Last year, I wrote about the relevance and importance of the Academy Awards in terms of whether or not we should take the Academy’s decisions as gospel as to what films are the best. However, the Oscars aren’t the only focus of the awards season, with the run-up to the main event in March defining what critics and fans alike should expect from the big day.
One such awards show is the Golden Globes, which has been running for 82 years and has been a staple of the awards season since its inception. Originally established by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) to give international journalists representation in the awards run, it has since been reformed due to intense criticism on the grounds of alleged racism, as a result of the lack of black representation amongst the members of the HFPA.
In terms of its operation, the Golden Globes differ significantly from the Academy Awards. Like the fellow January awards show, the Critics’ Choice Awards, the Globes hand out both film and television awards on the same night, allowing for differing decisions compared to those made by the film-focused Academy. Its Best Picture nominations are also divided into five for Best Musical or Comedy and five for Best Drama, making it hard to determine which of the two winners is the likely frontrunner for the Academy Award.
This is, however, somewhat irrelevant, as the Globes often fail to align with the winners come March. It only takes one look back at last year’s Golden Globes to realise how far off they were in comparison to the eventual Oscars winners. Academy Award favourite, Anora (2024), was beaten to Best Musical or Comedy by critics’ favourite but audience-hated, Emilia Perez (2024), and Demi Moore took the Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy Globe over Mikey Madison. Arguably, the most surprising win of all was for Challengers (2024) in the Best Original Score category, a film (and score) that received zero nominations at the Academy Awards.
For the 2026 awards season, we have already seen some surprise wins, but with only community speculation to go on, we have yet to see what will eventually transpire. Two of the expected Oscar frontrunners are competing in the Best Musical or Comedy and Best Drama categories in One Battle After Another (2025) and Sinners (2025). One Battle After Another took home the Critics’ Choice Award, but Hamnet‘s (2025) win for Best Drama has shaken things up and made nothing a certainty. There have already been some shock victories at the very beginning of the awards run, with Jacob Elordi for Frankenstein (2025) taking home the Critics’ Choice award for Best Supporting Actor despite only having a one per cent chance of victory according to the community predictions site, Awards Expert.
For me, this demonstrates my favourite aspect of the awards season, the uncertainty. Even when an actor, director, film, or other creative work is overwhelmingly deserving of every award possible, as with Cillian Murphy for Oppenheimer (2023), there is a beauty in seeing a wide variety of talents rewarded each year. There is hope for such events to unfold this time around, with Elordi’s win throwing doubt over the Supporting Actor category as a whole. With Stellan Skarsgard taking home the Golden Globe for his performance in Sentimental Value (2025), we could now be in for one of the most exciting award seasons of the decade.
Another article you may enjoy: https://thebadgeronline.com/2026/01/marty-supremes-press-tour/
