Golden Globes Nominations 2024: 10 Biggest Snubs and Surprises

Awards-season handicappers thought that Winslet, who has won five Golden Globes, had a decent shot at one of two nominations this year: She played dogged real-life war photographer Lee Miller in the biopic Lee and a fictional dictator in the HBO limited series The Regime. But because neither project was well-reviewed, there was a chance she would get passed over, even though she previously received an Emmy nomination for The Regime. Well, this morning proved the Globes still love Kate: She got nods for both performances — tellingly, the only nomination either work received.

All hail Colman Domingo, who was deservedly nominated for his turn as an incarcerated man who’s part of a prison theater program, but this A24 drama — based on a real-life organization, Rehabilitation Through the Arts — otherwise failed to move the needle with Globe voters. Sing Sing got left out of the Best Motion Picture (Drama) category and, even more disappointingly, Clarence “Divine Eye” Maclin, playing himself, didn’t see his name as part of the Supporting Actor category. Did the fact that Domingo was the only A-lister among the cast hurt the film’s chances with the Globes’ notoriously star-loving electorate? Sure seems like it. 

The Oscars have never featured two women nominated in the same year for Best Director. (Hell, most years, they’re lucky to have one female filmmaker among the group.) So a tip of the cap to the Globes: Others might complain that Jon M. Chu (Wicked) and Denis Villeneuve (Dune: Part Two) failed to make the cut, but instead, why not be excited that Coralie Fargeat and Payal Kapadia got in? Fargeat’s second feature, The Substance, did very well overall, earning five nominations — she also earned a screenplay nod — while Kapadia’s All We Imagine as Light (which is also up for Best Non-English Film) continues to charm critics during awards season. (All We Imagine just won the International/Non-English prize from both the New York Film Critics Circle and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association.) These two films, which triumphantly launched at the Cannes Film Festival, have been arthouse success stories, and it’s cheering that the Globes saw fit to honor the women behind them. You’re on notice, Academy voters.

Speaking of critics’ groups, Marianna Jean-Baptiste won acting awards from both New York and L.A. critics for her galvanic turn in Mike Leigh’s latest gem, Hard Truths. The veteran actress, who was marvelous in Leigh’s 1996 prize-winner Secrets & Lies, is unforgettable as Pansy, a bitterly angry woman who makes everyone’s life around her hell — well, a lot of us woke up this morning as angry as Pansy when we saw that Jean-Baptiste got left out of the Best Actress in a Motion Picture (Drama) field. This is the sort of nomination that, if it had happened, would have greatly bolstered her chances for an Oscar nod. It’s OK, Pansy: We still love you, even if the Globes didn’t.

So who got in if Jean-Baptiste was snubbed? Most likely, it was Pamela Anderson, who shocked Globe-watchers with her nomination for the Vegas-dancer drama The Last Showgirl. We prefer Jean-Baptiste to everyone in the Best Actress in a Motion Picture (Drama) — no shade to some absolutely wonderful performances in there — so we are not in any way picking on Anderson. In fact, she’s terrific playing an aging showgirl whose time on the stage is quickly coming to an end. The Last Showgirl is very much a Wrestler-type tale, but Anderson is vulnerable and raw in an superb comeback role.

Although well-reviewed, this Peacock series has hardly been a buzzy show among TV tastemakers. Still, the Globes ate up the show, giving it two nominations — one for Best Drama Series and one for Eddie Redmayne as the expert assassin. The propulsive thriller, based on Frederick Forsyth’s 1971 novel and adapted into two English-language films, has already been renewed for a second season, so hopefully that will give Globe voters a chance to nominate Lashana Lynch’s equally stellar work soon.

This is actually the second time Deadwyler has been on the outside looking in when it comes to Golden Globe nominations. She didn’t make the cut in 2022 for her portrayal of Mamie Till, the grieving, determined mother of murdered son Emmett in Till, and although most thought she would be nominated for her strong turn in the film adaptation of August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson, she was once again left off the list of nominees — this time, for Supporting Actresses. Even if, like us, you think The Piano Lesson isn’t as powerful as other recent Wilson adaptations — namely, Fences and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom — Deadwyler was the standout as an introspective but resilient sister standing up to her hectoring brother (John David Washington). She’s too good of an actress to keep being overlooked — her time will come, hopefully sooner rather than later.

Five series seemed like locks for Best Comedy/Musical Series — Abbott Elementary, The Bear, Hacks, Nobody Wants This and Only Murders in the Building — but what would be the sixth? Shrinking? A Man on the Inside? Agatha All Along? Nope: It was the Netflix spinoff of Guy Ritchie’s 2019 crime-comedy The Gentlemen,starring Theo James as the inheritor of a lucrative (and much-coveted) cannabis empire. The Emmys mostly bypassed the series, so the high-profile Globes nod is the show’s most impressive nomination to date. Still, we suspect in five years that The Gentlemen will be the title you struggle to remember among this field.

Listen, no one need weep for Streep. She has three Oscars, three Emmys, and nine Golden Globes. She is universally beloved. She’s doing great. Still, considering how lavished with nominations Only Murders in the Building has been during its acclaimed run, it was a little odd that Meryl wasn’t included among the nominees for Supporting Actress. After all, she got a nod from the Globes last year for her role as flailing actress Loretta Durkin. Nonetheless, we are fairly confident that Streep is the furthest thing from heartbroken — and, hey, it’s an indication that the Globes don’t always go for the biggest names in a particular category.

For years, it has been fun sport to mock the Golden Globes for screwing up their nominations, picking the oddest and just plain wrong choices. (And that’s to say nothing of the organization that previously voted on the Globes’ incredibly embarrassing internal problems.) But in recent years, the Globes have been a little less baffling in their picks, and this morning’s nominees are, for the most part, fairly respectable. Honestly, it might be today’s biggest shock. We still remember all your past screwups, folks, but for now, at least, you did pretty well. Keep it up.