Jacques Audiard’s Emilia Pérez is a whole lot of everything. It’s a musical, a comedy, and a drama about a transgender cartel leader. It’s a melting pot of performances from Selena Gomez, Zoe Saldaña, and Karla Sofía Gascón. It also became the 2025 Golden Globes winner for Best Picture, Musical or Comedy on Sunday night.
Audiard — who earlier accepted the film’s award for Best Non-English Language film — took the stage before ushering protagonist Gascón to the microphone. Gascón, a trans actress, shared a touching speech about identity and representation.
“I chose these colors tonight, the Buddhist colors, because I have a message for you: The light always wins over darkness,” Gascón said onstage. “You can maybe put us in jail. You can beat us up, but you never can take away our soul, our existence, our identity.”
“And I want to say to you, raise your voice [for] freedom,” she added. “I am who I am, not who you want. Thank you so much.”
Emilia Pérez was nominated against Sean Baker’s Anora, Luca Guadagnino’s Challengers, Jesse Eisenberg’s A Real Pain, Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance, and Jon M. Chu’s Wicked. The film earned nine additional nominations, including Best Screenplay and Best Director for Audiard.
Earlier in the night, Saldaña won the award for Best Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role, Motion Picture, and for her song “El Mal,” written by Clément Ducol and Camille.
The Netflix film was already the most nominated musical or comedy film in the award ceremony’s history with 10 nods. The film was up for Best Original Score for Clément Ducol and Camille, while Gascón was nominated for Best Performance by a Female Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy.
“The first role offer I got was about something very tough related to transness. And you know what I said? ‘I’ll do it,’” Gascón told Rolling Stone last year, adding: “Some things are so beautiful that you can’t say no.”
In a review of the film, Rolling Stone’s David Fear wrote: “We love Audiard’s work to death, and Emilia Pérez proves that he refuses to play anything safe; the equal amount of tongue-in-cheek gestures and sincerely tender exchanges makes this one of the bigger swings in his career.”
