by Chris Connor

This year’s Awards season took another step towards the Oscars with the Golden Globes. Following the controversy, the awards have lost much of the prestige and glamour of previous years but still indicate the direction certain categories might head in and were as ever not short of a few surprises.

Perhaps the most notable award which went against awards season to date was Nicole Kidman winning Best Actress in a Drama for her role as Lucille Ball in Being The Ricardos, up to this point the frontrunner has been Kristen Stewart for her role as Princess Diana in Spencer, it will be interesting if this indicates that the award is not as nailed on as analysts have predicted.

In the Comedy category, Rachel Zegler won Best Actress for Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story beating Alana Haim who was considered favourite in that category for Licorice Pizza.

The Best Actor categories both went to script with Will Smith winning for his role in King Richard and Andrew Garfield winning in the Comedy category for playing Jonathan Larson in Tick Tick Boom.  This is further indication that the pair will be the ones to beat for the rest of the season.

Kenneth Branagh and Jane Campion’s hopes for the remainder of the season were boosted with wins in the Screenplay and Director categories for Belfast and The Power of The Dog. This of course follows Chloe Zhao’s win in the Best Director category in 2021.

The Power of The Dog had a successful evening adding a Supporting Actor for Kodi Smit- McPhee and a Best Picture win. West Side Story surprisingly won Best Musical or Comedy with Ariana DeBose’s turn as Anita winning her a Supporting Actress award and cementing her as one of the frontrunners in the category.

Encanto was another surprise winner in the Best Animated Feature category in what is a wide-open field, triumphing over the likes of Raya and The Last Dragon, Flee, and Luca. The wildly acclaimed Drive My Car which has been tipped as an outside Best Picture contender for the Oscars won Best Foreign Language film over The Hand of God and Pedro Almodovar’s Parallel Mothers.

While less note is being made of the Golden Globes than in previous years, this year’s awards have nevertheless thrown up some surprises in several categories and it will be intriguing to see whether these take a foothold for the remainder of the awards season or whether they are one-offs.