Last night the Hollywood Foreign Press brought us the 83rd Golden Globes Awards. 2025 was a peculiar year for movies and that translated to the Globes broadcast. Sadly, we once again have one invincible movie being pushed through every awards show. Along with it comes several winners that were just as easy to predict. But thankfully the show wasn’t without a few big surprises to go along with its more obvious moments. And that’s how these things often go.

As I do every year, here are a few random thoughts on this year’s Golden Globes awards...

• When it comes to the big winner of the night, there was no drama at all. The frustratingly flawed yet wildly revered “One Battle After Another” has been ushered through awards season as this year’s darling. So it’s no surprise it won Best Picture – Musical or Comedy at the Globes. Unfortunate but predictable.
• As for the best movie of the year, “Train Dreams”, the Hollywood Foreign Press couldn’t even bring themselves to nominate it for Best Picture or much of anything else. Whatever.
• The first award of the night was Best Supporting Actress which went to Teyana Taylor for “One Battle After Another”. It was unexpected, but knowing the fashionable adoration for the movie, it shouldn’t have surprised anyone.
• Taylor’s win means Amy Madigan went home empty-handed. It’s a shame considering how tremendous (and deserving) she was in “Weapons”. Suddenly her Oscar chances have dipped.
• Speaking of no surprise, Paul Thomas Anderson wins Best Director for “One Battle After Another”. Like Best Picture above, it was one of the most sure-thing wins of the night. PTA winning had been etched in stone since the movie first released.
• “One Battle After Another” also won Best Screenplay despite easily being the weakest of the six nominees. But OBAA love knows no bounds. And the more deserving nominees this year were simply out of luck.
• Then there’s “Hamnet” which won the final award of the evening, Beat Picture – Drama. I really thought “Sinners” had it in the bag. But it was “Hamnet” getting the big win that I wasn’t expecting. It now stands as a legit contender for second place in the Oscar Best Picture race.

• Jessie Buckley appears to be in the driver’s seat for Best Actress after winning the award at The Critic’s Choice and now the Golden Globes. She was phenomenal in “Hamnet” delivering a performance that is 100% worthy. It’s great seeing her win and equally great seeing her reactions.
• It wasn’t an especially great night for “Sinners”. While it did take home a couple of statues including the worthless Box Office Achievement award, it lost out on the biggies. I wonder why? Was it the rabid OBAA obsession? Or was it the age-old bias against horror movies which has long plagued these awards shows?
• When announcing the nominees, couldn’t the Globes have shown actual clips from the movies or shows instead of just pinning where they were sitting in the room? It was such a bizarre and uneventful choice.
• Nikki Glaser returned to host and she opened the show with several strong jokes. She basically followed the routine from her many celebrity roasts which means everybody was fair game.
• Possibly my favorite from Glaser: “Sean Penn, you’re such an original. Everyone in this town is obsessed with looking younger; meanwhile, Sean Penn is like, “What if I slowly morph into a sexy leather handbag?“
• Playing Mark Morrison’s “Return of the Mack” as Macaulay Culkin came out to present was kind of hilarious.
• The very best moment of the night came in the Best Supporting Actor category. Stellan Skarsgård gave the best supporting performance of the year in “Sentimental Value” and it was great to see him win. It’s especially satisfying considering SAG didn’t even nominate him for their upcoming Actor Awards.

• Sadly, “Sentimental Value” wouldn’t win another award. It’s such a shame and a big miss for the Hollywood Foreign Press.
• “The Secret Agent” wins Best Non-English Language Motion Picture. It’s a good choice although “Sentimental Value” would have been my pick. Especially with the unfortunate absence of “Nouvelle Vague” from the nominees.
• Timothée Chalamet wins Best Actor in a Musical/Comedy Film for “Marty Supreme”. It was certainly one of the biggest performances of the year. Nevertheless, Chalamet will be entering Oscar night in a really good position.
• Ludwig Göransson wins Best Score for “Sinners” and it was very well deserved. Frustratingly, for some reason the Globes chose to cut it from their broadcast.
• If the producers really wanted to show Göransson’s win they could have cut Judd Apatow’s rambling never-ending presentation of Best Director in half and had plenty of room. Unfortunately…
• Wagner Moura wins Best Actor – Drama for “The Secret Agent”. He gave an a terrific performance, no doubt. But of these nominees, it should have went to Michael B. Jordan. What he did in “Sinners” was next level.
• Side Rant: The fact that Daniel Day-Lewis hasn’t been nominated ANYWHERE for Best Actor this entire awards season puts a big asterisk next to this entire category.
• Rose Byrne winning Best Actress – Musical or Comedy for “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You” was a nice moment and it was great to see her so appreciative. It was a powerful performance.
• Glaser closing out the show wearing a Spinal Tap cap was a nice tribute to the late Rob Reiner. RIP.

And those are a few Random Thoughts from this year’s Golden Globes awards. Overall it was a fun enough show, although it’s hard to get too excited when there’s such a lack of drama in key categories. Now it’s onto Oscar night.