La La Land and Moonlight See Golden Globes Love

The Oscar race kicked off with an anointing of some of the biggest contenders, along with some surprising affection for films like Hacksaw Ridge and Nocturnal Animals.

The Golden Globe Awards, Hollywood’s annual kick-off for the Oscar race, announced its nominees Monday morning and anointed La La Land, Moonlight, and Manchester by the Sea as the year’s big contenders, with seven, six, and five nominations respectively. On the television side, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association lavished attention on popular new shows like Westworld, Stranger Things, The Crown, and This Is Us. The winners will be announced at a Jimmy Fallon-hosted ceremony on January 8.

Outside of recognizing the three leading favorites, the Globe nominations indicated a confused Oscar season ahead, giving multiple nominations to films like Mel Gibson’s war drama Hacksaw Ridge, the airy British comedy Florence Foster Jenkins, and Tom Ford’s moody Nocturnal Animals, all of which had seemed on the outskirts of the race. Expected awards darlings like Arrival and Jackie were largely ignored outside of their leading performers, and Martin Scorsese’s long-awaited period drama Silence was entirely shut out, perhaps doomed by its late release date. In fact, the nominations heavily favored films that came out earlier in the fall, indicating that the traditional Oscar tactic of waiting until Christmas to release a major film is prone to backfiring.

Awards season has always seemed endless, but it used to drag on through the end of March or the beginning of April, when the Academy Awards were traditionally held. Now that the Oscars air in late February, the “precursor” season has become more compressed, and the Globes have shifted their ceremony date earlier and earlier as a result; January 8 is the earliest they’ve ever been scheduled. That makes December an almost irrelevant month for groups like the HFPA. Though La La Land (released last weekend) was acclaimed enough to break through, films like Silence, Paterson, Patriot’s Day, Gold, and Live By Night have been relegated to also-rans.

The continued success of Hacksaw Ridge, which got nominations for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor (Andrew Garfield) is somewhat surprising given Gibson’s many past transgressions, including making anti-Semitic remarks when he was arrested for a DUI, making racist remarks to his ex-girlfriend, and pleading no contest to a misdemeanor spousal battery charge. Gibson has acknowledged his past on his publicity tour for Hacksaw Ridge, telling Stephen Colbert on The Late Show that his anti-Semitic rant was “not my proudest moment.” But his “apology tour” has largely lacked in apologies, a strategy that has nonetheless propelled his film to the top of the awards pile so far.

Other films that gained a foothold with the Globes were the inspirational drama Lion, recognized in the Best Picture category and for Dev Patel and Nicole Kidman’s performances; the sleeper bank-robber drama Hell or High Water, which was one of the summer’s most acclaimed films; and the aforementioned Nocturnal Animals, which is the kind of stylish, star-laden affair perfectly pitched at the Hollywood Foreign Press, the 92-member award body that decides the Globe nominations. Florence Foster Jenkins dominated in the “comedy or musical” categories (alongside La La Land), though its path to Oscar success will be less clear without the help of genre distinctions. The satirical superhero movie Deadpool also got two comedy nominations in recognition of its breakout year.

On the TV side, the Globes have always favored new shows, as a way of elevating contenders for next summer’s Emmys. Netflix’s The Crown got nods for its performers Claire Foy and John Lithgow, NBC’s surprise hit This Is Us edged its way into a field dominated by streaming and premium cable networks, and HBO received expected attention for Westworld as well as a heartening nomination for Issa Rae in Insecure. Rae and Black-ish’s Tracee Ellis Ross were both nominated for Best TV Actress in a Comedy this year, the first time an African American woman has made that field since 1985 (Isabel Sanford for The Jeffersons). FX’s critically acclaimed Atlanta also made the comedy cut, as did its creator and star Donald Glover in the Best Actor category.

The full list of nominations below:

Best Picture (Drama)

Hacksaw Ridge
Hell or High Water
Lion
Manchester by the Sea
Moonlight

Best Actor (Drama)

Casey Affleck, Manchester by the Sea
Joel Edgerton, Loving
Andrew Garfield, Hacksaw Ridge
Viggo Mortensen, Captain Fantastic
Denzel Washington, Fences

Best Actress (Drama)

Amy Adams, Arrival
Jessica Chastain, Miss Sloane
Isabelle Huppert, Elle
Ruth Negga, Loving
Natalie Portman, Jackie

Best Picture (Comedy/Musical)

20th Century Women
Deadpool
La La Land
Florence Foster Jenkins
Sing Street

Best Actor (Comedy/Musical)

Colin Farrell, The Lobster
Ryan Gosling, La La Land
Hugh Grant, Florence Foster Jenkins
Jonah Hill, War Dogs
Ryan Reynolds, Deadpool

Best Actress (Comedy/Musical)

Annette Bening, 20th Century Women
Lily Collins, Rules Don’t Apply
Hailee Steinfeld, The Edge of Seventeen
Emma Stone, La La Land
Meryl Streep, Florence Foster Jenkins

Best Supporting Actor in a Film

Mahershala Ali, Moonlight
Jeff Bridges, Hell or High Water
Simon Helberg, Florence Foster Jenkins
Dev Patel, Lion
Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Nocturnal Animals

Best Supporting Actress in a Film

Viola Davis, Fences
Naomie Harris, Moonlight
Nicole Kidman, Lion
Octavia Spencer, Hidden Figures
Michelle Williams, Manchester by the Sea

Best Director

Damien Chazelle, La La Land
Tom Ford, Nocturnal Animals
Mel Gibson, Hacksaw Ridge
Barry Jenkins, Moonlight
Kenneth Lonergan, Manchester by the Sea

Best Screenplay

La La Land
Nocturnal Animals
Moonlight
Manchester by the Sea
Hell or High Water

Best Foreign Language Film

Divines (France)
Elle (France)
Neruda (Chile)
The Salesman (Iran)
Toni Erdmann (Germany)

Best Animated Film

Kubo and the Two Strings
Moana
My Life as a Zucchini
Sing
Zootopia

Best Original Song

“Can’t Stop The Feeling,” Trolls
“City Of Stars,” La La Land
“Faith,” Sing
“Gold,” Gold
“How Far I’ll Go,” Moana

Best Original Score

Nicholas Britell, Moonlight
Justin Hurwitz, La La Land
Johann Johannsson, Arrival
Dustin O’Halloran & Hauschka, Lion
Hans Zimmer, Pharrel Williams, and Benjamin Wallfisch, Hidden Figures

Best Television Series (Drama)

The Crown
Game Of Thrones
Stranger Things
This Is Us
Westworld

Best Television Series (Musical/Comedy)

Atlanta
Black-ish
Mozart In The Jungle
Transparent
Veep

Best Actor in a Television Series (Drama)

Rami Malek, Mr. Robot
Bob Odenkirk, Better Call Saul
Matthew Rhys, The Americans
Liev Schreiber, Ray Donovan
Billy Bob Thornton, Goliath

Best Actress In A Television Series (Drama)

Caitriona Balfe, Outlander
Claire Foy, The Crown
Keri Russell, The Americans
Winona Ryder, Stranger Things
Evan Rachel Wood, Westworld

Best Actor in a Television Series (Musical/Comedy)

Anthony Anderson, Black-ish
Gael García Bernal, Mozart in the Jungle
Donald Glover, Atlanta
Nick Nolte, Graves
Jeffrey Tambor, Transparent

Best Actress in a Television Series (Musical/Comedy)

Rachel Bloom, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend
Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Veep
Sarah Jessica Parker, Divorce
Issa Rae, Insecure
Gina Rodriguez, Jane the Virgin
Tracee Ellis-Ross, Black-ish

Best Limited TV Series

American Crime
The Dresser
The Night Manager
The Night Of
The People v O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story

Best Actor in a Limited Series or Motion Picture Made for Television

Riz Ahmed, The Night Of
Bryan Cranston, All The Way
Tom Hiddleston, The Night Manager
John Turturro, The Night Of
Courtney B. Vance, The People v O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story

Best Actress in a Limited Series or Motion Picture Made for Television

Felicity Huffman, American Crime
Riley Keough, The Girlfriend Experience
Sarah Paulson, The People v O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story
Charlotte Rampling, London Spy
Kerry Washington, Confirmation

Best Supporting Actress in a Series, Limited Series or Motion Picture Made for Television

Olivia Colman, The Night Manager
Lena Headey, Game Of Thrones
Chrissy Metz, This Is Us
Mandy Moore, This Is Us
Thandie Newton, Westworld

Best Supporting Actor in a Series, Limited Series or Motion Picture Made for Television

Sterling K Brown, The People v O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story
Hugh Laurie, The Night Manager
John Lithgow, The Crown
Christian Slater, Mr. Robot
John Travolta, The People v O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story