“La La” Lands historic sweep at Golden Globes as Huppert and Taylor-Johnson surprise

Erik Anderson January 8, 2017

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The Golden Globes managed to leave their mark on the awards race Sunday night, shaking up a number of races while also confirming a few frontrunners, including the current Best Picture frontrunner, who is now stronger than ever before.

That frontrunner, the musical La La Land, swept the ceremony, winning all seven categories it was nominated in, including Director, Actress (Comedy/Musical), Actor (Comedy/Musical), and Picture (Comedy/Musical). That breaks the record for most Golden Globe awards won by a single film, a record previously held by One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest for 41 years. That film went on to repeat all of its Golden Globe wins at the Oscars (save Best Acting Debut, a category that did not exist at the Oscars). La La Land looks set to repeat at least Picture, Director, Score, and Song, with Screenplay and Actress looking increasingly likely. The former is a particularly surprising development, as Manchester by the Sea was seen as a favorite to win here and also at the Oscars. However, with La La Land tying Manchester at the Critics Choice Awards and outright winning here, that category might end up becoming another notch in La La Land metaphorical Oscar belt.

As for Best Actress, that race received a jolt of excitement today thanks to an upset in Best Actress (Drama). Natalie Portman, having won the Critics Choice Award and a number of other mid-tier critics awards, was the favorite to win here, positioning her as a co-frontrunner with Stone. However, Isabelle Huppert pulled off a surprise win for her work in Elle, making her the first foreign language performance to win that category since Liv Ullman won in 1972 for The Emigrants. Ullman went on to receive an Oscar nomination, a feat Huppert is now almost certain to repeat. Her win puts Portman’s path to Oscar in serious jeopardy, especially with La La Land looking increasingly unstoppable. Elle also won Best Foreign Language Film (a win it cannot repeat at the Oscars due to its failure to make the longlist for the Oscar category), inexplicably making it the only film other than La La Land to win multiple awards tonight.

The only other big surprise tonight, on the film side anyway, came right at the top of the night, with Aaron Taylor-Johnson pulling off a deeply improbable win in Best Supporting Actor for his turn in Nocturnal Animals. So far this season, Taylor-Johnson has mostly been an afterthought, with Michael Shannon picking up most of the awards buzz when the film first premiered in Venice. Even his nomination at the Globes was chalked up as a freak occurrence, and credited to Tom Ford’s morally questionable campaigning within the Hollywood Foreign Press. Whether or not Taylor-Johnson’s win can also be credited to Ford’s campaign remains to be seen, but a winner of the Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor has not missed an Oscar nomination since 1975 (odd how that year keeps coming up), so for now, Taylor-Johnson demands to be taken seriously.

The remaining categories were mostly business as usual. Although it failed to win any other categories, Moonlight managed to still pull off a win in Best Picture (Drama), positioning itself as the one film that could possibly spoil La La Land‘s awards parade. Casey Affleck and Viola Davis also pulled off their much-predicted wins in Best Actor (Drama) and Best Supporting Actress respectively, leaving them still as the unrivaled frontrunners for the Oscars. Zootopia also pulled off an expected win for Best Animated Feature, although that category can be a little more unpredictable when it comes to the Oscar.

Despite these race shakeups and shattered records, the moment of the night most likely to go viral might be Meryl Streep accepting her Cecil B. DeMille award. Following an incredibly charming introduction by Viola Davis, Streep took the stage and used her speech as an opportunity to get unapolgetically political, denouncing Donald Trump and his behavior as he heads into office, without ever once even mentioning his name. The moment received an incredibly strong reaction on social media, and is likely to inspire some sort of reaction from the president-elect.

Here are the nominees and winners for the Golden Globe Awards:

Best Motion Picture – Drama
Hacksaw Ridge
Hell or High Water
Lion
Manchester by the Sea
Moonlight *WINNER*

Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy
20th Century Women
Deadpool
Florence Foster Jenkins
La La Land *WINNER*
Sing Street

Best Motion Picture – Animated
Kubo and the Two Strings
Moana
My Life as a Zucchini
Sing
Zootopia *WINNER*

Best Motion Picture – Foreign Language
Divines (France)
Elle (France) *WINNER*
Neruda (Chile)
The Salesman (Iran)
Toni Erdmann (Germany)

Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama
Amy Adams, Arrival
Jessica Chastain, Miss Sloane
Isabelle Huppert, Elle *WINNER*
Ruth Negga, Loving
Natalie Portman, Jackie

Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama
Casey Affleck, Manchester by the Sea *WINNER*
Joel Edgerton, Loving
Andrew Garfield, Hacksaw Ridge
Viggo Mortensen, Captain Fantastic
Denzel Washington, Fences

Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy
Annette Bening, 20th Century Women
Lily Collins, Rules Don’t Apply
Hailee Steinfeld, The Edge of Seventeen
Emma Stone, La La Land *WINNER*
Meryl Streep, Florence Foster Jenkins

Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy
Colin Farrell, The Lobster
Ryan Gosling, La La Land *WINNER*
Hugh Grant, Florence Foster Jenkins
Jonah Hill, War Dogs
Ryan Reynolds, Deadpool

Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in any Motion Picture
Viola Davis, Fences *WINNER*
Naomie Harris, Moonlight
Nicole Kidman, Lion
Octavia Spencer, Hidden Figures
Michelle Williams, Manchester by the Sea

Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in any Motion Picture
Mahershala Ali, Moonlight
Jeff Bridges, Hell or High Water
Simon Helberg, Florence Foster Jenkins
Dev Patel, Lion
Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Nocturnal Animals *WINNER*

Best Director – Motion Picture
Damien Chazelle, La La Land *WINNER*
Tom Ford, Nocturnal Animals
Mel Gibson, Hacksaw Ridge
Barry Jenkins, Moonlight
Kenneth Lonergan, Manchester by the Sea

Best Screenplay – Motion Picture
Hell or High Water
La La Land *WINNER*
Manchester by the Sea
Moonlight
Nocturnal Animals

Best Original Score – Motion Picture
Arrival
Hidden Figures
La La Land *WINNER*
Lion
Moonlight

Best Original Song – Motion Picture
“Gold,” Gold
“City of Stars,” La La Land *WINNER*
“How Far I’ll Go,” Moana
“Faith,” Sing
“Can’t Stop the Feeling,” Trolls

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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.