Golden Globes 2025 nominations: Shocks, snubs and the ridiculous Cinematic and Box Office Achievement category
The awards season is well and truly off and running. The Golden Globes nominations were revealed overnight.
The Golden Globes have always had a credibility problem — its then-voters, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, had a reputation for being easily influenced by studios and celebrities wining, dining and showering them with attention — but after a 2021 scandal resulted in its sale, the voting body was expanded.
The real value of a Golden Globe nomination or win is the momentum it creates for an Oscar campaign. With buzz and a spotlight, it can make all the difference.
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By continuing you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy.The full list of nominations is on The Nightly website, but amid the flurry of nods are some interesting snubs, shocks and stories.
AUSSIES DOING IT FOR THEMSELVES
There is no stopping the prolific Nicole Kidman, who clocked up her 20th Golden Globe nomination (she’s won six) for her leading role in Babygirl, a film about a married, powerful executive who engages in some light BDSM with an intern. She’s a strong contender for an Oscar and a nomination at the Golden Globe only helps.
Kidman is joined in the movies categories by Guy Pearce, who is earning rave notices for his supporting performance in Brady Corbet’s three-and-a-half hour historic epic The Brutalist as a wealthy industrialist who fancies himself a patron of design.
Australian filmmaker Adam Elliot’s Memoir of a Snail will compete in the animated motion picture category.
On the TV side, Cate Blanchett has been nominated for her role in Alfonso Cuaron’s limited series Disclaimer, who also nabbed nods for co-star Kevin Kline and for the show itself. She will be in direct competition with Naomi Watts, who is nominated in the same category for her role in the Ryan Murphy anthology show, Feud: Capote vs The Swans.
THAT’S WHAT THE MONEY IS FOR
It’s only the second time the Golden Globes has run the category of Cinematic and Box Office Achievement and this year’s crop of nominations only serves to remind us what a completely sham award it is.
The idea is to recognise films that have been audience favourites based on their box office haul but still met some kind of standard in quality. But if it was a good film, regardless of its grosses, it would be able to sneak into the main categories — and the Globes already has a separate comedy or musical berth.
This is nothing more than a lame consolation prize. Last year’s winner was Barbie, which was already nominated across the board elsewhere.
This year, Wicked is here, which is a strong possible winner in the comedy or musical category while Inside Out 2, the highest-grossing film of the year globally, is nominated in animated feature, as is The Wild Robot.
The others — Gladiator II, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, Deadpool & Wolverine, Twisters and Alien: Romulus — obviously didn’t make the cut and being included here feels more than a little patronising. Awww, you tried.
If we were to take the award seriously, and no one actually does, then where is Dune: Part Two, both a cinematic achievement and the fourth highest-grossing film of the year.
Also, selling a lot of tickets should never be a defining characteristic of any awards race based on, as flawed as the concept is, merit. This is not the People’s Choice or the Nickelodeon Kids awards.
As Mad Men’s Don Draper said to Peggy Olsen when she complained she never got any thanks, “That’s what the money is for!”.
SING IT LOUD AND PROUD
The category is musical or comedy but in more recent years, there hasn’t always been a musical in contention. This decade, there have only been five musicals nominated, and some really shouldn’t have been (ahem, Sia’s movie, Music).
Last year, there were none, unless you counted Barbie because of Ken’s big number.
This year, there are two, and they’re both strong contenders at the Oscars, where best picture is just best picture, regardless of genre. Emilia Perez, a fairytale-like story about a Mexican cartel boss who transitions into a woman, is an out-and-out musical with 10 nominations, the most of any film this year.
It’s been recognised across all the major categories including director and screenplay for filmmaker Jacques Audiard, in acting for Karla Sofia Gascon, Selena Gomez and Zoe Saldana and in the score and song. Anywhere it could’ve been nominated, it was.
Emilia Perez was an early frontrunner in the Oscars but had started to lose some momentum after a mixed reaction once it had premiered on streaming in the US (in Australia, it will be released in cinemas), so this puts the spotlight back on the film.
The other is, of course, Wicked, the extravagant adaptation of the Broadway musical, which was adapted from Gregory Maguire’s novel, which was drawn from the original Wizard of Oz tomes. The film nabbed four nods overall, which included a pair of acting nominations for stars Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande.
DIRECTORS SNUBBED
Wicked underperformed in one significant category and that was in directing with helmer Jon M. Chu snubbed for his work pulling together an ambitious and complex production which managed to sustain a specific tone.
Similarly, Canadian director Denis Villeneuve wasn’t nominated for Dune: Part Two, a sprawling sci-fi epic which only showed up on the list twice, once in best picture drama and the other for Hans Zimmer’s score, which has actually been ruled ineligible at the Oscars because it derives too much from Dune: Part One’s composition.
Villeneuve is a highly regarded filmmaker with a reputation for crafting thrilling movies across different genres but has really honed his expertise in sci-fi. Dune: Part Two didn’t have the meditative discipline of its predecessor but many audiences loved its greater focus on action sequences.
Ridley Scott was another name to watch with the English director expected to be fierce competition at the Oscars for Gladiator II. While the film has had mixed reviews, there’s a “it’s time” sentiment going around about Scott, who has never won an Oscar.
THE LION SLEEPS TONIGHT
Mufasa: The Lion King hasn’t been released yet to the general public but, undoubtedly, Golden Globes voters would have already been given preview screenings.
And yet… nothing.
The film, out in Australia on December 19, is directed by Barry Jenkins, who the Globes had previously nominated for his work on Moonlight and If Beale Street Could Talk, and is the origin story of Mufasa.
The Globes chose to recognise two other Disney productions instead — Moana 2 and Inside Out 2 — which has heavy competition in the very well-reviewed and commercially successful The Wild Robot.
It would also have been nice to see Robot Dreams, a dialogue-free animated feature from Spain, get a look-in, but alas.
Mufasa was also shut out of the original song category despite musical prodigy Lin-Manuel Miranda penning all of its songs including the catchy “I’ve Always Wanted a Brother”.
HARD TRUTHS
There are a raft of actors who were thought to be in with a decent chance of a nomination that didn’t make the cut. Many of them have been recognised in a bunch of lead-up awards, especially those given out by critics circles.
British actor Marianne Jean-Baptiste is one of the most glaring omissions here. Over the weekend, she won best actress from both the Los Angeles and New York critics groups for her role in Mike Leigh’s Hard Truths.
Danielle Deadwyler was also expected to be a contender for her performance in The Piano Lesson as was Clarence Maclin, who won in his category at the Gotham Awards, for Sing Sing. Maclin’s co-star Colman Domingo managed a nomination in lead actor in a drama film but the movie, overall, didn’t get a shot despite being on many predictions lists.
Ryan Reynolds was also an outside chance in the comedy category for his wise-cracking role in Deadpool & Wolverine, but the movie only showed up in the Cinematic and Box Office Achievement category.
In a happier surprise, Pamela Anderson nabbed her first Golden Globe nomination for The Last Showgirl, in which she plays a veteran Las Vegas dancer whose show suddenly closes. Anderson is one to watch because everyone loves a comeback story.
DOUBLE WHAMMY
Here’s to the three stars who have two shots come Golden Globes night. Kate Winslet, Sebastian Stan and Selena Gomez convinced the voters to nominate them twice in this year’s awards.
For Stan, they’re both lead performances, one in a drama movie and another in a comedy movie. There was his controversial portrayal of Donald Trump in The Apprentice, which scared off other actors so much that Stan revealed none would pair up with him for those “Actor on Actor” promotional interviews. He played Trump as a complex human rather than a caricature.
The other was for A Different Man, in which he plays a man who has neurofibromatosis who undergoes an experimental procedure that gives him the good looks of a movie star.
Gomez split her nominations between TV and movies, one for her ongoing role in Only Murders in the Building and the other in the supporting category in the musical Emilia Perez, in which she plays the wife to a drug cartel boss who faked their death to live out her life as a transgender woman.
Finally, Winslet, a perennial favourite of the Globes voters, eked out nominations for two projects that have had little critical love. The first was Lee, a biopic of famed Vogue war photographer Lee Miller, a film Winslet spent a decade trying to make, and the second is for the largely forgotten (for a good reason) political satire series The Regime.
SUCCESSION REMATCH
There’s no love lost between Succession’s Roy brothers. Who could forget Kendall’s “But I’m the eldest boy!” claim to the throne — fact check, he isn’t even, that would be Connor — in the series finale, which saw both sons lose to an outsider.
Just because the show wrapped up, doesn’t mean the onscreen rivalry was over. The actors who played the characters, Jeremy Strong and Kieran Culkin, were up against each other at the 2023 Emmy Awards, a race Culkin won.
Now is Strong’s chance to get his own back. He and Culkin are nominated in supporting actor in a movie category at the Golden Globes — and both are considered Oscar contenders — for their performances in different films.
Strong portrayed controversial real-life lawyer and Donald Trump mentor Roy Cohn in The Apprentice. It was a powerful performance that managed to evoke compassion for a man who is little loved.
Culkin’s turn in A Real Pain as a man on a Holocaust tour with his cousin taps into the actor’s talent for accessing layers and layers of emotional depth.
It’ll be a curious rematch, or they could both lose to Denzel Washington and his delicious performance in Gladiator II.
OUT OF LUCK
This was meant to be the year of the Irish, even Vulture had declared it so. The Emerald Isle and its surprisingly small population of five million people have always punched above its weight in culture and sport.
But when the nominations were read out, there were some notable snubs of Ireland’s favourite sons and daughters.
Saoirse Ronan had two shots at being nominated – one for her supporting role in Blitz and another in lead for The Outrun – but was shut out completely. Sharon Horgan and her Dublin-set series Bad Sisters also didn’t get a look-in.
Paul Mescal was on the bubble for a nomination for his role in Gladiator II and ultimately missed out.
Kneecap, a riotous and frenetic fictionalised origin story of the Irish-language rap group, was considered a good chance to be nominated in the non-English language category at the Oscars, but being snubbed for a Golden Globe will dent its momentum.
Two Irishmen did get a shout-out though, albeit they’re both in the male actor in a limited series category – Colin Farrell for The Penguin and Andrew Scott for Ripley.
NOT SO GENTLEMANLY
There’s no denying Guy Ritchie series The Gentlemen has its fans, and it is less unnecessarily offensive than the movie from which it was spun-off, but the show is popcorn fare that struggled to sustain its story over eight episodes. It’s not an awards contender.
Especially when you consider the far better shows that didn’t make the cut, any of which would’ve been far more deserving of the slot.
To start, there were the pair of final season shows from FX – What We Do in the Shadows and Reservation Dogs, which were both recognised by the Emmys this year. There was also the perpetually under-appreciated Somebody Somewhere.
Vince Vaughn’s sweaty noir mystery Bad Monkey wouldn’t have been out of place in the category, nor Shrinking, which earnt two performance nods for Jason Segel and Harrison Ford but not for series.
But the most egregious snub here is English Teacher, a smart and hilarious comedy from Brian Jordan Alvarez about educators at a Texas high school dealing with a shifting culture of identity, inclusion and social progress with compassion and a wicked sense of humour.