Golden Globes: Irish actors Cillian Murphy, Barry Keoghan and Andrew Scott nominated

Half of the six nominees for best actor in a drama motion picture at the 2024 Golden Globes are Irish. Andrew Scott is up for his turn as a troubled gay writer in Andrew Haigh’s All of Us Strangers. Barry Keoghan is mentioned as disrupter of the rich in Emerald Fennell’s saucy Saltburn. Cork’s own Cillian Murphy must count as favourite for his turn as the eponymous nuclear physicist in Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer.

There was further good news for the domestic industry with Yorgos Lanthimos’s Poor Things, produced by Dublin’s Element Pictures, receiving a whopping seven nominations. Veteran Irish producers Ed Guiney and Andrew Lowe will be particularly happy to see the film – a wild feminist variation on themes from Frankenstein – compete for best film (comedy or musical).

Greta Gerwig’s Barbie, the most successful ever film at the Irish box office, tops the chart with nine mentions. Oppenheimer follows with eight nominations.

The Golden Globes has a peculiar history. Presented for many year by the controversy-stricken Hollywood Foreign Press Association, an intimate body of journalists, the awards were taken over last year by Dick Clark Productions as a for-profit operation. Despite often eccentric decisions, the competition has survived as the glossiest precursor to the Academy Awards. Now emerging from an expanded voting body, the nominations give some indication of how the Oscar winds are blowing.

Barbie, Oppenheimer, Poor Things and Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon have all done as well as expected. When it was announced that Gerwig was to direct the glossy doll flick, some rolled their eyes, but she ended up delivering a clever satire that topped the end-of-year world box office. Margot Robbie looks like favourite here for best actress (musical or comedy) but, at the Oscars, where no such divide between genres exists, she will struggle to get past Lily Gladstone for Killers of the Flower Moon and Carey Mulligan for Maestro, both up for best actor (drama) at the Globes.

Barbie profited from the symbiotic relationship with Oppenheimer that spawned the “Barbenheimer” portmanteau. Nolan’s film looks slight favourite for best drama, though Killers of the Flower Moon will give it a fight. Two (maybe three) films not principally in the English language make it into best drama. Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone of Interest, a challenging study of Auschwitz, looks strong after a best picture win from the Los Angeles Film Critics Circle on Sunday evening. Justine Triet’s Anatomy of a Fall, a French courtroom drama, continues to impress after winning the Palme d’Or at Cannes. Celine Song’s Past Lives, a US film featuring much dialogue in Korean, joins those two films in both the drama and the non-English-language feature races.

Poor Things, based on an acclaimed novel by the Scottish writer Alasdair Gray, marks the fourth collaboration between Element and Lanthimos after The Lobster, The Killing of a Sacred Deer and The Favourite. Emma Stone, nominated as best actress in a comedy or musical, stars as a woman revivified, after taking her own life, by an eccentric scientist in a stylised version of 19th century London. The film looked destined for further awards success after winning the Golden Lion at the Venice film festival last September. Poor Things opens in Ireland next month.

The success for Scott, Keoghan and Murphy continues an extraordinary run for Irish talent at the big US awards. Earlier this year a quarter of the acting nominees at the Oscars – among them Keoghan for The Banshees of Inisherin – were Irish. Scott has been receiving raves since All of Us Strangers debuted at the Telluride Film Festival in early autumn. The lavish Saltburn, featuring Keoghan as an ordinary Liverpudlian set loose on the aristocracy, has been one of the most hotly debated films of the season.

[ The best and worst films of 2023 – in reverse order ]

Cedric the Entertainer and Wilmer Valderrama had barely finished announcing the nominations (as ever, hours before sun-up in LA) when chatter began about perceived “snubs”. The biggest surprise was no place in best picture (musical or comedy) for the musical version of The Color Purple. America Ferrera also seemed a likely nominee in best supporting actress or Barbie but, even with the categories expanded from five to six slots, she was unlucky.

Succession dominated the TV section, trousering nine nominations, with The Bear and Only Murders in the Building securing four each. The newly minted Globe for “cinematic and box office achievement” continues to baffle awards watchers. Perhaps some explanation will come when the Globes are handed out on January 7th.

Nominations for the 2024 Golden Globes

Film categories

Best Motion Picture – Drama

Anatomy of a Fall
Killers of the Flower Moon
Maestro
Oppenheimer
Past Lives
The Zone of Interest

Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy

Air
American Fiction
Barbie
The Holdovers
May December
Poor Things

Best Motion Picture – Non-English Language

Anatomy of a Fall
Fallen Leaves
Io Capitano
Past Lives
Society of the Snow
The Zone of Interest

Best Motion Picture – Animated

The Boy and the Heron
Elemental
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
The Super Mario Bros. Movie
Suzume
Wish

Cinematic and Box Office Achievement

Barbie
Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 3
John Wick: Chapter 4
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning
Oppenheimer
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
The Super Mario Bros. Movie
Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour

Best Director – Motion Picture

Bradley Cooper, Maestro
Greta Gerwig, Barbie
Yorgos Lanthimos, Poor Things
Christopher Nolan, Oppenheimer
Martin Scorsese, Killers of the Flower Moon
Celine Song, Past Lives

Best Screenplay – Motion Picture

Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach, Barbie
Tony McNamara, Poor Things
Christopher Nolan, Oppenheimer
Eric Roth and Martin Scorsese, Killers of the Flower Moon
Celine Song, Past Lives
Justine Triet and Arthur Harari, Anatomy of a Fall

Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama

Bradley Cooper, Maestro
Leonardo DiCaprio, Killers of the Flower Moon
Colman Domingo, Rustin
Barry Keoghan, Saltburn
Cillian Murphy, Oppenheimer
Andrew Scott, All of Us Strangers

Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama

Annette Bening, Nyad
Lily Gladstone, Killers of the Flower Moon
Sandra Hüller, Anatomy of a Fall
Greta Lee, Past Lives
Carey Mulligan, Maestro
Cailee Spaeny, Priscilla

Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy

Nicolas Cage, Dream Scenario
Timothée Chalamet, Wonka
Matt Damon, Air
Paul Giamatti, The Holdovers
Joaquin Phoenix, Beau Is Afraid
Jeffrey Wright, American Fiction

Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy

Fantasia Barrino, The Color Purple
Jennifer Lawrence, No Hard Feelings
Natalie Portman, May December
Alma Pöysti, Fallen Leaves
Margot Robbie, Barbie
Emma Stone, Poor Things

Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in any Motion Picture

Willem Dafoe, Poor Things
Robert De Niro, Killers of the Flower Moon
Robert Downey, Jr., Oppenheimer
Ryan Gosling, Barbie
Charles Melton, May December
Mark Ruffalo, Poor Things

Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in any Motion Picture

Emily Blunt, Oppenheimer
Danielle Brooks, The Color Purple
Jodie Foster, Nyad
Julianne Moore, May December
Rosamund Pike, Saltburn
Da’Vine Joy Randolph, The Holdovers

Best Original Score – Motion Picture

Poor Things
Oppenheimer
The Boy and the Heron
The Zone of Interest
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
Killers of the Flower Moon

Best Original Song – Motion Picture

“Addicted to Romance,” She Came to Me
“Dance the Night,” Barbie
“I’m Just Ken,” Barbie
“Peaches,” The Super Mario Bros. Movie
“Road to Freedom,” Rustin
“What Was I Made For?,” Barbie

Television categories

Best Television Series – Musical or Comedy

Abbott Elementary
Barry
The Bear
Jury Duty
Only Murders in the Building
Ted Lasso

Best Television Series – Drama

1923
The Crown
The Diplomat
The Morning Show
Succession

Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series – Drama

Brian Cox, Succession
Kieran Culkin, Succession
Gary Oldman, Slow Horses
Pedro Pascal, The Last of Us
Jeremy Strong, Succession
Dominic West, The Crown

Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Series – Drama

Helen Mirren, 1923
Bella Ramsey, The Last of Us
Keri Russell, The Diplomat
Sarah Snook, Succession
Imelda Staunton, The Crown
Emma Stone, The Curse

Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Series – Musical or Comedy

Ayo Edebiri, The Bear
Natasha Lyonne, Poker Face
Quinta Brunson, Abbott Elementary
Rachel Brosnahan, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel
Selena Gomez, Only Murders in the Building
Elle Fanning, The Great

Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series – Musical or Comedy

Bill Hader, Barry
Steve Martin, Only Murders in the Building
Jason Segel, Shrinking
Martin Short, Only Murders in the Building
Jason Sudeikis, Ted Lasso
Jeremy Allen White, The Bear

Best Performance by a Supporting Actor in a Television Series

Billy Crudup, The Morning Show
Matthew Macfadyen, Succession
James Marsden, Jury Duty
Ebon Moss-Bachrach, The Bear
Alan Ruck, Succession
Alexander Skarsgård, Succession

Best Performance by a Supporting Actress in a Television Series

Elizabeth Debicki, The Crown
Abby Elliott, The Bear
Christina Ricci, Yellowjackets
J Smith Cameron, Succession
Meryl Streep, Only Murders in the Building
Hannah Waddingham, Ted Lasso

Best Television Limited Series or Motion Picture Made for Television

All the Light We Cannot See
Beef
Daisy Jones & the Six
Fargo
Fellow Travelers
Lessons in Chemistry

Best Performance by an Actor in a Limited Series or Motion Picture Made for Television

Matt Bomer, Fellow Travelers
Sam Claflin, Daisy Jones & the Six
Jon Hamm, Fargo
Woody Harrelson, White House Plumbers
David Oyelowo, Lawmen: Bass Reeves
Steven Yeun, Beef

Best Performance by an Actress in a Limited Series or Motion Picture Made for Television

Riley Keough, Daisy Jones & the Six
Brie Larson, Lessons in Chemistry
Elizabeth Olsen, Love & Death
Juno Temple, Fargo
Rachel Weisz, Dead Ringers
Ali Wong, Beef

Best Stand-Up Comedian on Television

Ricky Gervais
Trevor Noah
Chris Rock
Amy Schumer
Sarah Silverman
Wanda Sykes