Breaking Down the 2018 Golden Globe Nominations

The Hollywood Foreign Press Association’s selections, including The Shape of Water, The Post, and Lady Bird, set off an Oscar race with no clear frontrunner.

The Golden Globe nominations were announced Monday morning, kicking off what looks to be a genuinely chaotic Oscar season with no discernible frontrunner for Best Picture. Several potential contenders featured prominently, including Steven Spielberg’s The Post, Martin McDonagh’s Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, Guillermo del Toro’s The Shape of Water, Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk, and Greta Gerwig’s Lady Bird. There was also a surprising slew of nominations for Ridley Scott’s upcoming drama All the Money in the World, which has been in the news largely because it went through drastic reshoots to replace Kevin Spacey with Christopher Plummer after the former was accused of sexual assault by multiple men.

The Globes’ film nominations have significant bearing on the Oscar race despite the comparative anonymity of the 90-member Hollywood Foreign Press Association (who vote on the awards). The group also handed out a typically eclectic mix of television nominations, concentrating on buzzy favorites like Big Little Lies, This Is Us, and Stranger Things as well as brand new shows like SMILF, The Good Doctor, and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. The awards ceremony will be broadcast on NBC Sunday, January 7, and will be hosted by Seth Meyers.

By a simple tally of nominations, the biggest winner was The Shape of Water, del Toro’s grown-up fairytale about a woman who falls in love with an amphibious being trapped in an underground lab. It got seven Globe nominations: Picture, Director, Screenplay, Score, Best Actress for Sally Hawkins, Best Supporting Actor for Richard Jenkins, and Best Supporting Actress for Octavia Spencer. Right behind it was the dark drama Three Billboards and the resolutely topical newspaper biopic The Post with six nominations apiece.

The Post, which will be released in time for Christmas, has drawn attention for its present-day parallels, though it follows The Washington Post’s legal battle to publish the Pentagon Papers in 1971. The Globes clearly responded to the film’s message: Spielberg has pitched the movie, which he made with comparative speed, as a parable of the news media standing up to a bullying White House. It’s also a tale about the struggles of being a woman in a male-dominated boardroom (the story is centered on the Post publisher Katharine Graham, played by Meryl Streep). Meanwhile, the voters’ love for All the Money in the World, which got three nominations (Director, Best Actress, and Best Supporting Actor), may have been similarly inspired by the recent dramatic stories surrounding its production.

The rest of the drama nominees featured major players like Luca Guadagnino’s sumptuous romance Call Me by Your Name and the war epic Dunkirk (both of which received three nominations including for Best Picture). Other contenders like Mudbound, Darkest Hour, The Florida Project, and Molly’s Game were only able to snap up one or two nominations each. In the “comedy or musical” category, Lady Bird dominated on the back of rave reviews, as did two other films that straddle the line between comedy and drama, Craig Gillespie’s biopic I, Tonya and Jordan Peele’s horror satire Get Out. The Globes also gave a bunch of expected nominations to the Hugh Jackman–starring circus musical The Greatest Showman, which helped shut out the smaller contender The Big Sick.

The TV categories tend to be a stranger mix, given that the Globes come in the middle of the industry’s season (the Emmys, the more prestigious TV awards, are conveniently awarded in September ). As such, the Globes often seek to anoint new stars and shows, as well as TV movies and miniseries that feature global stars. So there was a lot of predictable love for Big Little Lies, Feud: Bette and Joan, and The Wizard of Lies, all of which starred Oscar-winning actors, but surprising nods went to new shows like Showtime’s SMILF, Amazon’s The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, and USA’s The Sinner. Streaming TV maintained a strong presence with nominations going to Netflix’s GLOW, Stranger Things, Master of None, and The Crown, as well as Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale and Amazon’s I Love Dick.

---

The full list of nominees:

Best Picture, Drama

Call Me by Your Name
Dunkirk
The Post
The Shape of Water
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Best Actor, Drama

Timothée Chalamet, Call Me by Your Name
Daniel Day-Lewis, Phantom Thread
Tom Hanks, The Post
Gary Oldman, Darkest Hour
Denzel Washington, Roman J. Israel, Esq.

Best Actress, Drama

Jessica Chastain, Molly's Game
Sally Hawkins, The Shape of Water
Frances McDormand, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Meryl Streep, The Post
Michelle Williams, All the Money in the World

Best Picture, Comedy/Musical

The Disaster Artist
Get Out
The Greatest Showman
I, Tonya
Lady Bird

Best Actor, Comedy/Musical

Steve Carell, Battle of the Sexes
Ansel Elgort, Baby Driver
James Franco, The Disaster Artist
Hugh Jackman, The Greatest Showman
Daniel Kaluuya, Get Out

Best Actress, Comedy/Musical

Judi Dench, Victoria & Abdul
Helen Mirren, The Leisure Seeker
Margot Robbie, I, Tonya
Saoirse Ronan, Lady Bird
Emma Stone, Battle of the Sexes

Best Supporting Actor

Willem Dafoe, The Florida Project
Armie Hammer, Call Me by Your Name
Richard Jenkins, The Shape of Water
Christopher Plummer, All the Money in the World
Sam Rockwell, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Best Supporting Actress

Mary J. Blige, Mudbound
Hong Chau, Downsizing
Allison Janney, I, Tonya
Laurie Metcalf, Lady Bird
Octavia Spencer, The Shape of Water

Best Director

Guillermo del Toro, The Shape of Water
Martin McDonagh, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Christopher Nolan, Dunkirk
Ridley Scott, All the Money in the World
Steven Spielberg, The Post

Best Screenplay

Guillermo del Toro, Vanessa Taylor, The Shape of Water
Greta Gerwig, Lady Bird
Josh Singer, Liz Hannah, The Post
Martin McDonagh, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Aaron Sorkin, Molly's Game

Best Foreign Film

A Fantastic Woman
First They Killed My Father
In the Fade
Loveless
The Square

Best Animated Film

The Boss Baby
The Breadwinner
Coco
Ferdinand
Loving Vincent

Best Score

Carter Burwell, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Alexandre Desplat, The Shape of Water
Jonny Greenwood, Phantom Thread
John Williams, The Post
Hans Zimmer, Dunkirk

Best Song

“Home,” Ferdinand
“Mighty River,” Mudbound
“Remember Me,” Coco
“The Star,” The Star
“This Is Me,” The Greatest Showman

Best TV Drama

The Crown, Netflix
Game of Thrones, HBO
The Handmaid's Tale, Hulu
Stranger Things, Netflix
This Is Us, NBC

Best Actor, TV Drama

Jason Bateman, Ozark
Sterling K. Brown, This Is Us
Freddie Highmore, The Good Doctor
Bob Odenkirk, Better Call Saul
Liev Schreiber, Ray Donovan

Best Actress, TV Drama

Caitriona Balfe, Outlander
Claire Foy, The Crown
Maggie Gyllenhaal, The Deuce
Katherine Langford, 13 Reasons Why
Elisabeth Moss, The Handmaid's Tale

Best TV Comedy

Black-ish, ABC
The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Amazon
Master of None, Netflix
SMILF, Showtime
Will & Grace, NBC

Best Actor, TV Comedy

Anthony Anderson, Black-ish
Aziz Ansari, Master of None
Kevin Bacon, I Love Dick
William H. Macy, Shameless
Eric McCormack, Will & Grace

Best Actress, TV Comedy

Pamela Adlon, Better Things
Alison Brie, GLOW
Rachel Brosnahan, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel
Issa Rae, Insecure
Frankie Shaw, SMILF

Best Limited Series/TV Movie

Big Little Lies, HBO
Fargo, FX
Feud: Bette and Joan, FX
The Sinner, USA
Top of the Lake: China Girl, Sundance

Best Actor, Limited Series/TV Movie

Robert De Niro, The Wizard of Lies
Jude Law, The Young Pope
Kyle MacLachlan, Twin Peaks
Ewan McGregor, Fargo
Geoffrey Rush, Genius

Best Actress, Limited Series/TV Movie

Jessica Biel, The Sinner
Nicole Kidman, Big Little Lies
Jessica Lange, Feud: Bette and Joan
Susan Sarandon, Feud: Bette and Joan
Reese Witherspoon, Big Little Lies

Best Supporting Actor, TV

David Harbour, Stranger Things
Alfred Molina, Feud: Bette and Joan
Christian Slater, Mr. Robot
Alexander Skarsgård, Big Little Lies
David Thewlis, Fargo

Best Supporting Actress, TV

Laura Dern, Big Little Lies
Ann Dowd, The Handmaid's Tale
Chrissy Metz, This Is Us
Michelle Pfeiffer, The Wizard of Lies
Shailene Woodley, Big Little Lies