Besides Nolan’s win, Oppenheimer also won awards for Best Supporting Actor, Best Actor in a Drama Movie and Best Original Score. The film also won the accolade for Best Drama.

Christopher Nolan bags his first Golden Globe 

In a triumphant moment at the 2024 Golden Globes, Christopher Nolan won the award for Best Director-Motion Picture for Oppenheimer, marking his first win on his sixth nomination.

While accepting the honour, Nolan remembered the late actor Heath Ledger, who played Joker in his film The Dark Knight and said, “The only time I’ve ever been on this stage before was accepting one of these on behalf of our dear friend, Heath Ledger, and that was complicated and challenging for me and in the middle of speaking, I got stuck and Robert Downey Jr caught my eye and gave me a look of love and support, same look he’s giving me now.” He further expressed his gratitude for lead stars Cillian Murphy, Robert Downey Jr, Emily Blunt, Florence Pugh and the crew. 

At the 81st Golden Globe Awards, Nolan was nominated alongside Bradley Cooper (Maestro), Greta Gerwig (Barbie), Yorgos Lanthimos (Poor Things), Martin Scorsese (Killers of the Flower Moon) and Celine Song (Past Lives). 

Oppenheimer was one of the most nominated films at this year’s Golden Globes, leading the nomination pack with eight nods, including Best Screenplay for Nolan and Best Motion Picture — Drama. Besides Nolan’s win, Oppenheimer also won awards for Best Supporting Actor, Best Actor in a Drama Movie and Best Original Score. The film also won the accolade for Best Drama.

Oppenheimer is based on the life of Robert Oppenheimer, the American theoretical physicist who is called the ‘father of the atomic bomb’ and his role in the Manhattan Project during World War II. Oppenheimer has been credited as the director of the Los Alamos Laboratory, a place known for assembling bombs.

Succession

Succession wins Best Drama Series for third time in a row  Succession, the HBO series, won the Best Drama Series award for the third consecutive time at the 2024 Golden Globes. The series had previously won the award at the 2020 and 2022 ceremonies.

The remarkable feat has tied the series with The X-Files (1994, 1996 and 1997) and Mad Men (2007-09) for the most wins for best drama at the Golden Globes. It is to be noted that at the 81st Golden Globe Awards, both Succession and The Crown came into the night with a chance to tie the record.

Besides winning Best Drama Series, Succession’s final season also scored awards for supporting actors Matthew Macfadyen, Kieran Culkin, and Sarah Snook. The latter two won Best Performances by Male and Female Actors in a Television Drama Series, respectively.

Succession was nominated alongside Paramount+’s 1923, Netflix’s The Crown and The Diplomat, HBO’s The Last of Us and Apple TV+’s The Morning Show.

Lily Gladstone becomes first indigenous actor to lift trophy Lily Gladstone made history as she became the first indigenous actor to lift the Golden Globe trophy on Sunday. She bagged the award in the Best Actress in a Motion Picture, Drama category for her performance in Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon.

Previously, Irene Bedard was the only other indigenous actor to receive a nomination in the Best Actress in a Miniseries or TV Movie category, for Lakota Woman: Siege at Wounded Knee in 1994. As an indigenous director, Taika Waititi got a nomination for Best Musical/Comedy Film for Jojo Rabbit in 2020, and Best Musical/Comedy Series for Reservation Dogs in 2022. 

“This is a historic one, and it doesn’t belong to just me,” Gladstone said while accepting her award, after which she continued speaking in her native language, Blackfeet. “I’m so grateful that I can speak even a little bit of my language because, in this business, Native actors used to speak their lines in English and then the sound mixers would run them backwards to accomplish Native languages on camera,” she further said. 

Concluding her speech, she said, “This is for every little res kid, every little urban kid, every little Native kid out there who has a dream, who is seeing themselves represented and our stories told by ourselves, in our own words, with tremendous allies and tremendous trust with each other.” Gladstone, who goes by she/they pronouns, played a real-life Osage woman Mollie Burkhart in Scorsese’s film that shows how the systematic murders of Osage people took place in the 1920s. In the film, she speaks both Osage and English. 

Christopher Nolan

Hayao Miyazaki takes home first Golden Globe award at 82 At the age of 82, legendary filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki took home his first Golden Globe Award for his recent directorial The Boy and the Heron. A semi-autobiographical fantasy, the film won in the animated feature category. 

While the film straightaway marks the first Golden Globe for Miyazaki, it is also the first for Studio Ghibli, co-founded by him. It is also the first Golden Globe for an animated feature made in a language other than English. 

For Miyazaki, who won Best Animated Feature at the Oscars for his 2001 film Spirited Away, The Boy and the Heron is billed to be his last film. Previously, in 2013, The Wind Rises helmed by Miyazaki bagged him a nomination at the Golden Globe, but it failed to get the award. 

Other contenders in the Animated Feature category include Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, Elemental, The Super Mario Bros., Suzume and Wish. Miyazaki is also known for films such as Howl’s Moving Castle, Princess Mononoke, My Neighbour Totoro and Ponyo.

Robert Downey Jr wins Best Supporting Actor for Oppenheimer Actor Robert Downey Jr won Best Supporting Male Actor – Motion Picture at the Golden Globes for his performance in the director Christopher Nolan’s biopic film Oppenheimer. This marks his fourth Golden Globe win after Short Cuts, Ally McBeal and Sherlock Holmes.

The Avengers actor received a standing ovation as he walked to the stage to receive his award. Taking to the stage, he said, “Yeah, yeah, I took a beta blocker so this will be a breeze.” 

The actor said he’s glad Universal “went all in” for Nolan and crew to “render a goddamn masterpiece”. He called it a “most improved” award and thanked his wife Susan, who’s “made an art out of extracting me from my comfort zone”.

The other actors nominated in the Best Supporting Male - Motion Picture category at the 81st Golden Globes were William Dafoe for Poor Things, Robert De Niro for Killers of the Flower Moon, Charles Melton for May December, Mark Ruffalo for Poor Things, and Ryan Gosling for Barbie.

Robert Downey Jr played the role of Lewis Strauss in Nolan’s biopic of the titular physicist (played by Cillian Murphy). Lewis Strauss played an important role in the development of the atomic bomb and later became a political rival of J Robert Oppenheimer.

Apart from Cillian Murphy and Robert Downey Jr, the film also stars Florence Pugh, Robert Downey Jr, Gary Oldman, Rami Malek, and Kenneth Branagh, among others.  Oppenheimer had clashed at the box office with the fantasy comedy Barbie on July 21 last year. The film was released to huge critical and commercial acclaim, becoming the highest-grossing biopic ever with more than $950 million worldwide gross.