Contemporary film musical La La Land sported a record-breaking haul at The 74th annual Golden Globe Awards on Sunday night — making it the overwhelming favorite going into next month’s Academy Awards.
That means the movie could be set to make history again, as no original musical has won the Oscar for best picture since Gigi in 1959.
With a record seven awards including a win for best comedy or musical film, La La Land sang and danced its way into the hearts of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, the small coterie of some 90 members who sponsor the Golden Globes and whose votes determine the winners.
The film’s total bested the two previous record holders, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Midnight Express, tied with six each.
La La Land’s stars Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone won for best actor and actress in a comedy or musical. And Damien Chazelle, the 31-year-old Wunderkind who conceived the film about a couple of wannabes seeking fame and fortune in the Hollywood dream factory, came away with two of the most coveted Globes — for best director and for his screenplay. Other awards for the musical came for best song and for the score.
The movie got a further plug when the awards show lifted off with a deft take on La La Land’s colorful opening number.
Set on a traffic-jammed Los Angeles freeway, stuck commuters jump out of their cars to sing and dance out their frustrations, leaping on to the roofs of their autos. Nicole Kidman, Justin Timberlake and other stars took place in the imitation number.
Also in the film category, Moonlight, about a gay youth coming of age in an impoverished and drug-riddled ghetto environment, won the award for best movie drama. It had received six nominations, but won where it mattered most, putting it in the running for the Oscar for best film.
Casey Affleck, a prohibitive favorite, won for best dramatic actor for his role as a traumatized working-class individual, trying to regain his peace of mind after a horrendous tragedy, in Manchester By the Sea. Affleck and Manchester are both likely to be Academy Award nominees.
Isabelle Huppert was the surprise winner for best actress in a drama for her role as a business woman trying to track down the unknown man who raped her in the French film Elle. She won out over Natalie Portman, a strong contender for her interior portrayal of Jacqueline Kennedy in the immediate aftermath of John F. Kennedy’s assassination.
Elle also won the Golden Globe for best foreign film. Perversely, Elle is not eligible for the best foreign film Oscar because it shockingly failed to make the Motion Picture Academy’s short list for the category.
Viola Davis won the best supporting actress Oscar for her role in Fences as the wife of a black garbageman, based on August Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize and Tony winning drama. Wilson, who also eloquently introduced Streep, dedicated her award to her father who was a horse trainer.
The first Globe handed out during the ceremony was also the most jaw-dropping. Aaron Taylor-Johnson won the award for best supporting actor for his role as a menacing psychopath in Nocturnal Animals. His nomination was itself a surprise, with his co-star supporting actor Michael Shannon expected to get the nod. He also won over heavily-favored Mahershala Ali of Moonlight.
Among television shows, The Night Manager was a surprise triple winner, topping other contenders. The six-part mini-series based on a novel by spymaster John Le Carre, about a duplicitous international arms dealer, garnered honors for its three lead actors, Tom Hiddleston, Hugh Laurie and Olivia Colman.
Laurie had a dig at Donald Trump when he proffered that this could be the last Golden Globes as its sponsor “has Hollywood, Foreign, and Press all in its title”.
The Crown on Netflix, about the current crop of English Royals, won the Globe for the best drama series. And Claire Foy, who plays a young Queen Elizabeth II, got the award for best actress in a TV drama. For Netflix, this was the first time it has copped the prize for best drama..
Ratings smash American Crime Story: The People vs. O. J. Simpson also received two Globes. It was named best mini-series, and Sarah Paulson won for her portrayal of tenacious trial prosecutor Marcia Clark, repeating her Emmy win for the same show.
Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon, who presided over the Golden Globes for the first time, jibed in his opening monologue that all winners for the O.J. mini-series would pour out thanks to everyone associated with the show, and to all their friends and relatives, but not to the one person without whom the show could not be made – O.J. Simpson himself. The prediction was right on target.
Atlanta, an off-the-wall first-season television series about an aspiring rapper and his manager cousin, was another double winner. It won for best comedy and Donald Glover, the show’s creator and producer, who also appears on the show, won for best actor in a comedy.
Tracee Ellis Ross, daughter of singer Diana Ross, won for best actress in a television comedy for black-ish, in which she plays the doctor-wife in a middle-class black family. The show has been highly acclaimed by critics.
In somewhat of an upset, Billy Bob Thornton won for best actor in a drama series for his role in Goliath, a little-heralded Amazon show about a disgraced lawyer on a case that he feels could gain him revenge against the firm that dismissed him.
This was Thornton’s second Golden Globe win, having been honored two years ago for Fargo. He triumphed over more favored nominees including John Lithgow in The Crown and Rami Malek, last year’s winner for his role as a dysfunctional hacker in Mr. Robot.
Meanwhile Meryl Streep, honored with the Cecil B. DeMille Award for Life Achievement, stole the show with her five-minute barbed critique of incoming president Donald Trump, calling him out being a bully and lacking in empathy.
In her impassioned statement, she defended the industry’s creative pool of talent — including many foreigners and outsiders — which she said belonged to one of “the most vilified segments in American society right now”. And she stressed the importance of a “principled press to hold power to account”.
She singled out the moment when Trump mimicked a disabled reporter at one of his rallies during the campaign, who she described as “someone he outranked in privilege, power, and the capacity to fight back.” She added: “This instinct to humiliate, when it’s modeled by someone in the public platform, by someone powerful, it filters down into everybody’s life, because it kind of gives permission for other people to do the same thing.
“Disrespect invites disrespect. Violence incites violence. When the powerful use their position to bully others, we all lose.”
Streep’s fusillade hit home when Trump on Monday when he dismissed her as a “Hillary lover” and tweeted a thin-skinned response calling her “one of the most over-rated actresses in Hollywood.”
Truth be told, Streep is perhaps the country’s most revered and honored actors, male or female.
Known for her diverse roles in films including Sophie’s Choice, The Devil Wears Prada, Mama Mia and this year’s Florence Foster Jenkins, she has three Academy Awards to her credit out of 19 nominations — the most ever — and eight Golden Globes, out of 30 nominations. Even Trump singled Streep out as one of his favorite actresses in 2015.
The complete list of winners and nominees:
Best film (drama)
Hacksaw Ridge
Hell or High Water
Lion
Manchester by the Sea
WINNER: Moonlight
Best film (comedy/musical)
20th Century Women
Deadpool
WINNER: La La Land
Florence Foster Jenkins
Sing Street
Best film director
WINNER: Damien Chazelle, La La Land
Tom Ford, Nocturnal Animals
Mel Gibson, Hacksaw Ridge
Barry Jenkins, Moonlight
Kenneth Lonergan, Manchester by the Sea
Best screenplay
WINNER: La La Land
Nocturnal Animals
Moonlight
Manchester by the Sea
Hell or High Water
Best actress in a film (comedy/musical)
Annette Bening, 20th Century Women
Lily Collins, Rules Don’t Apply
Hailee Steinfeld, The Edge of Seventeen
WINNER: Emma Stone, La La Land
Meryl Streep, Florence Foster Jenkins
Best actor (drama)
WINNER: Casey Affleck, Manchester by the Sea
Joel Edgerton, Loving
Andrew Garfield, Hacksaw Ridge
Viggo Mortensen, Captain Fantastic
Denzel Washington, Fences
Best actress (drama)
Amy Adams, Arrival
Jessica Chastain, Miss Sloane
WINNER: Isabelle Huppert, Elle
Ruth Negga, Loving
Natalie Portman, Jackie
Best screenplay
WINNER: La La Land
Nocturnal Animals
Moonlight
Manchester by the Sea
Hell or High Water
Best film supporting actor
Mahershala Ali, Moonlight
Jeff Bridges, Hell or High Water
Simon Helberg, Florence Foster Jenkins
Dev Patel, Lion
WINNER: Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Nocturnal Animals
Best film supporting actress
WINNER: Viola Davis, Fences
Naomie Harris, Moonlight
Nicole Kidman, Lion
Octavia Spencer, Hidden Figures
Michelle Williams, Manchester by the Sea
Best TV series (drama)
WINNER: The Crown
Game of Thrones
Stranger Things
This Is Us
Westworld
Best TV series (comedy)
WINNER: Atlanta
Black-ish
Mozart in the Jungle
Transparent
Veep
Best actor in a TV series (drama)
Rami Malek, Mr Robot
Bob Odenkirk, Better Call Saul
Matthew Reese, The Americans
Liev Schreiber, Ray Donovan
WINNER: Billy Bob Thornton, Goliath
Best actress in a TV series (drama)
Caitriona Balfe, Outlander
WINNER: Claire Foy, The Crown
Keri Russell, The Americans
Winona Ryder, Stranger Things
Evan Rachel Wood, Westworld
Best actress in a TV series (musical/comedy)
Rachel Bloom, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend
Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Veep
Sarah Jessica Parker, Divorce
Issa Rae, Insecure
Gina Rodriguez, Jane the Virgin
WINNER: Tracee Ellis Ross, Black-ish
Best actress in a miniseries or TV movie
Felicity Huffman, American Crime
Riley Keough, The Girlfriend Experience
WINNER: Sarah Paulson, American Crime Story: The People v OJ Simpson
Charlotte Rampling, London Spy
Kerry Washington, Confirmation
Best miniseries or TV movie
American Crime
The Dresser
The Night Manager
The Night Of
WINNER: American Crime Story: The People v OJ Simpson
Best supporting actor in a series, limited series or TV film
Sterling K Brown, American Crime Story: The People v OJ Simpson
WINNER: Hugh Laurie, The Night Manager
John Lithgow, The Crown
Christian Slater, Mr Robot
John Travolta, American Crime Story: The People v OJ Simpson
Best film score
Moonlight
WINNER: La La Land
Arrival
Lion
Hidden Figures
Best original song
Can’t Stop the Feeling, Trolls
WINNER: City of Stars, La La Land
Faith, Sing
Gold, Gold
How Far I’ll Go, Moana
Best supporting actress in a series, limited series or TV film
WINNER: Olivia Colman, The Night Manager
Lena Headey, Game of Thrones
Chrissy Metz, This Is Us
Mandy Moore, This Is Us
Thandie Newton, Westworld
Best animated film
Kubo and the Two Strings
Moana
My Life as a Zucchini
Sing
WINNER: Zootopia
Best foreign language film
WINNER: Elle
Neruda
The Salesman
Toni Erdmann
Best actor in miniseries or TV movie
Riz Ahmed, The Night Of
Bryan Cranston, All the Way
John Turturro, The Night Of
WINNER: Tom Hiddleston, The Night Manager
Courtney B Vance, American Crime Story: The People v OJ Simpson
Best actor in a TV series (musical/comedy)
Anthony Anderson, Black-ish
Gael Garcia Bernal, Mozart in the Jungle
WINNER: Donald Glover, Atlanta
Nick Nolte, Graves
Jeffrey Tambor, Transparent