Best dog: Ziggy, Jodie Foster’s relaxed terrier cross

Sporting a neck-tie that matched his owner’s silk pyjamas, Ziggy snuggled between Foster and wife Alexandra Hedison and added extra warmth to an authentically spontaneous acceptance speech (best supporting actress for The Mauritanian). The scene was a comforting domestic sequel to Foster’s legendary coming-out speech at the Globes just eight years ago.

Runners-up: Cornbread, Regina King’s napping Alsatian-mix, and Sarah Paulson’s chihuahua/wirehaired dachshund/rat terrier mix, Winnie.

Best child: Lee Isaac Chung’s seven-year-old daughter

“I prayed! I prayed! I prayed!” exclaimed the Minari director’s child when her father’s win – for best foreign language film – was announced. She then leapt into his lap and remained there, hugging and kissing him, for the duration of his speech.

“She’s the reason I made this film,” said Chung. “Minari is about a family – it’s a family trying to learn how to speak a language of their own. It goes deeper than any American language, and any foreign language. It’s a language of the heart. I’m trying to learn it myself and pass it on, and I hope we’ll all learn how to speak this language of love to each other, especially this year.”

Runners-up: Mark Ruffalo’s children, Keen and Odette; Jason Bateman’s daughters, Francesca and Maple, and Kate Hudson’s children, Ryder, Bingham and Rani.

Best speech: Jason Sudeikis

Some have suggested a worst-faith reading to Sudeikis’s whacked-out, red-rimmed and flatly rambling acceptance speech, initially punctuated by expletives from an unknown friend in his hotel room. Were drugs or drink involved? If so, might this be a necessity given that Sudeikis was shooting Ted Lasso in London, where awards ceremonies unfold from 1-4am?

Another mitigating factor: his tie-dye hoodie was made by his sister and contains 5% recycled bottles.

Here, anyway, is his speech in full:

That’s nuts. Thank you to the Hollywood Foreign Press. This is, for me, the coolest thing that a group of, you know, like, that’s nuts…. Especially… that’s crazy. OK, umm. Alright. Wow.

Here’s what I’ll say. I’ll say this. I want to thank everybody that works on the show. I read this book to my son Otis called The Three Questions by Leo Tolstoy. He has these three questions, like, ‘When’s the best time to do things?’ ‘What is the right thing to do?’ And then, ‘Who is the most important one?’

That last question, ‘Who is the most important one,’ is like, whoever the person you’re with. So I kinda reject the premise of being the best actor, because in my humble opinion the best actor is the person you’re acting with.

I want to give this as a shout-out to all the people I act with on the show, because they’re incredible. Do they make me the best? No. But they make me better. Better than I am, better than I thought I could be. Better than anything I can do. I appreciate everyone looking out and Don [Cheadle, a fellow nominee, making ‘wind-up’ motions over Zoom] is right, I gotta wrap this puppy up. Never been my forte. A little windy, little windy, as my Aunt Loretta would say.

Best-dressed winner: Chloé Zhao

Nomadland’s Zhao became the first Asian woman and only the second woman (since Barbra Streisand back in 1983) to win the Globe for best director. Plaits, a khaki T-shirt and a big view of a radiator kept the focus firmly on the important stuff.

Best personal drinking game participant: David Fincher

Mank, along with Promising Young Woman, was one of the awards frontrunners which ended the evening without a single win. The director of the former, David Fincher, was seen knocking back a shot of – presumably – vodka when Aaron Sorkin was named best screenwriter for The Trial of the Chicago 7; a gesture many interpreted as Fincher raising a toast to his late father, Jack, who wrote Mank.

But when Fincher repeated the swig when he lost best director, a new theory was born. Fingers crossed that if the Oscars are also virtual, winners and losers alike are encouraged to plunder their fridges.