You did it, Golden Globes. You made it to 2025.
It sounds crazy, but the unkillable tenacity of the Golden Globes is such a surprise, it’s downright heartwarming. Just a couple of year ago, it looked like the end of the line for the drunkest, messiest, tackiest, ditziest, and bitchiest of award shows. No network would even air it anymore. But everybody loves a comeback story, right? And lo and behold, the Globes are back to officially kick off awards season. Give it up to new host Nikki Glaser, who made the night a blast. She set the tone right from the start, calling the event “Ozempic’s biggest night!”
The Globes have risen from the dead before — the whole franchise was down for the count before Ricky Gervais singlehandedly rescued it in 2010 by rebranding it as a savage bitchfest. Tina Fey and Amy Poehler took over for their peerless four-year run. But last year’s host Jo Koy was a disaster, setting the bar so low the devil’s using it as a toilet brush. The stars were depressingly polite, trying to make it the classy, respectable gala it should never aspire to be. Nobody even made any drunk gaffes, except when Kieran Culkin trash-talked Pedro Pascal onstage, yelling, “Suck it, Pedro!”
But fortunately, Nikki Glaser gets what the Globes are all about: packing famous people into the Beverly Hills Hilton, plying them with booze, then letting the Hollywood vanity run wild. (The Globes are owned by Dick Clark Productions, partly owned by PMC, which also owns Rolling Stone.) Darling Nikki came with a monologue full of barbs like “two-time Holocaust survivor Adrien Brody.” She pointed out that Wicked, Queer, and Nightbitch are “not just words Ben Affleck yells when after he orgasms.” She called Challengers “more sexually charged than Diddy’s credit card.” The nearest she came to a Ricky/Tina/Amy roast was telling Keith Urban, “Keep strumming, you kooky koala.”
But Glaser was even funnier in her mid-show recap. “Everywhere you look, there’s a Fanning!” she gushed. “Elle! Dakota! Peyton! Ah, the air is thick with the air of the smell of signature fragrances and the lingering stench of ballroom salmon.” She provided a helpful breakdown of the night’s acceptance speech shoutouts: Cast and Crew in the lead with 11, followed by Moms with 3. “God, creator of the universe, zero mentions. And Mario Lopez, host of Access Hollywood, one.” (That Mario shoutout came from Kieran, again the life of the party.) Glaser also saluted all the actresses making comebacks this year. “If you’re a woman over 50 in a lead role, they call it a comeback,” Glaser said. “If you’re a guy over 50 in a lead role, congratulations! You’re about to play Sydney Sweeney’s boyfriend.”
The closest the night came to authentic Hollywood bitchdom was Vin Diesel grinning and saying, “Hey, Dwayne!” at his nemesis Dwayne Johnson, the Joan Crawford to Vin’s Bette Davis, sitting just a few feet away on live TV. But The Rock, a pro as always, kept his game face on and didn’t take the bait. Vin was on hand to present the bizarre new prize for Cinematic and Box Office Achievement, i.e. the That’s What The Money’s For award. (It went to Wicked.) Tragically, Vin had to give a big fluffy speech about how watching movies reminds us that we’re all one big family. Damn — watching poor Vin read poetry off a teleprompter was like watching him try to skateboard up a mountain of Vaseline.
Colin Farrell gave top-shelf Golden Globes content with the night’s funniest toast, in his freewheeling and very Irish acceptance speech for The Penguin, admitting, “Guess it’s prosthetics from here on out.” Colin ended it with the most heartfelt tribute to craft service in award-show history. “Carolina, God bless you, you kept the whole crew going! Craft serviiiiiice!” You could tell he really wanted to add, “Breakfast, lunch, and fucking dinner!”
Demi Moore won a big one for the Eighties when she got her well-deserved Best Actress prize for The Substance. “I’ve been doing this for 40 years and this is the first time I’ve ever won anything as an actor,” Demi said, raising the question of why the hell she didn’t win any awards for St. Elmo’s Fire, when she has that touching scene bonding with Rob Lowe under her wall-size pastel poster of Billy Idol. Well, at least she won our hearts. But she made it an awesomely rousing speech, declaring, “Today, I celebrate this as a marker of my wholeness!”
There were plenty of glitches — this is the Golden Globes, after all. The bubble captions under the star’s faces gave Fun Facts™ that looked really silly and dated, giving Pop-Up Video energy. Sorry, but The Rock is a star, a bona fide star, with real on-camera presence — you don’t need to decorate his face with a tidbit that he’s in the Guinness Book of World Records for most selfies taken in three minutes. He’s The Rock. It just felt small-time and chintzy. Even sillier was the godawful smooth jazz that kept blasting during the hushed moments — it killed the you’re-in-the-room ambience an award show needs.
But seriously, what the hell was up with the voiceover guy? He simply could not shut up, to the point where he kept stepping on the stars’ speeches all night. There may be no “right” time” to discuss Colin Farrell’s early attempt at a music career, but while the man is trying to accept an award is most certainly the “wrong” time. The night’s most embarrassing gaffe was when Jodie Foster won for True Detective: Night Country. She engaged in some spirited call and response with Sofia Vergara in the front row — a spontaneous live-TV moment, the kind that the Golden Globes franchise thrives on — but we couldn’t hear it because Mr. Voiceover was talking over them to explain that the series was filmed in Iceland. (No waaaay!) Put a sock in this dude’s mouth next year, puh-lease.
Elton John had the night’s great “did he say that?” moment when he appeared onstage with Brandi Carlile, and made reference to his much-publicized struggles with regressive vision, but then added, “I’m pleased to be here with my co-host, Rihanna!” Elton laughed at his own joke so joyfully, it was a pleasure to behold. (His last great Golden Globes moment came five years ago, when he memorably embraced Phoebe Waller-Bridge on her way to the stage.) Brandi Carlile was touchingly steady at his side, a kindly presence, as she was with Joni Mitchell at the Grammys. It was also a hoot to see Elton present an award to Trent Reznor, with an affectionate hug from one great Empire of Dirt queen to another.
All night long, either the teleprompters were malfunctioning, or the stars were doing double-takes at the cheesoid platitudes they were getting asked to read. Gal Gadot summed up the night’s insipid presenter banter when she mused, “In a night that’s given us some amazing moments, let’s continue with the amazingness.” Ariana DeBose and Ke Huy Quan just sounded lost, British accent and all. Catherine O’Hara said, “What an honor it is to be here at one of America’s most prestigious award shows!” It sounded like the setup to a joke — alas, no, that’s just what the teleprompter told her to say. But she and Seth Rogen made up for it with a funny bit about all the Canadian acting awards they’ve won, including the acclaimed Canadian porn movies like the Moose Knuckles trilogy.
The Jaqueline Bissett Award for the most leisurely stroll to the stage went to songwriters Camille and Clement Ducol, who won for Emilia Pérez; they took a zig-zag tour of the room until they eventually found their way to the podium, with Zoe Saldaña in hot pursuit, as Camille raved, “This is such an American experience!” Saldaña definitely won the prize for best crying of the night, as she accepted her Golden Globe for Best Actress, with a bleeped “Holy fuck!” — she wept like her Oscar was winning an Oscar. Baby Reindeer‘s Jennifer Gunning charmingly called herself “chuffed to bits.” Martin Short, always the good sport, gave a gung-ho yell of delight when the Best Actor award went to Jeremy Allen White from The Bear, who didn’t even show up tonight, because he was down in Atlantic City doing a little favor for this guy.
Best forlorn facial expression of the night: Timothée Chalamet trying to look happy for Adrien Brody when they called his name for Best Actor, not exactly the sharpest acting of Timothee’s career. His “I’m going back to Arrakeen, I do believe I’ve had enough” face was sadder than Pete Seeger watching Bob Dylan bust out a keytar and breakdance at the Newport Folk Festival. Cheer up, Timmy, because you’re going to clean up big at the Oscars. (You can tell because he’s working hard on the legendary Oscar Night Mustache that Dylan unveiled when he won in 2001.) Congratulations in advance, Mr. Timothée Man.
Shōgun, The Brutalist, and Emilia Pérez were all big winners of the night. But as Glaser explained, “The point of making art is not winning an award. The point of making art is to start a tequila brand so popular you never have to make art again.” Somehow, that gets the spirit of the Golden Globes exactly right. See you next year, Nikki.
