The Biggest Snubs and Surprises of the 2023 Golden Globe Nominations

It was a good morning for Wednesday and a bad one for Danielle Deadwyler and Women Talking. Photo-Illustration: Vulture; Photos Courtesy of the Studios

The Globes are back, and if they’re not better than ever, at least they’re trying.

Fresh off last year’s semi-cancellation, the Golden Globes have returned to NBC’s doorstep with flowers, promising they’ve changed. They’ve added a few new members to the controversy-plagued Hollywood Foreign Press Association, plus 100 new “nonmember” voters. They’ve got a new host, Jerrod Carmichael. And, as of Monday morning, they’ve got nominations for the best of film and TV of 2022.

Of course, the Globes wouldn’t be the Globes if there weren’t some scandal anyway. Best Actor contender Brendan Fraser has accused the former head of the HFPA of groping him in 2003 and is boycotting the ceremony in protest. (He was still nominated.) Despite all the reforms, the Globes managed to stay fundamentally the same: They still love big stars, they still nominate anything from Netflix, and they still possess the ability to make some mind-boggling choices. Read on for the most notable snubs and surprises of the 2023 nominations.

The Banshees of Inisherin and Everything Everywhere All at Once got in everywhere they needed to.After the dust settles, a pair of heavyweights are sitting pretty with picture, director, and screenplay nominations and multiple acting nods. Banshees led all films with eight nominations, including a double-up in Best Supporting Actor, while Everything Everywhere placed second, its only potential sore spot coming from Stephanie Hsu failing to crack Best Supporting Actress. (Her co-star Jamie Lee Curtis got in instead.) Meanwhile, other critical faves faltered: Tár’s Todd Field was a shocking snub in the Best Director category, and The Fabelmans managed only one acting nom, for Michelle Williams. Have we found our top two contenders heading into the holidays?

Big mornings for Elvis and Babylon.Big, starry spectacle is the Globes’ thing, so it was not altogether surprising that they would jump at the chance to nominate Elvis, which garnered noms for Austin Butler and Baz Luhrmann to go with its spot in the Best Picture — Drama category. But what was less predictable is that they would also embrace Damien Chazelle’s Babylon, a loving ode to the magic of the movies that opens with an elephant pooping on the camera lens. Pundits had downgraded Babylon after its polarizing debut, but the Jazz Age extravaganza actually outperformed Elvis five noms to three. While you can argue that Diego Calva’s and Margot Robbie’s paths were eased by competing on the comedy side of the ballot, nominations for its score and supporting actor happened fair and square. You can’t peg all of this on the Globes’ long-standing love for Chazelle: Although La La Land was the winningest film in Golden Globes history, the HFPA did not particularly care for First Man. The takeaway here is clear: The Globes want Chazelle to stick to jazz.

Ana de Armas knocked out Danielle Deadwyler.’90s nostalgia ruled the Best Actress in a Drama category, where the nominees repped four non-Blondes … plus Ana de Armas! Her star turn in Andrew Dominick’s little-loved Marilyn Monroe biopic edged out a more acclaimed but less transformative performance by Till’s Danielle Deadwyler, a recent Gotham winner often mentioned as a potential Best Actress sleeper. Is this the start of a potential Blonde-back or simply a reminder that the HFPA will always default to the more famous name, particularly when Netflix is involved? (See also: Eddie Redmayne’s supporting-actor nod for The Good Nurse.)

Woman Talking almost blanked.Was Women Talking silent, or was it silenced? Sarah Polley’s muted chamber piece has been pegged as a major contender since Telluride, but the Globes didn’t think much of it, passing it over for Best Picture — Drama and all the acting categories. (Its predominantly female cast may have split votes with each other.) The film did earn screenplay and score noms, so we know the HFPA saw it, but after a good-but-not-great showing with critics’ groups, this late-breaking indie has plenty of ground to make up in the home stretch.

Surprises abounded in the supporting categories.One knock-on effect of the lack of Women Talking nominees was that both supporting races were more open than anticipated. No Ben Whishaw meant both Babylon’s Brad Pitt and Banshees of Inisherin’s Barry Keoghan made it into the supporting-actor category, while Best Supporting Actress had room for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, with Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’s Angela Bassett, and the Palme d’Or, with Triangle of Sadness’s Dolly De Leon. Fun!

Once again, female directors were left out. The Globes’ reputation for snubbing female filmmakers is not entirely earned: They awarded their first woman director decades before the Oscars did (Barbra Streisand for Yentl), and they’ve recently recognized films such as The Farewell and Portrait of a Lady on Fire. Still, it was notable that this year’s nominees were once again a bit of a boys’ club. Not only was the directing slate entirely male, but female-helmed films such as Women Talking, The Woman King, and Saint Omer were shut out of their respective Best Picture categories.

Maybe Best Actor will go chalk?It’s anyone’s guess who’ll nab the final two Best Actor slots at the Oscars alongside Brendan Fraser, Colin Farrell, and Austin Butler. Before the season, pundits slotted in The Son’s Hugh Jackman and Living’s Bill Nighy as the two likeliest names, but both films have been pushed to the tail end of the season: The Son because it got terrible reviews and Living because it’s a tiny Sony Pictures Classics film about an aging British actor, and that’s just how they do things. None of that wound up mattering. Jackman and Nighy got in at the Globes, while dark horses Aftersun’s Paul Mescal and Top Gun: Maverick’s Tom Cruise did not. (Cruise pointedly returned his Golden Globes at the height of the scandal, which might have put the HFPA off nominating him again.) One intriguing name who did crack the lineup was The Inspection’s Jeremy Pope. Is he our alternate?

RRR earned two big nominations.The Tollywood blockbuster’s Oscar fortunes were dented when India went elsewhere for its official submission. But the Globes are not beholden to the whims of overseas committees, so they had no issue nominating RRR in Best Foreign-Language Film. They also recognized the joyous “Naatu Naatu” in Best Original Song, bolstering hopes that the action epic will be able to find a foothold this awards season without an official International Film berth.

There were no embarrassing Musical/Comedy nominations.God bless the Globes for setting aside ten acting slots for the lighter arts even if it means we sometimes get nominations like Cate Blanchett for Where’d You Go, Bernadette? But this year, the Globes made solid choices on the Musical/Comedy side of the ballot. It helps, of course, that both Banshees and EEAAO were competing there, but the HFPA also shined some light on underdogs such as The Menu, which earned bids for both Ralph Fiennes and Anya Taylor-Joy, and Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris, whose leading lady, Lesley Manville, got some love. Emma Thompson, too, saw recognition for her Hulu charmer Good Luck to You, Leo Grande, which thankfully did not have to run the gauntlet of the Actress in a Miniseries or Motion Picture Made for Television category. Add in Glass Onion and there wasn’t a dud in the bunch.

Where are the nominations for Reservation Dogs?I’m looking under Best Musical/Comedy Series and in the best acting categories, and I see nothing for one of the best TV shows of 2022. This is an egregious error.

The Hollywood Foreign Press Association sure loves Dahmer — Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story.It was nominated for best limited series, and both Evan Peters and Niecy Nash were nominated for their performances. This is a little surprising and also not at all surprising since the Golden Globes have a long history of embracing Ryan Murphy’s work.

The HFPA also really loves Wednesday.The Globes often embrace series that have just started to generate some buzz, and this year, Netflix’s Wednesday is benefitting from that tendency. It was nominated for best comedy, and star Jenna Ortega got a nod for best actress in a comedy as well.

The HFPA does not love What We Do in the Shadows or Girls5Eva.Two comedies with a higher laugh-per-minute ratio than anything else on television did not get nominated for best comedy? I’m sorry, did the voters not hear the way Matt Berry says “New York City”?

Hilary Swank has not been forgotten.She was nominated for her role in the ABC drama Alaska Daily, marking her fourth career Golden Globe nomination and possibly the first time you became aware that Alaska Daily exists.

Neither has Kevin Costner.He was recognized for his portrayal of ranch owner John Dutton III on Yellowstone, though Yellowstone itself was not recognized for best drama.

Also not recognized for best drama: Andor.Perhaps the most celebrated Star Wars work in recent memory was passed over in the overall series category, but at least Diego Luna was nominated.

Black Bird did surprisingly well.The Apple TV+ series about a drug dealer who’s promised a reduced sentence if he can get a confession out of a possible serial killer was nominated for best limited series and two of its actors, Taron Egerton and Paul Walter Hauser. Did not necessarily see this coming for this solid show that generated relatively little conversation.

Where is Rhea Seehorn?I see the nominations for Better Call Saul and Bob Odenkirk, but I don’t see one for the great Rhea Seehorn. It must be there and my vision is failing me. Right? Right? 

So you nominate supporting actresses from The White Lotus but not Meghann Fahy?Jennifer Coolidge and Aubrey Plaza are represented in Best Supporting Actress in a Limited Series but not Fahy, who delivered the breakout performance in the Sicily-set season.

In a number of two-handers, only one of the hands got nominated.Jessica Chastain got a nod for playing Tammy Wynette in George and Tammy, but her partner, Michael Shannon, got zippo. Colin Firth is nominated for his role as Michael Peterson in The Staircase, but Toni Collette, who plays his wife, Kathleen, is not. And from The Patient, Domhnall Gleeson was recognized for his portrayal of a serial killer, but Steve Carell, who shares practically every scene with Gleeson, was overlooked. The nominations for Gleeson and Firth, as well as Hauser and Peters, suggest the best way to get a Golden Globe nomination is to play a murderer.