By now somebody in my position, which is to say those who analyze popular culture for a living, should know better than to write off the Golden Globes. Admittedly my bias is a product of viewing them from the TV side of the gift bag, in that those nominations factor less, if at all, into Emmys races. The Globes mean more to moviegoers with an eye toward the Oscars – an audience segment that isn’t what it used to be.
Or that was the case before last year’s batch of industry glitter fests, kicked off by one of the Globes’ worst telecasts earning it its biggest live audience since 2020 with more than 10 million viewers. (Adding in streams, that number swelled to 16 million, according to GoldenGlobes.com.)
One might credit the “Barbenheimer” phenomenon for the uncharacteristic interest in the show since the one-two punch of “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” became the best boost to happen to the post-pandemic theatrical space since “Top Gun: Maverick.” The closest the top 2025 nominees lists have to recapturing that magic is “Wicked,” nominated for best music or comedy motion picture alongside “Emilia Pérez,” “Anora,” “Challengers,” “A Real Pain” and “The Substance.”
The drama motion picture category holds less charisma, with “Dune: Part Two” being the biggest popular culture conversation piece on the list, and “Conclave” holding a distant second place. (Maybe.) Of the others, there’s “The Brutalist,” “Nickel Boys,” “September 5” and the title that describes most of the moves in these top races for most Americans: “A Complete Unknown.”
That bit of snark isn’t meant to critique these nominee selections which look fairly thoughtful. (Here’s where I confess I haven’t seen most of the drama picks, but that’s what holiday downtime is for!) If anything this list of nominees may boost the profiles of these movies, around half of which are based on original screenplays.
Given the current theatrical feature environment that counts as a small miracle – and it also explains the utility, if not necessity, of the cinematic and box office achievement slot, in which the mirthfully mid “Deadpool & Wolverine” has a shot at winning a major award that isn’t a leg lamp.
Now in its second year, this relatively new category may become the latest harbinger of all that’s right and wrong with the movie business, an industry increasingly hostile to true originality. If the top movie categories are primarily populated by cinematic art that we should be supporting, this one is a lineup of what the masses are actually forking over their hard-earned money to see.
Nobody will gasp at learning that most of the films in this race top Box Office Mojo’s domestic list of highest-grossing films for 2024, including “Inside Out 2” (No. 1), “Deadpool & Wolverine” (No. 2), “Wicked” and “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” (No. 4 and No. 6, respectively). The rest sit firmly in the Top 20, including “Gladiator II,” “Twisters,” and “Alien: Romulus.” Most of those movies are either sequels or revivals. Only “Wicked” and “The Wild Robot” buck those designations, and they’re adaptations of established properties (not to mention “Wicked” is a prequel of a known property). Between them, “Wicked” boasts wider renown, which makes “Wild Robot” the true “it’s an honor just to be nominated” pick.
As was the case last year, when “Oppenheimer” was lumped into this category alongside “The Super Mario Bros. Movie,” “John Wick: Chapter 4,” Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part 1,” two Marvel properties, and a Taylor Swift concert film but lost out to “Barbie,” the cinematic and box office achievement slot also spells out what may be ailing the movie business in the long run.
Nobody should be in the business of pooh-poohing anyone’s notion of a good time, especially when that fun pulls people off their couches and into communal spaces. These movies were built for broad appeal, whether via nostalgia or overt, easy fan service, and the public rewarded that bait with financial returns.
Beneath all that, however, is a nagging sense of stagnation and addiction to redux that’s kept modern cinema captive at the spot where the soundtrack CD is skipping. “Gladiator II” and “Alien: Romulus” are Ridley Scott properties that heavily retread ground covered in the original conceits that inspired them. “Romulus” even has characters quote catchphrases uttered by other characters they’ve never met.
If the top movie categories are primarily populated by art that we should be supporting, cinematic and box office achievement is a line-up of what the masses are actually forking over their hard-earned money to see.
“Deadpool & Wolverine” and “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” plug more into the moviegoers’ memory of what’s come before than building their universes toward something new. But then, that’s been the case with Marvel for a couple of decades now. The title of “Twisters” pretty much says what it has going for it. Seeing that “Wicked” and “The Wild Robot” made the cut is a kind of relief. After all, “Despicable Me 4” made a lot more cash.
In this regard the TV nominees are a useful barometer: they may not contain many hints about how the 2025 Emmys nods may shape up, but the best comedy category is a roundup of what the aftermath of an overreliance on revivals, reboots and remakes can look like.
“The Bear” racked up the most TV nominations with five total mentions – one for best comedy and the others covering the usual suspects in individual categories (Jeremy Allen White, Ayo Edebiri, Ebon Moss Bachrach and first-time Emmy winner Liza Colón-Zayas). Arguments over its suitability of comedy categories continue apace, I’m sure, although I hope the same is being said about “The Gentlemen.”
Regardless, the FX hit is an entirely original story with a fresh storytelling approach.
The same is true of “Hacks,” which has an incredible season, the always sharp “Abbott Elementary,” and crowd pleasers “Nobody Wants This” and four-time nominee “Only Murders in the Building.” Viewers flock to these shows and enthusiastically return for new seasons of the established titles, and only one smacks of a nostalgia play: “The Gentlemen,” although it satisfyingly course-corrects from the abysmal movie on which it’s based.
Even the ones that seem to be in the drama race take a fresh approach to a previously established format – namely “Mr. & Mrs. Smith” and “Shogun,” the second of which transforms its ‘80s miniseries predecessor into a rich exploration of Japanese history. (I’ve yet to see “The Day of the Jackal,” an adaptation of a Frederick Forsyth novel that became of film in 1973.)
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The best drama competition is rounded out by the popular political thriller “The Diplomat” and spy drama “Slow Horses” along with “Squid Game,” which won’t be released to the public until the last full week of December.
Taken together these nods let us know that while some entertainment hasn’t completely broken free of its reliance on the past, and certainly isn’t beyond risking acts of sacrilege – that “Harry Potter” HBO series had better slap! – the idea of pushing the medium forward isn’t entirely dead.
It only takes a few paradigm-shifting movies or TV series to change the course of what gets produced and placed in theaters, meaning we may see the day that more nods in cinematic and box office achievement match up with genuinely creative films. Until then, a lot of us probably have a few best movie nominees to catch up on.
The 82nd annual Golden Globe Awards, hosted by Nikki Glaser, airs live at 5 p.m. PT/8 p.m. ET Sunday, Jan. 5, 2025 on CBS and streams on Paramount+.
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