The biggest snubs and surprises from the 2023 Golden Globe nominations

Top Gun: Maverick got some love from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association in the original song and best picture categories, but one huge name was totally absent: Tom Cruise. Though Cruise deliberately and publicly burnt his bridge with the award show last year by returning his awards in protest of HFPA’s controversies, he was hardly the only person to disavow the show; Brendan Fraser, for example, still earned a nomination after publicly stating he wouldn’t attend the 2023 ceremony. [Drew Gillis]

Call it the Emily In Paris slot. Tim Burton’s new Netflix series is a populist favorite, to be sure, even if it lacks the critical prestige of fellow nominees like The Bear or Hacks. The field was wide open given that Ted Lasso’s second season was nominated for last year’s off-air Globes, but this site might have chosen another comedy to fill in the space. Still, Jenna Ortega is undeniably a rising star, so we imagine her performance nomination is the first of many for an actor with a bright career ahead of her. [Mary Kate Carr]

Remember this one? Perhaps this is not so much of a snub given the film’s dismal reviews, but more of a reminder of how much a clunker Amsterdam was despite having all the ingredients of an awards season contender: a strong trio of lead actors (Christian Bale, Margot Robbie, and Denzel Washington…’s son), an Oscar-favorite writer-director (David O. Russell), a semi-historical story, and Taylor Swift (perhaps if she had contributed a song, rather than a performance, this movie could have eked out a nod). What seemed back when it was first announced as a sure-fire hit will instead be a footnote in this year’s cinematic record. [Mary Kate Carr]

To call Andrew Dominik’s Blonde divisive would be an understatement, so it’s not shocking that the film was largely passed over by the HFPA. However, despite the film’s 42% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, star Ana de Armas’ performance was largely acclaimed and carried the actor to a Golden Globe nomination. The awards-bait ghost stories appear to have worked after all. [Drew Gillis]

Much has been said about whether award season voters will be willing to accept Will Smith back into the fold for Emancipation. In the case of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, it looks like they will not, despite early acclaim for Smith’s performance. Smith himself has said he hopes his cast and crew’s hard work will be recognized in spite of his actions, but the shadow of The Slap—or perhaps the film’s overall mixed reviews—shut Emancipation out of Globes contention altogether. [Mary Kate Carr]

One of the unique features of the Golden Globes is that its divided categories, for dramas and musicals/comedies, open up the field to a wider array of films and performances. That’s how we get some surprise nods for Anya Taylor-Joy and Ralph Fiennes in The Menu, a horror-comedy that may not otherwise have reached the lofty status of awards contention. However, it’s been a prime year for horror (Barbarian fans may wish that it, rather than The Menu, got the Globes’ attention), so it feels fitting to acknowledge that, even for a film that came out so late in the year. [Mary Kate Carr]

…That being said, a more obvious choice to acknowledge the horror genre would have been Jordan Peele’s Nope, which did not garner any nominations despite being one of the year’s biggest hits (and with comparable critical reception to The Menu). Daniel Kaluuya, Keke Palmer, and Steven Yeun all turned in strong, memorable performances worthy of recognition. Perhaps since the film wasn’t an overt horror comedy, it didn’t fit into even the Globes’ wider categories. The drama field was tough to crack this year, but it’s a shame to see a film that still has audiences talking and dissecting be shut out completely. [Mary Kate Carr]

Netflix has clearly been pouring a lot of effort into its campaign for Dahmer, but the reception, at least online, has not been particularly warm. Dahmer was one of Netflix’s biggest series ever (aren’t they all?) but it also ended up the subject of some (deserved) backlash when it was revealed that none of the real-life victims’ families agreed to talk to the series. In a year when the Globes are on something of an apology tour, it’s something of a surprise that they would willingly wade into a controversy like this one. [Drew Gillis]

Someone get Natalie Portman up on the stage. This is another unsurprising snub, given both the entire history of cinema in general and the contenders that have risen to the top of this year’s conversation specifically. Still, it’s disappointing that after many years of discussion on the topic and the Globes’ purported commitment to diversity that the directing nominees are nearly all white men (the exception being Everything Everywhere All At Once’s Daniel Kwan). Gina Prince-Bythewood’s The Woman King only received attention through its lead actor (Viola Davis), and Women Talking writer-director Sarah Polley was nominated only for the film’s screenplay. That’s to say nothing of some of the year’s other female directors, such as Chinonye Chukwu (Till), Alice Diop (Saint Omer), Maria Schrader (She Said), and more. [Mary Kate Carr]

For this year’s TV dramas, network series were largely left out of the conversation, reifying a decade-plus trend of highlighting prestige cable and streaming series. There was one person, however, who was able to buck the trend and earn a nomination for Best Actress: two-time Oscar winner Hillary Swank. Swank’s nomination indicates that it’s not totally over for network television—if they can find a way to attract prestige-level talent. [Drew Gillis]

Season two of The White Lotus got some much-deserved attention, but when it came to the acting categories, the Golden Globes mostly hewed to the anthology’s most recognizable names: Jennifer Coolidge, Aubrey Plaza, and F. Murray Abraham. Unfortunately absent was the season’s breakout star, who, just hours before the nominations were announced, earned raves across social media for her skilled, subtle work in the season finale. This certainly won’t be the last time we hear the name Meghann Fahy, but it would have been nice to see her get some love for her work in Sicily. [Drew Gillis]