My Thoughts on the 2026 Golden Globe Nominations!

My Thoughts on the 2026 Golden Globe Nominations!

Yesterday we got the 2026 Golden Globe nominations. In typical Golden Globe fashion it made me confused and I’m not sure what to take away from this. There’s some major snubs but also some big surprises in here. Let’s talk about it!

BIGGEST SURPRISES

• Emily Blunt (The Smashing Machine) in Supporting Actress: This is one that really surprised me. This is the winner for the most surprising nomination at the Golden Globes. When this movie premiered and prior to it coming out, people were thinking that maybe Emily Blunt can slip in a few places during awards season. Once the movie’s reviews came out and they weren’t great and the movie bombed people’s thinking of this happening went way down. The fact that she got in at the Golden Globes tells me that people love Emily Blunt and loved her enough to nominate her here. Do I agree with this nomination? She’s a great actress, I’m happy that in the 2020s she’s getting awards recognition. She was in Oppenheimer that won a whole bunch of awards, she was Oscar nominated for that movie. But I found her character to be the weakest part of that movie. I thought the writing for her character was bad, I found her to be insufferable. A character can be poorly written but can still be given a great performance and I think that’s true for Emily Blunt. She’s good in a role that didn’t give her much to do. If I had to guess, I think this’ll be the only place where we see Blunt show up this awards season. I could be wrong but I don’t think she gets in at the BAFTAs or SAG. If she gets in there then I think then maybe we have to consider her for the Oscar. But right now, this was a bit of a weird and shocking nomination that I don’t think anybody saw coming. I didn’t see anybody predicting her to get nominated.  

• Blue Moon, No Other Choice, and Nouvelle Vague in Best Picture (Comedy or Musical): This is another one of the more surprising ones that three of the nominees in the Best Picture (Comedy or Musical) were ones that people weren’t predicting at all. I heard some people hopedicting that No Other Choice will make it in. I think I had it as an honorable mention but I didn’t really think it would get in. The other two movies, Blue Moon and Nouvelle Vague are both Richard Linklater films. I hadn’t even heard of Nouvelle Vague until this morning when the nominations dropped. That one that just seems like out of nowhere and I’m so confused as to why that film has gotten not awards buzz anywhere else got in here. Blue Moon is surprising to me but not as surprising considering Ethan Hawke has been in the awards conversation all along, he got nominated here. I don’t know how much love Blue Moon will get at the Oscars. If I had to guess I think Hawke is the only one that gets in. But we’ll just have to wait and see. So far, this awards season has been so unpredictable and I don’t know what to expect anymore. 

BIGGEST SNUBS

• No Wicked: For Good in Best Picture (Comedy or Musical): The big snub that everybody is talking about is that Wicked: For Good didn’t get into Best Comedy or Musical which is a big deal. We’ll talk about this later, but that’s not a good sign for its Best Picture chances at the Oscars. I don’t wanna say it’s 100% done, but I think it’s on the outside looking in. I think it gets some nominations at SAG, I don’t think it gets many. BAFTA I don’t see it making much noise there. This one really surprised me. Despite the movie’s reviews not being the best, it’s the most popular musical of the year. It didn't get into a category with the musical in the title. That’s weird to me, I feel like it fits more into this category then One Battle After Another does. That movie being in the musical or Comedy category is weird to me. It has funny moments, but I wouldn’t label it as a comedy.  

• No Jay Kelly in Best Picture (Comedy or Musical): This is another big snub in the best comedy or musical category. Jay Kelly I thought was a lock in this category. I assumed that it was getting in, it was surging really well last week. It got into Best Picture at Critics Choice. I still think Jay Kelly has a better chance to get in at the Oscars for Best Picture than Wicked: For Good, but I also see a world where it doesn’t get in. I don’t know how well the movie will do at BAFTA. That film could get some nominations but I think it could also miss. I think it gets love at SAG, in particular with Clooney and Sandler. But not getting in here and only getting the acting nominations is a bit weird to me. I feel like you should’ve been in here somewhere. Granted, I haven’t seen a majority of the nominees. 

• No Marty Supreme love in Best Supporting Actress: This is on the smaller side. But one of the things that has sort of surprised me throughout awards season so far is that Marty Supreme hasn’t been doing great in the acting categories. Timothée has gotten everywhere. He seems to be the front runner to win the Oscar. I haven’t seen the movie, but I will see the movie before the end of the year. One of the things people have been talking about are the supporting actress performances in that movie. In particular with Gweynth Paltrow and Odessa A’zion, based on the word of mouth, A’zion is the better performance and deserves the nomination more than Paltrow. But Paltrow is the bigger name, she hasn’t really been in the awards conversation in nearly 30 years since Shakespeare in Love came out. I could see voters wanting to give Paltrow her flowers and recognition after 30 years. The fact that between the Critics Choice and Golden Globe nominations that neither one of them has shown up is surprising to me. 

• No Avatar: Fire and Ash or Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery love in Best Picture categories: This is another one that fits into what I was talking about with Wicked: For Good and Jay Kelly. Both Avatar: Fire and Ash and Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery didn’t get into the Best Picture categories despite both of the previous films getting in. Avatar: Fire and Ash did get love elsewhere. One of its nominations is “Cinematic and Box Office Achievement”. Which is really funny that the Golden Globes are predicting and guessing that Fire and Ash is going to be a big hit so they nominated the film before it’s made a single penny. Something about that is just really funny to me. At the same time, it’s very likely the film will make a lot of money and make sense to be nominated. The other film here is Wake Up Dead Man, which didn’t get any love at the Golden Globes. I don’t even think it was nominated anywhere at the Critics Choice. Which is really surprising and disappointing to me. I really dug the movie, I think it’s great and I think it deserves some nominations. One common thing between the two of them is both of these are third installments in franchises. I’m wondering if some of the mentality of voters is “we nominated the previous two movies, we didn’t nominate the third film”. Especially in the case of Avatar, we know a fourth and fifth are coming. Voters might think, ok let’s not nominate Fire and Ash but we’ll nominate the fourth and fifth when they come out to celebrate the franchise. I don’t think that’s fair, I think you should nominate a movie if it’s deserving no matter if it’s the third, forth, fifth, or even tenth movie in the franchise. There’s been exceptions over the years. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King won a whole bunch of Oscars. But that movie came out over 20 years ago and Lord of the Rings is a very special and unique cultural phenomenon in a way that Avatar and Knives Out aren’t. Next year, it makes me curious as to how well Dune: Part III will do at the awards season because it’s the third film in a franchise and based on this year, voters aren’t super kind to those movies. 

OSCAR IMPLICATIONS: Now that we have two of the big award ceremony nominees, we now have a pretty good idea as to what the front runners for the Oscars are. In this case of this awards season, I don’t really know who’s getting into Best Picture. As of right now, my top 7 are One Battle After Another, Hamnet, Sinners, Marty Supreme, Sentimental Value, Frankenstein, and Bugonia. I think those films are getting in and I feel confident about it. Then there’s about a six horse race for spots 8 through 10. I’m going through It Was Just an Accident, Jay Kelly, Train Dreams, The Secret Agent, Wicked: For Good, and Avatar: Fire and Ash. The tricky part about predicting the Best Picture nominees is getting the BAFTA nominees after the Oscars. We only have the SAG awards to determine what gets in at the Oscars. Given that the SAG Awards (I’m not calling it the Actors Awards) are focused on the acting categories, Best Picture isn’t really helped there. We shall wait and see what happens, who wins these categories and who wins at a lot of the smaller critics groups to determine who’ll be nominated at the Oscars.