth of comedies and musicals, the Globes still matter and always have.

While the films in play for 2023 awards are still rolling out in theaters over the next few weeks, the Globes announce their nominations characteristically early at 5:00 AM Pacific/8:00 AM Eastern this coming Monday morning, December 11th. Here is a look at the people and productions you should expect to hear announced in the film categories, along with some rationale and perspective for the recognition. This year, it’s worth noting, the Globes will include not the usual five but six nominees in each of their categories. Talk about inclusivity!

BEST MOTION PICTURE – DRAMA

We already have a good sense of this awards season’s frontrunners in Oppenheimer, Killers of the Flower Moon, and Maestro. What this category will do is shed some light on the fringe contenders, ones that could sneak into one of the Academy’s ten Best Picture nominee slots, but could very well settle on a nod here as its peak of recognition.

Predicted Nominees:
Oppenheimer (review)
Killers of the Flower Moon (review)
Maestro
Past Lives
Anatomy of a Fall
Saltburn (review)

Most likely alternates: The Zone of Interest, All of Us Strangers

---

BEST MOTION PICTURE – MUSICAL OR COMEDY

In many years, the Globes struggle to fill the musical or comedy field with five worthwhile nominees. This year, there are four solid contenders more or less guaranteed to turn up here in Poor Things, The Holdovers, American Fiction, and Barbie. The last two slots are up for grabs: The Color Purple seems to fit the bill based on the category’s historic tastes, and there may be some urge to recognize another film with a cast and crew of color.

Despite Todd Haynes’ flair for camp, May December‘s classification as a comedy is a little strange and that, more than the film’s substantial quality, is a reason I think it could miss here. As one of the best films of the year but also one of the earliest releases in the running, I hope Air is not forgotten; it very much deserves inclusion here.

Predicted Nominees:
Poor Things
The Holdovers (review)
American Fiction
Barbie (review)
May December
Air (review)

Most likely alternates: The Color Purple, Wonka, Flora and Son (review)

---

BEST DIRECTOR

Two titans for the ages with big historical epics they spent years making are likely to secure top of the slots here. The Globes did not nominate Greta Gerwig for either Lady Bird or Little Women, but her omission here would be pretty shocking. Alexander Payne and Bradley Cooper’s films seem most likely to be respected and recognized here, but if there is more of a push for diversity and new voices, then the alternates, a pair of female directors from South Korea and France, would certainly provide that and for work that is widely beloved around the globe.

Predicted Nominees:
Christopher Nolan, Oppenheimer (review)
Martin Scorsese, Killers of the Flower Moon (review)
Greta Gerwig, Barbie (review)
Yorgos Lanthimos, Poor Things
Alexander Payne, The Holdovers (review)
Bradley Cooper, Maestro

Most likely alternates: Justine Triet, Anatomy of a Fall; Celine Song, Past Lives; Jonathan Glazer, The Zone of Interest

Revealing stat: As prolific as a director as any in history, Martin Scorsese has won just a single Oscar, finally taking the Best Director award for 2006’s The Departed. That is one more than Christopher Nolan has ever won. Scorsese has fared better at the Globes, winning thrice, for Gangs of New York, Departed, and Hugo. Nolan has been nominated for four Globes, twice for writing and twice for directing, but has not yet won.

---

BEST FILM SCREENPLAY

Unlike the Oscars, which separate original and adapted screenplays, the Globes lump them all together. That makes things easier for Barbie, whose classification has invited some spirited debate all year without a clear right answer. It inevitably should feature here along with other top contenders.

Predicted Nominees:
American Fiction (Amazon MGM Studios)
Poor Things (Searchlight Pictures)
Barbie (Warner Bros.) (review)
The Holdovers (Focus Features) (review)
Killers of the Flower Moon (AppleTV+/Paramount) (review)
Past Lives (A24)

Most likely alternates: Oppenheimer (Universal), Maestro (Netflix), Air (Amazon MGM Studios), May December (Netflix)

Revealing stat: You’d think that winning the Globe for screenplay would correlate with winning the Oscar where the competition is theoretically cut in half, but that is not often the case. In the past eight years, only two Screenplay Globe winners — the milquetoast Belfast and pandering Green Book — have gone on to win a screenplay award at the Oscars. 2017’s Best Original Screenplay Oscar winner, Get Out, outright missed the Globes’ single category nomination.

BEST ACTOR – DRAMA

Bradley Cooper has two things working in his favor this year. First, there is the fact that Maestro is a passion project that he’s devoted himself to for years as writer, director, producer, and star, commitment that is hard to ignore. Secondly, Cooper is decidedly overdue, having his knockout A Star Is Born performance egregiously lose at the 2018 Globes and Oscars to Bohemian Rhapsody‘s Rami Malek, a preposterous choice that history should show the industry got wrong.

Cooper is currently a 9-time loser at the Oscars (four times as an Oscar, four times as a Best Picture producer, and once for Adapted Screenplay) and a four-time loser at the Globes. Maestro is one of the few contenders I haven’t yet seen, but as a longtime fan of Cooper, I’d be rather surprised if he got it wrong and didn’t emerge as the de facto frontrunner of the season, even if Netflix has never before won a lead actor Oscar.

Predicted Nominees:
Bradley Cooper, Maestro
Leonardo DiCaprio, Killers of the Flower Moon (review)
Cillian Murphy, Oppenheimer (review)
Colman Domingo, Rustin
Barry Keoghan, Saltburn (review)
Zac Efron, The Iron Claw

Most likely alternates: Andrew Scott, All of Us Strangers; Joaquin Phoenix, Napoleon (review); Adam Driver, Ferrari

Revealing stat: Winning the Globes’ best dramatic actor award is usually the path to winning the Oscars’ all-encompassing Best Actor trophy. Nine of the past eleven Globe winners here went on to win the Best Actor Oscar, the only exceptions being Elvis‘ Austin Butler, who lost at the Oscars last year to The Whale‘s Brendan Fraser and the late Chadwick Boseman, whose last-second loss to The Father‘s Anthony Hopkins was just one of many disasters about the train station COVID Oscars.

---

BEST ACTRESS – DRAMA

Lily Gladstone, known to film buffs for her work in Kelly Reichardt films (especially Certain Women), has already been recognized by multiple critics groups for her quietly powerful performance at the heart of Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon. It’s hard to take any issue with that choice, but Carey Mulligan is said to be excellent playing Leonard Bernstein’s understanding wife in the passion project Maestro. I suspect that one of them wins this Globe and eventually becomes a first-time Oscar winner.

Predicted Nominees:
Carey Mulligan, Maestro
Lily Gladstone, Killers of the Flower Moon (review)
Greta Lee, Past Lives
Sandra Hüller, Anatomy of a Fall
Annette Bening, Nyad
Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, Origin

Most likely alternates: Cailee Spaeny, Priscilla; Teyana Taylor, A Thousand and One; Jessica Chastain, Memory;

Revealing stat: Carey Mulligan has been nominated for the Best Actress Oscar twice and for three Golden Globes. Promising Young Woman felt like a choice opportunity to recognize her during the not especially competitive or compelling first year of COVID. Based on over a decade of solid work in some good and great films, she’s sure to have her moment at some point.

Gladstone, on the other hand, has never been nominated for anything other than critics awards, and it’s easy to imagine her having fewer award show opportunities ahead of her. At the Oscars, neither actress can claim to be “overdue” to the extent that four-time Oscar loser Annette Bening is. But the Globes have awarded Bening twice before and Nyad is nothing we haven’t seen before.

---

BEST ACTOR – MUSICAL OR COMEDY

This will be one of the Globes’ more padded categories, with only two actors here — Paul Giamatti and Jeffrey Wright from the crowd-pleasing and intellectual The Holdovers and American Fiction — having a great shot at securing the equivalent Oscar nomination. That makes this likely to end up the biggest awards recognition that The Burial and Dream Scenario come away with. In the two-horse race, Giamatti seems destined to take the win, something that could put him on the path for his very first Oscar.

Predicted Nominees:
Paul Giamatti, The Holdovers (review)
Jeffrey Wright, American Fiction
Timothée Chalamet, Wonka
Matt Damon, Air (review)
Jamie Foxx, The Burial (review)
Nicolas Cage, Dream Scenario

Most likely alternates: Gael Garcia Bernal, Cassandro; Paul Dano, Dumb Money (review)

Revealing stat: While Giamatti has never won an Oscar and only been nominated for his supporting role in Cinderella Man, he is a two-time Golden Globe winner, for the HBO miniseries John Adams and the forgotten 2010 indie Barney’s Version, which netted him this very award.

---

BEST ACTRESS – MUSICAL OR COMEDY

If Emma Stone hadn’t won a bunch of Best Actress honors for 2016’s La La Land, she would be the runaway favorite for her dazzling work in the looney Poor Things. Even with that relatively recent success and her young age, she’s still got a solid chance at repeating. Her most obvious competition is Margot Robbie, who commands similar respect at a similar young age. One suspects this is not the last we’ll be seeing of either of them.

Perhaps more compelling narratives belong to potential first-time nominees, which include American Idol contestant/The Color Purple lead Fantasia Barrino in her first significant movie role and Eve Hewson, the daughter of U2 rocker Bono, in John Carney’s charming Flora and Son. With AppleTV+ release Flora not seemingly on anyone’s radar, I would not be shocked if Abby Ryder Fortson of the appealing Judy Blume adaptation Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret pulled off an Elsie Fisher-type nomination.

Most likely to round out the field are longtime icons Natalie Portman and Jennifer Lawrence, the former shining in Todd Haynes’ not all that comedic May December and the latter embracing R-rated sex comedy. As a three-time Globes winner for Silver Linings Playbook, Joy, and American Hustle, Lawrence isn’t likely in the running here, but how do you miss out on the chance to have such a charming star walking your red carpet?

Predicted Nominees:
Emma Stone, Poor Things
Margot Robbie, Barbie (review)
Fantasia Barrino, The Color Purple
Natalie Portman, May December
Eve Hewson, Flora and Son (review)
Jennifer Lawrence, No Hard Feelings (review)

Most likely alternates: Abby Ryder Fortson, Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret; Halle Bailey, The Little Mermaid; Julia Louis-Dreyfus, You Hurt My Feelings

Revealing stat: This award goes to comedic performances far more often than musical ones, which works against Barrino, although Rachel Zegler won here for Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story just two years ago.

---

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

There is more star power than usual in this category, which historically has been a boon to any actor’s Golden Globes chances. Since The Tourist, the Globes have seemed less overtly starstruck, but I’m still predicting six actors with impressive bodies of work and plenty of leading roles in their past.

I haven’t seen anyone else predicting Ben Affleck, which makes it a longshot, but as both director and scene-stealer, he is the most obvious opportunity to celebrate the delightful Air. For some reason, his unexpected nomination in this category (and the Screen Actors Guild’s equivalent) for the still little-seen The Tender Bar stands out as a testament that Affleck is respected by his peers. His longevity in the business is impressive, as is his unparalleled ability to weather creative disasters, memes, and tabloids.

Predicted Nominees:
Mark Ruffalo, Poor Things
Ryan Gosling, Barbie
Robert Downey Jr., Oppenheimer
Robert De Niro, Killers of the Flower Moon
Willem Dafoe, Poor Things
Ben Affleck, Air (review)

Most likely alternates: Charles Melton, May December; Dominic Sessa, The Holdovers

Revealing stat: Robert De Niro has never once been nominated in the Globes’ supporting actor category. Not for Silver Linings Playbook, nor for The Godfather Part II, which won him his first of two Oscars to date.

---

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

This is the category most likely to bring diversity to the film side of the Globes this year, with relative newcomers Da’Vine Joy Randolph and Danielle Brooks as likely as any of the established veterans to crack the field. If America Ferrara shows up here, it’s a good indication that Barbie is not just the cultural landmark of the year, it’s a true force to reckon with this awards season. I am not anticipating that to happen, but far stranger things have happened.

Predicted Nominees:
Da’Vine Joy Randolph, The Holdovers
Danielle Brooks, The Color Purple
Emily Blunt, Oppenheimer
Julianne Moore, May December
Penelope Cruz, Ferrari
Rosamund Pike, Saltburn

Most likely alternates: Jodie Foster, Nyad; Viola Davis, Air; Taraji P. Henson, The Color Purple

BEST MOTION PICTURE – ANIMATED

The Oscars introduced a Best Animated Feature award in 2001. For them, it was a way to celebrate many valuable movies that never stood a chance at competing for major honors. Up until that point, only a single animated movie — 1991’s Beauty and the Beast — had been nominated for the Best Picture Oscar. It is highly unlikely a conventional animated movie will win that highest honor in our lifetimes; motion capture/CGI works like Avatar that are treated differently have a little more of a chance.

The Globes, on the other hand, regularly handed out nominations and statues in the Best Picture – Comedy or Musical category to animated movies; Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King, and Toy Story 2 all deservingly won that honor. Aladdin, Shrek, Finding Nemo, and The Incredibles were all nominated. While animated films have always been able to compete for the Best Picture Oscar (with two 2010s Pixar pictures landing nominations), the Globes’ Best Animated Feature category completely eliminated animated films from their Best Picture races. A rule change the Globes announced in 2021 changes that, allowing animated films to compete for Best Picture awards yet again.

While the Oscars’ Animated Feature category almost always includes some foreign and obscure productions, the Globes often play things safe, typically giving a minimum of four of the nomination slots to mainstream American family films. You can expect that tradition to continue this year, although the opportunity to recognize the legendary Hayao Miyazaki on his latest purported last film is probably too rich to pass up. Believe it or not, Miyazaki’s only Golden Globes nod came in 2014 for The Wind Rises, which vied for Best Foreign Language Film and lost to Paolo Sorrentino’s The Great Beauty.

Predicted Nominees:
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (Sony) (review)
The Boy and the Heron (GKIDS)
Elemental (Disney/Pixar) (review)
Wish (Disney) (review)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem (Paramount/Nickelodeon) (review)
Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget (Netflix)

Most likely alternates: Nimona (Netflix), Super Mario Bros. (Universal/Illumination)

This award seems Spider-Verse‘s to lose, as the increasingly rare animated movie to achieve both critical and commercial success and the rare sequel not to feel like a huge, hasty step down. It will be interesting to see how the other nominations are doled out, and whether or not it reflects the wildly dissimilar box office experiences of the dumb but popular Super Mario Bros. and the underperforming, tradition-honoring Disney musical Wish.

Revealing stat: In the 17-year history of this award, a mere three Walt Disney Animation Studios films have gone without a Globes nomination: Meet the Robinsons, Winnie the Pooh, and last year’s Strange World. Could Wish become the fourth?

---

BEST MOTION PICTURE – NON-ENGLISH LANGUAGE

The Globes’ foreign language film category has been responsible for some minor controversy, based on its relegation there of American films that are not predominantly in English. The new title of this category more accurately reflects the point and another new rule change no longer prohibits these films from competing for other Best Picture awards.

Predicted Nominees:
Anatomy of a Fall (France)
Society of the Snow (Spain)
The Teachers Lounge (Germany)
The Zone of Interest (UK)
Past Lives (USA)
The Taste of Things (France)

Most likely alternates: The Boy and the Heron (Japan), Perfect Days (Japan)

---

CINEMATIC AND BOX OFFICE ACHIEVEMENT

This is a new award announced in September which requires nominees to be chosen from movies that have grossed over $100 million domestically and $150 million worldwide in theaters, are projected to do so if opening during the final five weeks of the year, or have reached comparably wide audiences via streaming services.

Remember when the Oscars introduced a couple of Fan Favorites awards on which the public could vote by using the service then known as Twitter? And when that very award went to Zack Snyder’s Army of the Dead? Awards organizations have been trying to increase their mass appeal in opposition to dwindling audiences for years, but the backlash is usually swift and absolute. The Oscars proposed a Popular Film Category in 2018, seemingly as a surefire way to honor the box office behemoth Black Panther in some way, only to backtrack when the public voiced its disapproval.

What makes this all the more superfluous is the fact that most of this year’s highest-grossing movies are already destined to compete for Best Picture awards. What is the point?

Predicted Nominees:
Barbie (Warner Bros.) (review)
Oppenheimer (Universal) (review)
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (Sony) (review)
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (Disney/Marvel) (review)
The Super Mario Bros. Movie (Universal/Illumination) (review)
John Wick: Chapter 4 (Lionsgate) (review)
The Little Mermaid (Disney) (review)
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning, Part One (Paramount) (review)

Most likely alternates: Sound of Freedom, Creed III

---

BEST ORIGINAL SONG

Barbie is not getting out of this awards season without winning something and this could be its best shot at the Golden Globes, where there are no awards for costume and production design. The studio has three songs in their campaign, and it’d be easy to imagine either the pivotal Billie Eilish number or Ken’s rambunctious, infectious anthem getting crowned. The Globes have a history of recognizing songs from Hunger Games movies, so don’t be surprised if Olivia Rodrigo gets to add a nomination to her list of honors for her ditty from the Snow-centric prequel.

Ordinarily, one wouldn’t think the cheesy, fictional Flamin’ Hot Cheetos Hulu movie would get near a film awards show, but that song does have the backing of perennial Best Original Song contender Diane Warren. It would be a shame if Flora and Son comes up empty-handed at the Globes, but most of director John Carney’s films have, despite always being musical comedies of sorts.

While the Oscars never fret over snubbing popular tunes, honoring Jack Black’s “Peaches” song from Super Mario Bros. does seem essential to the Globes reasserting their cultural relevance.

Predicted Nominees:
“What Was I Made For?”, Barbie
“I’m Just Ken”, Barbie
“Peaches”, The Super Mario Bros. Movie
“Can’t Catch Me Now”, The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes
“A World of Your Own”, Wonka
“High Life”, Flora and Son

Most likely alternates: “It Never Went Away”, American Symphony; “The Fire Inside”, Flamin’ Hot; “I Am”, Origin

Revealing stat: While Diane Warren is the definition of “always a bridesmaid, never a bride” at the Oscars, with fourteen Best Original Song nominations and zero wins, her record at the Globes is less tragic. To date, she has five nominations and the last two got her wins, most recently for the comically obscure Netflix Italian drama The Life Ahead.

---

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE

Musical scores are something you notice most when the storytelling isn’t doing what it’s supposed to do. It’s a category I find difficult to predict, especially this early in the season when only a few movies have commanded your ear and you’ve yet to figure out if they’ve done the same for many others. The fact that Scorsese’s longtime collaborator Robbie Robertson, formerly of The Band, passed away earlier this year makes him a tempting posthumous winner. John Williams, 91, also seemed prime for a sentimental send-off for as accomplished as any film composer, but he has since abandoned his plan to retire after the fifth Indiana Jones movie and vows to keep scoring until age 100.

Predicted Nominees:
Robbie Robertson, Killers of the Flower Moon
Ludwig Göransson, Oppenheimer
Jerskin Hendrix, Poor Things
Laura Karpman, American Fiction
Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross, The Killer
Mica Levi, The Zone of Interest

Most likely alternates: Alexandre Desplat, The Boys in the Boat; Michael Giacchino, Society of the Snow; Thomas Newman, Elemental; Anthony Willis, Saltburn; Joe Hisaishi, The Boy and the Heron

---

The Globes’ nominations will be announced at 8 AM Eastern/5 AM Pacific this Monday morning, December 11th. The awards themselves will air live at 8 PM Eastern/5 PM Pacific on Sunday, January 7th on CBS.

Watch the nominations live right here:

What do you think of our 2024 Golden Globe predictions and the nominees announced? Join the conversation on the forum!