Brody beats Chalamet

The studio behind Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown had sufficient faith in their film that they hastened its release by a year, therefore putting it – and its star Timothée Chalamet – in this year’s awards conversation. Awed notices for both appeared to have proved the wisdom of such a move – but Searchlight might just have tripped up at the final furlong, by opting to place the film in the best drama category at the Globes, rather than best musical or comedy. The win for Adrien Brody in the former category on Sunday is a considerable blow for Chalamet’s prospects, particularly as Brody used the podium to deliver such a compelling speech – and therefore a convincing audition for his second Oscar win.

As well as thanking the film’s cast and crew, Brody thanked his partner, Georgina Chapman (the ex-wife of Harvey Weinstein – Brody highlighted her “resilience” in particular), his parents and grandparents, and further positioned the film as a story about the courage of immigrants to the US and the power of creativity and art – both catnip to Academy voters.

Sebastian Stan wallops in comedy

To hammer home the wisdom that the comedy or musical category would have been an easier ticket for Chalamet this year, that leading actor award was taken by Sebastian Stan for his role in disfigurement drama (not a lot of laughs or songs, really) A Different Man – beating favourites Jesse Eisenberg (for A Real Pain) and Hugh Grant (for Heretic). Stan was also up against Chalamet and Brody for Trump biopic The Apprentice, but the Globes giving him another trophy can be taken as tacit support for his work in both films.

Hollywood hits back hard

Trump’s big win in November was a nasty surprise for the film and TV industry, not least because it demonstrated a complete collapse in the power of celebrity endorsement, as almost all of them vocally backed Harris. That the Globes chose to celebrate a nearly four-hour drama about how the US treats its immigrants, a largely Spanish-language trans musical, as well as other films highlighting institutional corruption and the power of inclusivity can be interpreted as pushback to the right-wing rhetoric of the incoming administration. But the Academy Awards – voted for by almost 10,000 more people, all of them hoping to find work during the next four years – are likely to skew less radical in their choices.

The Globes triumph

Ecstatic reaction to host Nikki Glaser was partly because the bar had been set so low by the debacle of Jo Koy’s tenure last year, and partly because she got some good jabs in – nothing Fey/Poehler/Gervais level, but spikier than expected.

Targets included the collapse in the power of celebrity endorsements (“You can really do anything except tell the country who to vote for”), Joker 2 (“some people said it was ruined by the images on the screen and the sounds that accompanied them”) and Nicole Kidman (“thank you to Keith Urban for playing guitar so much around the house that she wants to leave and make 18 movies a year”). Gags about Ozempic sailed close to the wind, likewise the legacy of Hollywood over the past decade or so:

I really think this is going to be a memorable evening, and maybe not even in the way that you think. I predict, five years from now, when you’re watching old clips of this show on YouTube, you’ll go: ‘Oh my God, that was before they caught that guy.’

But the real victor of the night was the Globes themselves – so discredited that their broadcast was cancelled following an industry boycott just three years back, and now a wholly credible ceremony, with a list of winners selected by a cohort of voters with – apparently – both courage and taste.

Demi Moore emerges as a serious contender for best actress

Comeback narratives don’t get much more dramatic than Demi Moore’s. As she said in her acceptance speech for Coralie Fargeat’s body horror The Substance, this was the first time in her 45 years as an actor she had won anything.

“Thirty years ago, I had a producer tell me I was a popcorn actress and, at that time, I made that mean this wasn’t something I was allowed to have. That I could do movies that made a lot of money, but that I couldn’t be acknowledged, and I bought in and I believed that.”

Moore continued by saying this thought “corroded” her to the extent that she “thought a couple of years ago that maybe this was it, maybe I was complete, that I had done what I was supposed to do” – but decided to put off her early retirement when she received the script for The Substance.

It was perhaps the ceremony’s defining moment – as presenter Kerry Washington said after Moore left the stage, “Good luck to the next person who has to give a speech.”

As does Fernanda Torres

If Moore’s victory was a shock, that of Fernanda Torres was a proper upset. The star of I’m Still Here, Walter Salles’s drama about a woman who goes in search of her missing husband in Brazil beat Nicole Kidman, Angelina Jolie, Kate Winslet, Tilda Swinton – and Pamela Anderson – to the prize, suggesting that the Globes’s hire of some 200 new international voters really has paid dividends. Can Torres go further? Sony look likely to put renewed resources into their campaign push for the actor, whose mother – the legendary Fernanda Montenegro – was nominated 25 years ago for Central Station, and who plays the older version of her daughter in I’m Still Here. That kind of detail may help Oscar voters feel yet warmer about giving Torres a further boost.

Emilia Pérez > Anora

The Globes might be up for embracing (partly) classy foreign language films, but Sean Baker’s Anora – which won the Palme d’Or at Cannes – has so far been shut out, with Jacques Audiard’s musical instead hoovering the glory. Other films which went home unexpectedly empty-handed include Inside Out 2 (which lost to Flow for animated feature), Dune: Part Two, Sing Sing – and A Complete Unknown.

The supporting categories look like a lock

Just like last year, when Da’Vine Joy Randolph and Robert Downey Jr took every supporting gong going, Zoe Saldana and Kieran Culkin are now inked in to win every appropriate prize. The former gave a rousing speech about trans rights when accepting her award for supporting actress in Emila Pérez, while Culkin did some on-brand banter about being sloshed on tequila while picking up his (for A Real Pain).

All eyes on Jeremy Allen White’s Springsteen biopic

Culkin is leant added awards edge by his winning appearances at previous Globes for his role in Succession (A Real Pain is his first film in almost a decade). By that metric, it’s worth placing early bets on Deliver Me from Nowhere, the upcoming Bruce Springsteen film starring Jeremy Allen White. On Sunday White took his third consecutive TV Globe for his role in The Bear (something only Michael J Fox and Alan Alda have previously managed) – edging him into early pole position for the 2026 race. Although, as Chalamet will have noticed, music biopics – even of adored icons – are not always a sure thing.

• This article was amended on 6 January 2025 because an earlier version said that I’m Still Here was set in Argentina. This has been corrected to Brazil.