As glitter and errant sequins settle from last weekend’s Golden Globes ceremony, there is but one major takeaway: The Oscars race just got really, really interesting.
The first film awards handed out in 2025 came with massive surprises and upsets that have suddenly clarified what has felt as if it could be anyone’s game. They also come with a caveat — actually, make that several caveats. Primarily, the Globes are weird, celebrating film as well as TV, and separating movies into nonsensical “drama” and “musical or comedy” categories that just create more winners, but make their status as Oscars predictors totally unreliable.
Also, never forget the ethics scandals. The Globes are decided by only 334 members of a murky body of international journalists, remnants of the now-disbanded Hollywood Foreign Press Association that underwent an industry-wide shunning and a complete overhaul after a 2021 Los Angeles Times investigation revealed that it had zero Black members and that members had allegedly committed major ethics violations, including accepting financial rewards from studios for their votes.
But, even after all of that, it’s still the industry’s second-starriest night of the year. It’s also the one Oscars precursor, other than maybe the Screen Actors Guild Awards in late February, that really feels like the Oscars. And because it takes place right after everyone’s refreshed from the holidays — and, crucially, right before the Oscars nominations voting window — it has an outsize influence on the two-month sprint to the big day on March 2.
So, what wins stood out from the pack? How has this awards ceremony that is, essentially, a qualifying heat shaken up everyone’s chances of at least getting an Oscars nomination on January 19, if not placing first over the finish line?
Best “she’s due” narrative:
Demi Moore, The Substance
What many people don’t realise is that winning an award before the Oscars isn’t just an honour; it’s a very public, very important audition — for many actors, perhaps the most crucial audition in a career full of them. Whether anyone wants to admit it, the Oscars award needs popularity as much as merit. (There’s a reason the scramble for votes is called a “campaign.”) Getting up in front of an audience and giving the speech of your life is the best way to make the case that you are the person Academy members want to see on their stage in two months. And, on winning for the audacious body horror film The Substance, Moore brought down the house and leapfrogged to the front of the best actress competition.
It also just so happens that best actress is historically hard to predict. Sometimes the winner is an exceptional ingenue (Jennifer Lawrence in Silver Linings Playbook, Emma Stone in La La Land). Sometimes she’s a movie star who has made an incredible transformation (Halle Berry in Monster’s Ball, Charlize Theron in Monster). And sometimes she’s a beloved legend who you can’t believe hasn’t won before. See: Julia Roberts winning for Erin Brockovich.
Moore’s win at the Globes solidified that she’s the most lethal combination of all: a 62-year-old legend who also gave the performance of her life in a movie that is essentially a commentary on how ageing actresses get belittled and dismissed by Hollywood.
Most earthbound:
Wicked
After an impressive holiday run at the box office, total domination of meme culture, and breathless predictions of it winning both actress trophies and best picture at the Oscars, the musical won just one Globes prize, for cinematic and box office achievement. That’s essentially a made-up category designed to ensure that the biggest moneymakers of the year have a shot at walking away with something.
Up until now, enthusiasm for the uplifting film, with resonant themes of female empowerment and fighting discrimination, had overshadowed the question of whether voters could get that excited when Part 2 is coming out in November. Chances are, Wicked will fare much better on Oscars night, when it has a chance to win technical awards for its costuming and special effects.
It’s likely that stars Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande will both get nominated, but the Globes outcome seems to signal that the industry is treating the movie like the Lord of the Rings trilogy, which dominated the culture for three years but didn’t win best picture until the final film. The same case seems true for Denis Villeneuve’s Dune franchise, which got nothing on Globes night. If Wicked: For Good wins in 2026 and Dune: Messiah in 2027, then we’d have two sequel best picture winners in a row, and really would need the Mahdi to come and save us.
Most suffering from “peaked-too-soon” deflation:
Anora
The wonderful part of debuting a movie at the Cannes Film Festival is that, like Sean Baker’s Anora, you might win the Palme d’Or. The difficult part is that everyone has been hearing about your movie since May. The charming and often heartbreaking comedy about a young sex worker (Mikey Madison) who gets spontaneously married to the son of a Russian oligarch is now suffering from familiarity fatigue. High expectations can only be crushed. The movie’s subtle puncturing of Pretty Woman fantasies that won over European cinephiles is now being lost on broader American audiences.
And the election happened. A movie that speaks about capitalism and female empowerment from the often-neglected perspective of a woman who sells her body for money is now resonating less with voters than the overt themes of sisterhood and standing up against intolerance in Wicked and Emilia Perez.
At the Globes, “Anora” came up blank, with even Madison’s towering performance going unacknowledged. The BAFTAs, which included three of the film’s actors on its longlists, on the way to giving it nine mentions, might turn things around. But, for the moment, Baker’s original screenplay feels like its only true Oscars shot.
Most locked-up winners:
Kieran Culkin, A Real Pain, and Zoe Saldana, Emilia Perez
Emilia Perez, a bold musical by French director Jacques Audiard about a Mexican cartel boss who undergoes surgery to live as a woman, has vocal critics among both Mexican and trans people. No one, though, is quibbling about Zoe Saldana’s powerhouse performance. She burst into tears multiple times accepting the supporting performance by a female actor trophy, for a role that required her to sing and dance and rap in Spanish.
Grande in “Wicked” is seen as another lock for a nomination, but she has Part 2 of the movie to come, and Saldana’s narrative — as one of the industry’s most bankable stars, who has been hiding in plain sight in Avatar blue and Guardians of the Galaxy green — is far more compelling.
Kieran Culkin, meanwhile, has swept pretty much every Oscars precursor for his scene-stealing role as Jesse Eisenberg’s unpredictable cousin, who both terrorises and charms their tour group on a road trip through Holocaust sites in Poland. For anyone still missing Succession and its awards runs, he’s still bringing maniac Roman Roy energy to his speeches. Academy voters surely will want to sign up for more of that.
The only spoilers for him and Saldana might be if Oscars rulemakers decide that these two meaty parts need to be categorized as leads. Nobody wants this.
Left blowin’ in the wind:
Timothee Chalamet and A Complete Unknown
The sheen of newness seems to be wearing off of Timothee Chalamet’s Bob Dylan biopic, which debuted on Christmas amid a flurry of decent reviews and recognition from critics groups. Although the period film is considered a success for its distributor, Searchlight Pictures, and has made more than $US40 million so far, it got no attention from the Globes.
Chalamet seems certain to get a best actor nomination, but losing out in his category at the Globes to Adrien Brody for The Brutalist doesn’t bode well for his chances of taking home Oscar gold. Unlike best actress, best actor likes its winners grizzled and war-weary. (See: Austin Butler losing for Elvis in 2023 and Anthony Hopkins winning for The Father at 83 in 2021.)
Right now, Brody, who took home male performance (drama) at the Globes for The Brutalist, in which he plays a Hungarian Jewish Holocaust survivor and architect, seems to be in the lead. He gave a teary speech linking the trials of his Hungarian immigrant mother, photographer Sylvia Plachy, to his character.
Brody is probably most famous for dipping and kissing presenter Halle Berry in 2003, when he became the youngest best actor Oscar winner ever, for The Pianist, at 29. Since then, he has struggled to find a role that suits his talent. Will voters want to celebrate him, at 51, for finding his way again, or anoint a new youngest winner in Chalamet, who’s also 29, but would beat Brody since he was born in December?
Or, will there be a split of affections? The field is still filled with spoilers. Ralph Fiennes is terrific in Conclave and has a great he’s due narrative. Colman Domingo is on the verge of getting nominated two years in a row, this time for “Sing Sing”. And Sebastian Stan has done the finest work of his career this year in two movies, The Apprentice and A Different Man — for which he won male actor (musical or comedy) at the Globes.
Best overall contender no one’s seen:
The Brutalist
The Brutalist isn’t opening across the US until later this month — and in Australia on January 23 — which means it was a mystery to almost everyone who watched it win best motion picture (drama) at the Globes. The studio seems to be hoping the buzz will build up audience curiosity and appetite for this remarkable historical fiction epic, which also captured Globe awards for Brody and director Brady Corbet. The more people who see it as it was meant to be seen, as a Barbenheimer-style theatrical event, with a very fun 15-minute intermission, the more people will realise that the movie is really about making movies.
The Oscars are, after all, an event in which the industry celebrates itself, and this is a film that itself was nearly impossible to make, about an artist who holds on to his vision through decades of devastating personal and financial setbacks.
It’s up against a field of crowd-pleasers such as Wicked, A Complete Unknown, Sing Sing and Conclave — an airport paperback thriller masquerading as prestige drama, in the best way — and auteurist big swings such as Emilia Perez (which won the Globe for best picture, musical or comedy), Anora and The Substance. But it’s the only film of the bunch that recalls the sweep of The Godfather while also reflecting the ambitions and idealism of Hollywood back upon itself. You can’t beat that storyline, even if the telecast’s producers probably want Wicked to win because it would be better for ratings.