Golden Globe nominations: ‘Mank’ leads; Emerald Fennell, Regina King, Chloé Zhao make history in Best Director

Erik Anderson February 3, 2021

The nominations for the 78th Golden Globes were announced this morning and Netflix’s Mank made its comeback after a rocky critics’ season to earn six nominations, more than any other film. It landed in all of the top categories including Best Motion Picture – Drama, director for David Fincher, actor for Gary Oldman and supporting actress for Amanda Seyfried.

Right behind was one of the biggest surprises of the morning, Promising Young Woman with 5, surging in Best Motion Picture – Drama, Best Actress for Carey Mulligan and Emerald Fennell in both Best Director and Best Screenplay. There was some online backlash a few weeks ago when the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, who puts on the Golden Globes, announced that the film was being moved from comedy/musical where it was submitted over to drama. Turns out that move paid off.

Two more women joined Fennell in the Best Director category, Regina King for One Night in Miami and Chloé Zhao for Nomadland. It’s the first time in the history of the Golden Globes that three women have been nominated in the category in the same year and Zhao is the first Asian-American woman ever to be nominated there.

But the morning didn’t come without its shocking snubs and surprise nods. While Spike Lee’s children were recently named as this year’s Golden Globe ambassadors, his film Da 5 Bloods was completely shut out. Da 5 Bloods is the first National Board of Review Best Film winner to not get any Golden Globe nominations since 1983’s Betrayal. But, since Betrayal won in a tie, you’d have to go back to 1971, Roman Polanski’s Macbeth, to find a film that didn’t win NBR in a tie.

Stars Delroy Lindo and Chadwick Boseman have been staples of the critics’ awards this season. Late breaker Judas and the Black Messiah found nominations for Daniel Kaluuya in Supporting Actor and in Original Song but not in Best Motion Picture.

Two of this seasons acting frontrunners with critics, Paul Raci from Sound of Metal and Youn Yuh-jung from Minari were snubbed in the supporting categories. For Youn, the recent backlash over Minari being relegated to the Foreign Language Film category even though it’s a U.S. production didn’t do it any favors. Star Steven Yeun was also missing from the Best Actor list.

The Comedy/Musical categories were a wild menagerie of expected mentions like Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, which earned three nominations and Hamilton, which competed as a film here (but as a TV Movie for SAG). The really out of left field choice though was the virtually unseen film Music from singer/songwriter Sia, which got nominations for Best Motion Picture and Best Actress for Kate Hudson. The film, about a young girl on the autistic spectrum came under fire from autism activists on Twitter where Sia snapped back at them with aggressive comments when it was suggested she didn’t attempt to cast an actor on the autism spectrum for the role. “Maybe you’re just a bad actor,” was Sia’s response.

Meryl Streep, the most-nominated actor at the Golden Globes, was snubbed entirely this morning. She was in contention for The Prom and Let Them All Talk in the Best Actress in a Comedy or Musical category. Her co-star James Corden, however, made the cut in Best Actor.

This year’s Cecil B. DeMille Award recipient is Jane Fonda and the Carol Burnett Award will go to Norman Lear.

The nominations were announced by Golden Globe winners Sarah Jessica Parker and Taraji P. Henson. This year’s ceremony will air live on February 28 at 5pm PT on NBC. Tina Fey and Amy Poehler will return to host the mostly virtual event and do it from both coasts; Fey will be in the Rainbow Room in New York while Poehler will be at the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills where the Golden Globes are traditionally held.

Here is the full list of motion picture nominations for this year’s Golden Globe Awards.

Best Motion Picture – Drama

“The Father” (Sony Pictures Classics)
“Mank” (Netflix)
“Nomadland” (Searchlight Pictures)
“Promising Young Woman” (Focus Features)
“The Trial of the Chicago 7” (Netflix)

Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy

“Borat Subsequent Moviefilm” (Amazon Studios)
“Hamilton” (Walt Disney Pictures)
“Palm Springs” (Neon)
“Music” (Vertical Entertainment)
“The Prom” (Netflix)

Best Director – Motion Picture

Emerald Fennell (“Promising Young Woman”)
David Fincher, “Mank” (Netflix)
Regina King, “One Night in Miami” (Amazon Studios)
Aaron Sorkin, “The Trial of the Chicago 7” (Netflix)
Chloé Zhao, “Nomadland” (Searchlight Pictures)

Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama

Riz Ahmed (“Sound of Metal”)
Chadwick Boseman (“Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom”)
Anthony Hopkins (“The Father”)
Gary Oldman (“Mank”)
Tahar Rahim (“The Mauritanian”)

Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama

Viola Davis (“Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom”)
Andra Day (“The United States vs. Billie Holiday”)
Vanessa Kirby (“Pieces of a Woman”)
Frances McDormand (“Nomadland”)
Carey Mulligan (“Promising Young Woman”)

Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy

Maria Bakalova (“Borat Subsequent Moviefilm”)
Kate Hudson (“Music”)
Michelle Pfeiffer (“French Exit”)
Rosamund Pike (“I Care a Lot”)
Anya Taylor-Joy (“Emma”)

Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy

Sacha Baron Cohen (“Borat Subsequent Moviefilm”)
James Corden (“The Prom”)
Lin-Manuel Miranda (“Hamilton”)
Dev Patel (“The Personal History of David Copperfield”)
Andy Samberg (“Palm Springs”)

Best Actor in a Supporting Role in Any Motion Picture

Sacha Baron Cohen (“The Trial of the Chicago 7”)
Daniel Kaluuya (“Judas and the Black Messiah”)
Jared Leto (“The Little Things”)
Bill Murray (“On the Rocks”)
Leslie Odom, Jr. (“One Night in Miami”)

Best Actress in a Supporting Role in Any Motion Picture

Glenn Close (“Hillbilly Elegy”)
Olivia Colman (“The Father”)
Jodie Foster (“The Mauritanian”)
Amanda Seyfried (“Mank”)
Helena Zengel (“News of the World”)

Best Screenplay – Motion Picture

“Promising Young Woman” (Focus Features)
“Mank” (Netflix)
“The Trial of the Chicago 7” (Netflix)
“The Father” (Sony Pictures Classics)
“Nomadland” (Searchlight Pictures)

Best Original Score – Motion Picture

“The Midnight Sky” (Netflix) – Alexandre Desplat
“Tenet” (Warner Bros.) – Ludwig Göransson
“News of the World” (Universal Pictures) – James Newton Howard
“Mank” (Netflix) – Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross
“Soul” (Pixar) – Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross, Jon Batiste

Best Motion Picture – Animated

“The Croods: A New Age” (Universal Pictures)
“Onward” (Walt Disney Pictures)
“Over the Moon” (Netflix)
“Soul” (Walt Disney Pictures)
“Wolfwalkers” (Cartoon Saloon)

Best Original Song – Motion Picture

“Fight for You” from “Judas and the Black Messiah” (Warner Bros.) – H.E.R., Dernst Emile II, Tiara Thomas
“Hear My Voice” from “The Trial of the Chicago 7” (Netflix) – Daniel Pemberton, Celeste
“Io Si (Seen)” from “The Life Ahead” (Netflix) – Diane Warren, Laura Pausini, Niccolò Agliardi
“Speak Now” from “One Night in Miami” (Amazon Studios) – Leslie Odom Jr, Sam Ashworth
“Tigress & Tweed” from “The United States vs. Billie Holliday” (Hulu)

Best Motion Picture – Foreign Language

“Another Round” (Samuel Goldwyn Films)
“La Llorona” (Shudder)
“The Life Ahead” (Netflix)
“Minari” (A24)
“Two of Us”

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Erik Anderson

Erik Anderson is the founder/owner and Editor-in-Chief of AwardsWatch and has always loved all things Oscar, having watched the Academy Awards since he was in single digits; making lists, rankings and predictions throughout the show. This led him down the path to obsessing about awards. Much later, he found himself in film school and the film forums of GoldDerby, and then migrated over to the former Oscarwatch (now AwardsDaily), before breaking off to create AwardsWatch in 2013.

He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Hollywood Critics Association (HCA) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.