Golden Globes 2026: Five Things We Learned

The 83rd Globes arrived after a series of regional and national critics’ guild awards: a precursor to the Oscars and a tone-setter in several categories.

Suryasarathi BhattacharyaRahul+Desai

Jan 13, 2026

The Globes have somehow retained their relevance in a landscape where things are changing faster than Netflix and Warner Bros' anti-cinema business deals.

IF NIKKI GLASER'S PERFECTLY PITCHED OPENING MONOLOGUE was a sign of things to come, the Golden Globes 2026 was going to be anything but a damp squib. She doesn’t scorch with the smug irreverence of someone like Ricky Gervais (who can forget those years?), but death by self-deprecatory humour is still a beautiful death. The 83rd Globes arrived after a series of regional and national critics’ guild awards: a precursor to the Oscars and a tone-setter in several categories. The old-fashioned Hollywood Foreign Press (the voters) have been the butt of many jokes (deservedly so) in recent years, but the Globes have somehow retained their relevance in a landscape where things are changing faster than Netflix and Warner Brothers anti-cinema business deals. Here are 5 things we’ve learned from this year’s star-studded and surprisingly well-awarded ceremony:

Nikki Glaser Is Here To Stay

Most American awards’ ceremonies are reactionary and impatient with the comedians they choose as hosts, but Glaser’s second gig showed that she could seamlessly celebrate movies without sparing the people who make them. Her opener ranged from low-hanging-fruit Leo-girlfriend jokes (where she calls herself out) and Sean-Penn-cocaine jokes to edgy Epstein-list references and Michael B. Jordan lust-puns. Heaven knows we need saucy female hosts after the success of Tina Fey and Amy Poehler scared the HFP so much that they had no hosts the next season. Glaser is easy-going, witty and knows when she’s being lame, which is such an essential trait for relatively apolitical hosts to have at a time when everyone feels the need to make a statement about world affairs. With an effortlessly sarcastic “this is the most important thing happening right now,” Glaser kicked things off and took aim at petrified-looking stars in the room, one hair-bun after another. Not even DiCaprio’s animated break-time gesturing — which has Reddit buzzing all over again about his “young girlfriends” being a front for the best kept secret in Hollywood — could distract.

It’s a One-Horse Race

The Globes are the ultimate diplomatic cop-out in terms of splitting the main categories into “drama” and “comedy/musical” so that everyone can go away happy and pundits can keep the Oscar buzz going with dual options. I’ve never really understood the qualifications, really: In what universe is One Battle After Another or Bugonia a comedy/musical, unless you take into account the fact that any kind of sociopolitical commentary these days is inherently absurd? But even though Hamnet pulled off an upset win in the ‘serious’ category of Best Film (Drama), the comedy/musical winner — Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another — has it locked in for the Oscars. There are no two ways about it. Nominate 20 pictures for all we care; OBAA is the overwhelming favourite, and the Globes’ softening of this race, or the illusion that it creates, does nothing to change that. If anything, the drama categories this year felt like an excuse to give medals to those who’re going to come in second.

No Country For Sinners

Who could’ve guessed that Ryan Coogler’s magnum opus about music and racial history and colonisation and vampires would be the most-nominated but the least-awarded picture of them all? Actually, everyone (including the hit-piece-happy Variety). Before OBAA hijacked the buzz, it was all Sinners. Yet the Globes kinda-sorta embarrassed themselves by giving them a consolation box-office-cinematic-achievement award, almost as if to say: here you go, kids, don’t accuse us of racism now. It’s hard not to make that case, though. It’s almost as if voters across the press and academies are constantly making up for that year in which Moonlight upstaged La La Land against the odds. Not to take away anything from PTA and OBAA — the hype is real — but I can’t imagine a bigger American swing than Sinners this decade. Naturally it stands no chance.

WATCH | Stream Ryan Coogler's Sinners here via OTTplay Premium.

Actor Actor On The Wall

The best lead and supporting actor categories had the most appropriate split yet: Wagner Moura and Timothee Chalamet, frontrunners in the lead-actor race, won their respective categories. There’s been a late surge by Moura and The Secret Agent hype-machine, and America’s notorious aversion towards “foreign languages in primary categories” could well mean that this year is the year of atonement. There could not be more contrasting performances either — Moura a minimalist master and Chalamet all pomp and purism. Rose Byrne’s “comedy” win for If I Had Legs I’d Kick You signals her status as favourite over her dramatic counterpart Jessie Buckley for Hamnet. In an ideal world, nobody would be challenging Renate Reinsve for Sentimental Value (or a belated gift for The Worst Person in the World), but we don’t live in an ideal world, do we? While it’s sad to see Benecio del Toro fade away as the Supporting Actor favourite, it’s a few-beers heartwarming to see old hand Stellar Skarsgard take it away (and doubling down on the anti-Netflix sentiment), while Teyana Taylor’s last-gasp OBAA win cements her as the frontrunner in a stacked category that includes Amy Madigan and Inga Ibsdotter Lillleaas.

Watch the 31st Annual Critics' Choice Awards on JioHotstar, now available with your OTTplay Premium subscription.

Not In An English Language But Going For Glory

Brazil’s slow-burning political thriller The Secret Agent has zoomed ahead of Jafar Panahi’s Cannes winner It Was Just An Accident Park Chan-Wook’s No Other Choice, Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value and early leader Sirat in a category that should be renamed “Best Film In The Solar System” — the Americans can go home. It was encouraging to see three of them nominated for Best Film: Drama, which makes it anyone’s guess as to which one might pull off a Parasite-shaped coup at the Oscars. But the presence of OBAA means that they’re fighting for this single category, and perhaps some of the acting and technical awards. Personally, I don’t see how any film but It Was Just An Accident could win every single trophy on this planet, but Panahi is so consistently brilliant that the easier thing to do is not keep recognising his brilliance in the increasingly fascist (not-golden) globe. Go figure.

The 83rd Golden Globes is available to stream here now. Watch the award ceremony via OTTplay Premium.