Golden Globes Nominations: 10 Biggest Snubs and Surprises

The 2024 Golden Globe nominations were announced at the crack of dawn this morning by Cedric the Entertainer and Wilmer Valderrama.

Honoring the best in film and television over the past year, the ceremony will air live on the night of Jan. 7, 2024, at its new home of CBS — after many years at NBC. A host for the show has yet to be announced; Jerrod Carmichael took on MC duties at last year’s edition and used the opportunity to mock the Golden Globes’ history of scandal.

In TV, the fourth and final season of HBO’s Succession received the most nominations with nine, while in movies, Greta Gerwig’s Barbie garnered the most movie nods with nine as well. Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, meanwhile, received a total of eight.

But there were also a number of snubs and surprises. Here are the 10 biggest.

Surprise: Joaquin Phoenix, ‘Beau Is Afraid’

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You’d have thought everyone’s favorite ultra-Method actor might have squeaked by with a Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture, Drama slot for his moody, mercurial take on “the Little Colonel” in Napoleon; the fact that he ended up getting a nomination in Comedy for Ari Aster’s largely (and unjustly) forgotten Freudian nightmare Beau Is Afraid was a bit of a shock. Not as shocking as, say, discovering your father is a giant penis living in your childhood home’s attic, but still — this was one of the more pleasant left-field surprises of this morning’s announcements.

Snub: Dominique Fishback, ‘Swarm’

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After having to be off television for a year in part due to reported institutionalized racism, the Globes made an effort to be a bit more inclusive with their TV nominations. (Though many of the POC nominations, like Quinta Brunson and Ayo Edebiri, were such obvious choices that even the voters wouldn’t be silly enough to ignore them.) Globes voters missed the boat on this Amazon miniseries’ star, who gave one of the year’s most mesmerizing performances.

Snub: ‘The Color Purple’ for Best Comedy/Musical

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The movie version of the musical based on Alice Walker’s novel — and the Steven Spielberg movie of the same — was able to nab a Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture, Drama for its lead, the fantastic Fantasia Barrino, and Best Supporting Actress for Danielle Brooks. (It’s not eligible for the Best Original Song category, since the rules state a song must be written directly for the screen, which some Broadway-stage-to-screen adaptations have gotten away with; see Taylor Swift’s “Beautiful Ghosts” for Cats.) Yet it was curiously left out of the Best Picture, Musical or Comedy selections, despite the fact that half of this category is devoted to the exact, and currently very selective genre this film falls in. Somebody’s gonna love you, The Color Purple, but it apparently won’t be the Globes.

Surprise: Gary Oldman, ‘Slow Horses’

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Gary Oldman won a Golden Globe for Darkest Hour, and was nominated again a few years ago for Mank. So in one sense, it’s not a shock that voters applauded his work again. It’s still unexpected, though, that he’d be recognized for a purely comedic performance — a terrific one, mind you — in a series that hasn’t gotten awards traction outside the U.K.

Snub: Viola Davis, ‘Air’

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Ben Affleck’s biopic on the world’s most famous sneaker did very well by the Globes this morning, with nominations in the Best Picture, Musical or Comedy and Best Actor for Matt Damon. Yet the linchpin of the film — the true Air Jordan of Air — is Viola Davis for her portrayal of Deloris Jordan, who deftly manages to leverage her son’s power on the court into a proper deal for the family. And while many suspected she might be a casualty in a year filled with rich supporting performances, the fact that the movie was recognized in other categories while leaving her in the cold feels like we’ve had the you-know-what let out of our tires.

Snub: Harrison Ford / Surprise: Taylor Sheridan

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The Golden Globes love movie stars. It is baked into the organization’s DNA, no matter how many cosmetic changes were made to get the awards back on TV. Yet the voters had two opportunities to nominate big-screen legend Harrison Ford — for either his marvelous supporting turn on Shrinking (which got a nomination for leading man Jason Segel) or for starring in Taylor Sheridan’s 1923 — and failed both times. (Ford’s Shrinking role suffered from the Globes voters — like Emmy voters before them — deciding to nominate everyone from Succession, which left few supporting actor spots left for everyone else. See also the lack of Abbott Elementary supporting nominations, among many others.) Sheridan, though, had a good day, after his series in the past have generally gotten little awards love. 1923 was nominated for drama series, Ford’s co-star Helen Mirren was nominated for drama actress, and David Oyelowo was nominated for drama lead actor for Lawmen: Bass Reeves.

Snub: Sofia Coppola, ‘Priscilla’

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This wonderful, somewhat divisive look at the life of Priscilla Presley  — the queen to Elvis Presley’s King of Rock & Roll — was always going to be a dark horse in the Best Motion Picture, Drama race, and we’re jazzed to see Cailee Spaeny get her chance to go for the gold among the Best Actress nominees. Still, there was the sense that Sofia Coppola still had a strong chance of finding a space among the Best Director contenders, even in a year filled with new and veteran filmmakers creating moving, vital work. Don’t be cruel, Golden Globes: She deserved a slot.

Snub: ‘Reservation Dogs’

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No, we weren’t expecting any nominations. (Though it would have been very on-brand for the Globes to pull a Billie Eilish and nominate guest Ethan Hawke while ignoring the FX comedy’s incredible main cast.) Still, consider this one more protest vote on behalf of the best show TV has seen over the past few years.

Surprise: Alma Pöysti, ‘Fallen Leaves’

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OK, we honestly did not see this one coming. Finnish director Aki Kaurismäki’s delicate, deadpan romantic comedy had been getting a lot of critical love from the moment it premiered at Cannes, and it’s found pride of place in a number of year-end lists. We also know that the Globes boast of a large, internationally diverse voting pool, which would be more likely to embrace this tale of two lonely souls tentatively becoming soulmates. Yet the fact that Alma Pöysti is being recognized for her work in this lovely little film that still remains under the mainstream radar — and in a year in which the competition was remarkably stiff — was a genuine shock, and one we’re ecstatic to see. She’s earned the praise as much as the film itself deserves your attention.

Surprise: ‘Beef’

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Beef did well at the Emmys, and stars Ali Wong and Steven Yeun are both famous enough to ping the radars of the voters. At the same time, though, Beef is such a deliberately unsettling — and such an extremely American — story that it’s still something of a pleasant surprise that it picked up three nominations, finishing behind only juggernauts with big ensemble casts like Succession, The Bear, The Crown, and Only Murders in the Building.

From Rolling Stone US.