Jerrod Carmichael, Regina Hall and Jennifer Coolidge Kept the 2023 Golden Globes from Playing It Too Safe

The Globes have long served as a bellwether for the more respectable Academy Awards, which will announce their own nominees on January 24th ahead of the March 12 ceremony. Right away, the night made clear that *Everything Everywhere All at Once—*the Daniels’ breakout, multiverse-spanning indie hit—would almost certainly be a part of the conversation. Ke Huy Quan, who had essentially given up on acting after working as a child star in the 1980s, won the Best Supporting Actor prize, beating out, among others, Brad Pitt. He was soon followed to the stage by Michelle Yeoh, who took the Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy for the same film.

…And The Fabelmans Will Be Right There Along With It 

Steven Spielberg’s auto-biopic may be struggling at the box office, but that’s never impacted awards season momentum before. The beloved director’s passion project about his own complicated, compromising love for the movies—and how any true artist must endure a similar sacrifice—has been gestating for decades, and is the type of narrative voters love. (And it’s a way more digestible film than some of the other equally acclaimed films on the ballot like say, Tár.) Big Steve nabbing Best Director (beating the Daniels) and Fabelmans winning Best Picture – Drama, the night’s final award, means a strong Oscar run seems inevitable.

Everyone Loves Abbott Elementary

The mockumentary sitcom set at a struggling Philadelphia public school picked up awards for Best Actress — Musical or Comedy for its star and creator Quinta Brunson , Best Supporting Actor — Musical or Comedy (Tyler James Williams), and Best Series — Musical or Comedy. (Nominees Janelle James and Sheryl Lee Ralph fell short in the Best Supporting Actress — Musical or Comedy category.) Abbott Elementary takes over for ABC’s departed Modern Family as the rare network series to claim this kind of awards attention.

The Winners Were a Little Safe By Globes Standards (Except When They Weren’t)

The Globes have a history of baffling nominations and even more baffling winners that dates back past the notorious New Star of the Year award given to Pia Zadora, and extends at least up to 2021, when the HFPA handed multiple nominations to Sia’s little-liked, little-seen directorial debut Music. It’s easy to argue about some of the nominees, winners, and categorization (is The Bear a comedy?) but there’s a logic to most of the choices—but not all of them. With all respect to Kevin Costner, the Best Actor – Drama award should have gone to Bob Odenkirk for his final Better Call Saul season. Saul faced even stiffer competition in the Best Drama category in the form of The Crown and Severance but lost to the difficult-to-explain choice of House of the Dragon‘s intriguing but uneven debut season. The Globes may have changed, but maybe they can only change so much.

Other Highlights

• Jenna Ortega listing the scores to Eraserhead, Blade Runner, and Jules and Jim as personal favorites then shaming any in attendance who hadn’t seen the lattermost film. (Which is fair.)
• Austin Butler seeming to bring the ghost of Elvis with him via his voice that’s still filled with Presley’s inflections.
• Colin Farrell being his charming self when accepting the Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy award for Banshees of Inisheren, including taking a moment to praise Ana de Armas for her work in Blonde.
• Spielberg giving an unusually personal acceptance speech for the autobiographical Fabelmans. “I’ve been hiding from this story since I was 17 years old,” he said, seeming relieved to have finally told it.
• Tracy Morgan introducing Murphy by delivering a dark joke about a horrific incident from his past with a flawless deadpan: “He said ‘Tracy, always do good work. Never take a gig just for money. That’s what Wal-Mart trucks are for.’”