Cillian Murphy leads the Irish charge for tonight's Golden Globes
All of Us Strangers and Oppenheimer are in Golden Globes contention in 2024.
Cillian Murphy is widely regarded as Ireland’s biggest contender at this weekend’s Golden Globes, in a year when a record three Irishmen have been nominated in the Best Film Drama Actor category.
The Cork actor is co-favourite - along with Bradley Cooper - to win his first Golden Globe when the awards take place in Hollywood on Sunday night. It builds further momentum for the star of Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer as the Oscars approach. Murphy has been widely praised for his role in the film, in which he plays J Robert Oppenheimer, the physicist who developed the world’s first atomic bomb.
In a remarkable year for Irish screen talent, no fewer than three of the six best actor nominees for drama are Irish. Barry Keoghan has been nominated for his turn in Saltburn, where he plays a working-class student drawn into the world of a rich aristocrat. Andrew Scott, gaining critical raves for his role alongside Paul Mescal in the forthcoming All of Us Strangers, secured a third Irish nomination.
There will also be plenty of Irish interest in Poor Things, Yorgos Lanthimos’s offbeat film which is produced by Dublin-based Element Pictures. Along with Martin Scorcese’s Killers of the Flower Moon, Poor Things - which stars Emma Stone as a woman reborn following a scientific experiment - has seven nominations.
2024 marks a crucial year for the Golden Globes, which has made several changes to its voting body and structures following sharp criticism about a lack of diversity among its membership. Following an existential crisis that led to the dissolution of founders and voting body the Hollywood Foreign Press Association last summer, Golden Globes organisers need to both find new audiences and rebuild its reputation.
Filmmaker Greta Gerwig’s pink-themed comedy has a leading nine Globe nominations, followed closely by the Murphy-starring drama which has eight nods. In the TV categories, Succession leads with nine nominations, followed by The Bear and Only Murders in the Building, which both have five.
While the Golden Globes are widely regarded as a predictor of where key Oscar wins will go months later, this is frequently not the case. Even the fact that key Globes nominations are broken into two categories - drama and comedy/musical - means they have double the chance of predicting an Oscar win.
With a membership of over 10,000, The Academy has a broad electorate and invites new members every year. The Golden Globes, by contrast, was until recently voted for by members of Hollywood’s Foreign Press Association which numbered between 90 and 100 members.
What the high-profile awards ceremony does do, however, is serve as a valuable builder of momentum as the countdown to the Oscars begins. This year, they will be presented just days before ballots open for Oscars voters on January 11th.
Taking place in early January, they are the first large-scale awards of the new year and can be an indicator of emerging contenders.
Often seen as the more fun and informal ceremony compared to the Oscars, the Golden Globes takes place in a hotel setting over dinner. That relaxed feel often leads to a more light-hearted prize-giving.
Last year’s highlights included a hilarious comic turn from The White Lotus star Jennifer Coolidge. Colin Farrell’s heartfelt and funny acting acceptance speech for The Banshees of Inisherin - in which he thanked Jenny the Donkey, spoke of his love for Brendan Gleeson and teased Barry Keoghan for eating his cornflakes in the house they shared during filming - was a hit with viewers.
Yet, the Golden Globes has found itself in a credibility crisis since 2021. An investigation by the Los Angeles Times revealed that the HFPA at that time had no black members. Along with other questions about the organisation’s ethics and practices, it led to widespread calls in Hollywood for long-overdue reform.
With the very future of the Golden Globes called into question, last year the HFPA was dissolved, with a private equity firm taking over the awards show in one of the most-dramatic shake-ups in the organisation’s 81-year history.
“The industry is in wait-and-see mode with the Globes this year,” says Louise Tutt, deputy editor at leading film-industry publisher, Screen Daily. “Even before the 2021 LA Times report that called out the HFPA for the lack of diversity in its membership, the HFPA as an organisation had long been regarded with a degree of scepticism due to the seemingly outsize influence of its around 90 members.”
This year’s ceremony will take place on Sunday, January 7, at the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills. Following reforms, this year’s awards has a voting body of 300 entertainment journalists selected from 76 different countries. The number of nominees in each category across film and TV grows from five to six. There will be two new awards categories this year: for Box Office and Cinematic Achievement and Best Performance in Stand-Up Comedy on Television.
This year’s show will be broadcast live on Paramount+, with the edited ceremony broadcast on RTÉ Two on Monday night, January 8th. Comedian Jo Koy will host the awards.
It marks a sea change for the Golden Globes, which were founded in 1943 by a group of foreign journalists based in Hollywood. The first ceremony took place the following year, with winners being presented with scrolls. In 1955, they began celebrating achievement in TV as well as in film.
It has a glamorous yet colourful history. Now the Golden Globes will be hoping to win audience hearts - and crucial TV ratings - as it aims to secure its future.
Tutt believes that the format of the live show is one of its greatest strengths. “A combination of free-flowing alcohol and the presence of both TV stars and film stars in the same room, not something the Oscars or the Baftas ever do, as well as categories that recognise the audience-friendly films like musicals and comedies, makes for a wildly popular show,” she says.
“During awards season, with all studios and PRs and distributors, as well as actors themselves keeping an eye on the big prize - the Oscars - perception is everything and a Globe nomination or win is incredibly helpful. Where Globe recognition is invaluable is in attracting paying audiences to cinemas to watch a nominated film.”
Good Grief (new to Netflix): Dan Levy (Schitt’s Creek) makes his movie directorial debut in this romantic drama starring Irish actress Ruth Negga.
Jules (in cinemas and on rental platforms): Ben Kingsley plays a man whose life is upended when a UFO and its passenger crashes in his garden.
Priscilla (now in cinemas): Based on Priscilla Presley’s 1980s memoir Elvis and Me, Sofia Coppola’s movie tells the story of their romance through Priscilla’s eyes.
Past Lives (on rental platforms): This wonderful Korean-American film imagines what life would have been like had two young sweethearts not been separated just as their love was blossoming.
Ferrari (in cinemas): A turning point in the life of motoring’s Enzo Ferrari is recalled in this film starring Adam Driver.
