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 From the movie version of
rap-infused musical "Hamilton" to LGBTQ musical
"The Prom" and director nods for three women,
the nominations - which kick off the Hollywood
awards season - recognized social justice issues
and performers of color in a U.S. entertainment
industry that critics have long complained is
dominated by white men.
The contest for the best drama movie will also
include modern Great Recession saga "Nomadland,"
1960s Vietnam War protest drama "The Trial of
the Chicago 7," #MeToo revenge fantasy
"Promising Young Woman," and family drama "The
Father" about aging.
Sacha Baron Cohen's satire on former President
Donald Trump's America, "Borat Subsequent
Moviefilm;" "Hamilton;" "The Prom;" autism story
"Music;" and time-loop comedy "Palm Springs"
will compete in a separate category for movie
musicals and comedies.
For television, British royal family series "The
Crown," whose season focused on the late
Princess Diana, led the way with six nods,
including for most of its main cast, followed by
quirky small-town comedy "Schitt's Creek."
Netflix Inc beat all comers in both film, with
22 nominations, and television, with 20. The
tally followed a year in which the pandemic led
Hollywood studios to push back dozens of their
film releases or put them on streaming services.
Amazon Studios got seven nominations in the
movie field.
Three of the five directors nominated were
women, including Regina King for "One Night in
Miami," about a meeting of four Black icons in
the 1960s; Britain's Emerald Fennell for
"Promising Young Woman" and Chinese-born
filmmaker Chloe Zhao for "Nomadland."
Variety calculated that a record 30% of the
acting nominees in the film categories were
nonwhite.
They included Viola Davis and the late Chadwick
Boseman, in his last film role, the jazz period
piece "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom;"
British-Pakistani actor Riz Ahmed as a drummer
going deaf in "Sound of Metal;" Andra Day for
her role in "The United States vs. Billie
Holiday;" and Dev Patel for his modern twist on
Charles Dickens' "The Personal History of David
Copperfield."
"Without question, things are changing," said
actor Leslie Odom Jr., who performed in
"Hamilton," "Music" and "One Night in Miami"
where he played singer-songwriter Sam Cooke.
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 "The table is getting longer,
the room is getting larger, and the lens is
finding new people and new interesting stories
to tell," Odom said in a phone interview.
Foreign language film nods went to "Minari,
about a South Korean family trying to make it in
the United States; elder love story "Two of Us"
from France; "The Life Ahead" starring Italian
legend Sophia Loren; Danish drinking comedy
"Another Round" and "La Llorona," a ghostly
drama from Guatemala and France.
QUIRKY CHOICES
The Hollywood Foreign Press Association, which
selects the nominees and winners, is known for
its sometimes quirky choices, and this year was
no exception. Spike Lee's critically acclaimed
Vietnam War drama "Da 5 Bloods" was shut out
completely, the little-seen "Music" got two nods
and perennial acting favorite Meryl Streep was
excluded while her "The Prom" co-star James
Corden was among the nominees.
The Golden Globes are to be handed out at a
virtual ceremony on Feb. 28, hosted by actors
Tina Fey in New York and Amy Poehler in Los
Angeles.
"Despite a stressed pandemic year, there is a
comfort of sorts in embracing traditions," said
"Mank" star Gary Oldman of the ceremony.
It was a good day for Baron Cohen, who won
nominations both for his "Borat" sequel and for
his supporting role as counterculture leader
Abbie Hoffman in "The Trial of the Chicago 7."
"These two films are different, but they share a
common theme: Sometimes we have to protest
injustice with our own farce," Baron Cohen said
in a statement.
Aaron Sorkin, who was nominated for directing
and writing "The Trial of the Chicago 7," said
the film had struck an even greater contemporary
chord than he envisaged after a year of
political unrest in the United States.
"This has been a film 15 years in the making,"
Sorkin said in a phone interview. "I always
wanted the film to be about today and not 1968.
I just never imagined how much about today it
would end up being."
(Reporting by Jill Serjeant and Lisa Richwine;
editing by Jonathan Oatis and Richard Chang)
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