What the Golden Globe nominations tell us about the 2025 awards season

The nominations for the Golden Globe Awards, scheduled to take place on January 5, were announced on December 9. They were only the second nominations since the Hollywood Foreign Press Association – which long presided over the awards – was bought and largely replaced by a new Golden Globes organization after a Los Angeles Times presentation on HFPA demographics and behavior.

Although there is virtually no overlap between Globe voters and Oscar voters, attention from the Globes can spark interest among Oscar voters, so Globe names are of great interest to Oscar watchers.

Among some of this year’s takeaways: Netflix’s main competitor, Emilia Perezwhich had little appeal, now has a strong wind behind its sails. Substance looks stronger than expected. AND Gladiator II looks weaker.

Emilia Perez Back to life

In the flurry of awards announcements in early December, top critics’ groups on both coasts, the New York Film Critics Circle and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, as well as the Gotham Awards and the National Board of Review, were almost entirely dropped. Emilia Perez. But Netflix’s Spanish-language musical rebounded on Dec. 8 with a big European Film Awards show and the next day with a leading 10 Golden Globe nominations, surpassing Cabaret’you are Barbie’with nine to set a new all-time record on the musical/comedy side.

The highly unusual film was expected to receive eight nominations — for best musical/comedy, director (Jacques Audiard), screenplay, film not in English, original score, “El Mal” in the song category, Karla Sofía Gascón in the leading actress category (who is the first trans actress ever to be nominated for an acting Golden Globe) and Zoe Saldaña in the supporting actress category — but also received a second supporting actress nomination, for Selena Gomez (who additionally received a nomination for television actress for Just the murders in the building), and the name of another song, for “Mi Camino” (the song Gomez performs in the film).

Audiard alone was nominated for five awards, the most of any film except A24 Brutalist (seven) and Focus’ Conclave (six): as producer of the nominees for best film and for best film not in the English language, and as director, screenwriter and co-writer of the film “El Mal”.

The Golden Globes organization is not the HFPA

A strong display by Emilia Perezplus other major nominations for a Sony Pictures Classics Brazilian film It’s me Still here (Fernanda Torres for Best Drama Actress) and Janus/Sideshow Indian Film Everything we imagine as light (Payal Kapadia for Best Director), comes on the heels of last year’s Globe nominations, in which three of the six nominated dramas were non-English language films.

The Globes have always been voted primarily by non-Americans. But until last year, Globe names were determined solely by the HFPA, a group of fewer than 100 people based in and around Los Angeles. The HFPA operated like a club, with cliques of members often banding together to push Hollywood’s biggest names (think Angelina Jolie and A tourist?), which made the ceremony more entertaining for the members and more likely for the telecast to achieve high ratings.

But that kind of coordination appears to have diminished significantly since the HFPA was sold, and its members have either been spun off from or absorbed into the new Golden Globes organization. Today, the Globe’s membership consists of 334 journalists worldwide, and nominations are decided not only by them but also by non-member critics — many of whom are drawn from FIPRESCI, the international critics’ federation that visits many of the major film festivals around the world and whose tastes vary from those of the old HFPA. (Golden Globes producer Dick Clark Productions is owned by Penske Media Eldridge, a joint venture between Penske Media Corp. and Eldridge, which also owns The Hollywood Reporter.)

One third of the nominees for directing are women

The Globes have multiple categories in a number of fields (separating drama and musical/comedy), but like every other major awards show, only one category for directors. So it is very notable that they have nominated two women in the category — Kapadia for Everything we imagine as light and Coralie Fargeat for Mubi’s Substance – over several people who were considered stronger bets, including Ridley Scott for Paramount’s Gladiator IIDenis Villeneuve for Warner Bros.’ Dina: The second partJon M. Chu for Universal’s Wicked and RaMell Ross for Amazon/MGM’s Nickel Boys.

Oddly, while Fargeat’s film was also nominated for Best Picture (Musical/Comedy) and she was nominated for Screenplay, Kapadia’s film was not nominated for Motion Picture (Drama) and she was not nominated for Screenplay. Everything we imagine as light is nominated for best film not in the English language — a category it has largely swept in previous awards.

Seven films received much-needed boosts

The few films that received Globe nominations were much needed. Take, for example, Substance. Its showing with five nominations is a big boost for this Hollywood body-horror satire, and could lead voters from other awards groups to prioritize viewing.

Spotlights Complete unknown is a late release and only had spots on AFI’s and NBR’s top 10 lists, confirming that it resonated—until the Globes nominated it for best drama, actor (Timothée Chalamet) and supporting actor (Edward Norton).

Briarcliff/Rich Spirit with two hands Donald Trump-Roy Cohn Trainee it was largely overlooked until the Globes nominations, when Sebastian Stan was nominated for Best Drama Actor and Jeremy Strong for Best Supporting Actor. (Stan also received a nomination for best actor in a comedy A different man.) Also with two names: Roadside’s The Last Showgirl, with Pamela Anderson up for Best Actress in a Drama, and Miley Cyrus’ “Beautiful That Way” getting an original song.

Kate Winslet snuck into Best Drama Actress as Roadside’s sole nominee Lee (she also received a TV acting nomination for Regime). And two films received only one nomination, each for best drama: Nickel Boyswhich has done very well with recent announcements, and Paramount’s September 5who has largely been MIA from them.

One movie died

Paramount’s other great hope, Gladiator IIreceived nominations only for motion picture/box office achievement and Denzel Washington as supporting actor — no best motion picture, no Scott for director, no Paul Mescal for actor, and no rating. That’s rough.

This story appeared in the Dec. 13 issue of The Hollywood Reporter. Click here to subscribe.