'Emilia Pérez' leads Golden Globe nominations with 10, followed by 'The Brutalist' and 'Conclave'

Jacques Audiard’s audacious musical “Emilia Pérez,” about a Mexican drug lord who undergoes gender affirming surgery to become a woman, led nominations to the 82nd Golden Globes on Monday, scoring 10 nods to lead it over other contenders like the musical smash “Wicked,” the papal thriller “Conclave” and the post-war epic “The Brutalist.”

The nominations for Globes, which will be televised by CBS and streamed on Paramount+ on Jan. 5, were announced on Monday morning by Mindy Kaling and Morris Chestnut.

The embattled Globes, which are no longer presented by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, are still in comeback mode after years of scandal and organizational upheaval. Working in the Globes favor this year: a especially starry field of nominees. Zendaya, Timothée Chalamet, Angelina Jolie, Daniel Craig, Denzel Washington, Ariana Grande, Glen Powell and Selena Gomez all scored nominations.

The young Donald Trump drama “The Apprentice” also landed nominations for its two central performances, by Sebastian Stan as Trump and Jeremy Strong as Roy Cohn. The president elect has called “The Apprentice” a “politically disgusting hatchet job" made by "human scum.”

How much the recent president election will figure into Hollywood's awards season remains to be seen. In the season's first awards ceremony, the Gotham Awards, Trump went unmentioned but sometimes alluded to. Stan also received a nomination Monday for the dark comedy “A Different Man.”

While “Oppenheimer” and, to a lesser degree, “Barbie,” sailed into the Globes nominations as the clear heavyweights of awards season, no such frontrunner has emerged this year. The Globes don’t often align with the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, a much larger group that far more closely reflects the film industry. But they can give movies a major boost, and ripe fodder for their awards marketing.

Following “Emilia Pérez,” Brady Corbet’s “The Brutalist” landed seven nominations, including best picture, drama, and acting nods for Adrian Brody and Guy Pearce. The soon-to-be-released film, from A24, is uncommonly ambitious, with a runtime of three-and-a-half hours, including an intermission.

Close behind it was Edward Berger’s “Conclave,” starring Ralph Fiennes as a cardinal tasked with leading the conclave to elect a new pope. It landed six nominations, including best picture, drama, and acting nods for Fiennes and Isabella Rossellini.

Sean Baker's Palme d'Or-winning “Anora,” starring Mikey Madison as a Brooklyn sex worker who marries the son of a Russian Oligarch, was nominated for five awards, including best picture, comedy or musical, and best female actor for Madison and best supporting actor for Yura Borisov.

The Golden Globes will be hosted by comedian Nikki Glaser, who scored her own nomination for best stand-up special. CBS, which began airing the Globes last year on a new deal, will hope Glaser manages to do better than last year’s emcee, Jo Koy, whose stint was widely panned.

Here’s details from the nominations:

Who are this year's Globes nominees?

The nominees for best motion picture drama are: “The Brutalist”; “A Complete Unknown,”; “Conclave”; “Dune: Part Two”; “Nickel Boys;” “September 5.”

The nominees for best film musical or comedy are: “Wicked”; “Anora”; “Emilia Pérez”; “Challengers”; “A Real Pain”; “The Substance.”

The nominees for best male actor in a motion picture musical or comedy are: Jesse Eisenberg, “A Real Pain”; Hugh Grant, “Heretic”; Gabriel LaBelle, “Saturday Night; Jesse Plemons, “Kinds of Kindness”’ Glen Powell, “Hitman”; Sebastian Stan, “A Different Man.”

The nominees for best animated film are: “Flow”; “Inside Out 2”; “Memoir of a Snail”; “Moana 2”; “Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl”; “The Wild Robot.”

The nominees for cinematic and box office achievement are: “Alien: Romulus”; Beetlejuice Beetlejuice”; Deadpool & Wolverine”; “Gladiator II”; “Inside Out 2”; “Twisters”; “Wicked”; “The Wild Robot.”

The nominees for best original score: “Conclave”; “The Brutalist”; “The Wild Robot”; “Emilia Pérez”; “Challengers”; “Dune: Part Two.”

How about the TV categories?

The nominees for best television drama are: “Shogun”; “The Diplomat”; “Slow Horses”; “Mr. and Mrs. Smith”; “The Day of the Jackal”; “Squid Game.”

The nominees for TV series (comedy or musical) are: “Abbott Elementary”; “The Bear; “Hacks”; “Nobody Wants This”; “Only Murders in the Building”; “The Gentlemen.”

The nominees for best male actor in a drama series are: Donald Glover, “Mr. and Mrs. Smith”; Jake Gyllenhaal, “Presumed Innocent”; Gary Oldman, “Slow Horses”; Eddie Redmayne, “The Day of the Jackal”; Hiroyuki Sanada, “Shogun”; Billy Bob Thornton, “Landman.”

The nominees for female actor in a comedy series are: Kristen Bell, “Nobody wants This”; Quinta Brunson, “Abbott Elementary”; Ayo Edebiri, “The Bear”; Selena Gomez, “Only Murders in the Building”; Kathryn Hahn, “Agatha All Along”; Jean Smart, “Hacks.”

What’s new this year?

Last year, the Globes introduced two new categories that remain this time around: the cinematic and box office achievement award and the best performance in stand-up comedy on television. One tweak this time comes in the lifetime achievement awards. This year, those are going to Ted Danson (for the Carol Burnett Award) and Viola Davis (for the Cecil B. DeMille Award). Those will be handed out in a gala dinner on Friday, Jan. 3, several days before the Globes.

What’s the deal with the Golden Globes, anyway?

The Globes aren’t ever quite drama-free, but things have settled down for the embattled awards body. Last year’s Globes were the first after the disbanding of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association and their acquisition by Dick Clark Productions and billionaire Todd Boehly’s private equity firm Eldridge Industries. However, earlier this fall, the Ankler reported that former members of the HFPA filed a letter with the California Attorney General’s office questioning “the validity of the purchase.”

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