Nominations for the 83rd annual Golden Globes arrived before dawn on Friday and in a crowded awards season full of early feints and false starts, one film came away having clearly won the morning’s skirmish: “One Battle After Another.”
Paul Thomas Anderson’s ambitious movie — about former political radicals reckoning with middle age, compromise and the ideals they once wore more proudly — showed up nearly everywhere the Globes could put it, leading the field with nine nominations. It landed nods for best motion picture (musical or comedy), director, screenplay and several actors, marking the broadest show of support for any film and giving a still-unsettled Oscar race something resembling a focal point.
“One Battle After Another” has already been on a steady roll with critics, collecting top prizes from the Los Angeles Film Critics Assn., the New York Film Critics Circle, the Gotham Awards and the National Board of Review — an unusually consistent run that has begun to separate it from the pack even before industry groups weigh in.
Elsewhere, the drama picture category underscored just how international — and fluid — the race remains. The lineup leaned heavily toward filmmakers with strong global followings, including Jafar Panahi’s tightly coiled political drama “It Was Just an Accident,” Kleber Mendonça Filho’s Brazilian espionage thriller “The Secret Agent” and Joachim Trier’s emotionally precise family drama “Sentimental Value.” They were joined by Guillermo del Toro’s long-gestating gothic passion project “Frankenstein,” Chloé Zhao’s literary adaptation “Hamnet” and Ryan Coogler’s muscular, genre-bending period film “Sinners.”
The comedy or musical race leaned more openly into the Globes’ eclectic instincts. Alongside Anderson’s film were Josh Safdie’s frenetic ping-pong dramedy “Marty Supreme,” Yorgos Lanthimos’ latest curveball “Bugonia,” Park Chan-wook’s South Korean satire “No Other Choice” and two films directed by Richard Linklater — the cinephile homage “Nouvelle Vague” and the quietly old-fashioned character study “Blue Moon” starring Ethan Hawke.
The acting nominations blended seriousness and star power in familiar Globes fashion. Leonardo DiCaprio landed a nod for “One Battle After Another” in the musical or comedy category, while the drama actor lineup included Michael B. Jordan (“Sinners”), Oscar Isaac (“Frankenstein”) and Dwayne Johnson (“The Smashing Machine”).
On the actress side, Jessie Buckley (“Hamnet”), Renate Reinsve (“Sentimental Value”) and Julia Roberts (“After the Hunt”) anchored the field.
Anderson’s film also showed strength in the supporting categories, earning nominations for Benicio del Toro, Sean Penn, Chase Infiniti and Teyana Taylor. “Sentimental Value,” meanwhile, emerged as a quiet force, collecting three supporting acting nods among its eight nominations.
The director category offered one of the morning’s clearer Oscar readings, pairing Anderson with Coogler, Del Toro, Zhao, Trier and Panahi — a lineup that closely mirrors the season’s broader critical conversation.
The Golden Globes are still contending with the fallout of their recent past. A 2021 Los Angeles Times investigation revealed that the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn. had no Black members and raised serious ethical and financial concerns, triggering industry backlash and prompting NBC to pull the 2022 broadcast.
In 2023, California regulators approved a restructuring that dissolved the HFPA entirely, transferred its charitable assets to a new Golden Globe Foundation, and reconstituted the awards as a for-profit enterprise owned by Eldridge Industries and Dick Clark Productions. CBS brought the ceremony back last year and later signed a five-year broadcast deal.
That effort to turn the page has not eliminated scrutiny. This year, the Globes drew criticism over the introduction of a new podcast category after announcing that nominees would be selected using data from Luminate, a firm jointly owned by Penske Media and Eldridge — the same companies that own the awards. The inaugural nominees included “SmartLess,” “Call Her Daddy,” “Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard,” “Good Hang with Amy Poehler,” “The Mel Robbins Podcast” and NPR’s “Up First.”
Some within the podcasting industry questioned the arrangement and the growing commercialization of the awards, while Penske representatives said most eligible shows chose to participate.
This year’s nominations also land at a moment of fresh industry disruption. They came days after Netflix announced plans to acquire Warner Bros., a deal that would further consolidate power among streaming platforms and alter the balance between legacy studios and tech companies — a reminder that, even as structures shift, awards remain one of the few remaining measuring sticks.
On the television side, the nominations were spread widely. HBO Max’s “The Pitt” and “The White Lotus,” Apple TV+’s “Severance” and “Pluribus,” Netflix’s “The Diplomat” and Apple’s “Slow Horses” were among the drama nominees, while comedy or musical series included “Abbott Elementary,” “The Bear,” “Hacks,” “Only Murders in the Building” and “The Studio.”
The Globes are not voted on by Academy members and their reliability as an Oscar bellwether has always been uneven. Still, in a season that has resisted easy hierarchy, the nominations offer a useful frame — suggesting which battles may matter most next.
The Golden Globe Awards will air Jan. 11 on CBS, hosted by Nikki Glaser.
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