The Film Experience

Updated/Revised

While the Golden Globes are famous for not repeating themselves when it comes to TV honors (and thus earning our love because the world desperately needs the anti-Emmys). But this is not to say that they don't have favorite performers. The Globes, like every other awards body, have their personal pets, their default players, and their great loves. The names just don't totally line up with any other awards body... which is how it should be. Any awards group that seeks to share the same taste with another group (or predict it) would be immediately dismantled in a perfect awards world.

The Reunion. Why can't they make a movie together every 5 years or so?

We had a reminder last night of four performers who know Golden Globe Love biblically. They know its scent, its desperation, its passion, its tenderness, even its cool rebukes (well, not Jennifer Lawrence yet. So far it's all rose petals and til death do us part promises). Denzel Washington received his third Golden Globe (the Cecil B Demille), Jennifer Lawrence received her third consecutive Globe for working with David O. Russell. And those Titanic lovebirds Kate Winslet & Leonardo DiCaprio received their fourth and third Globe trophies respectively.

The single best bit of the night actually skewered our obsession with more and more that awards shows and statistical madness thrive on. Jim Carrey was killing it as he perpetually described himself as two time Golden-Globe winning actor Jim Carrey.

More...

And when I dream I don't just dream any old dream. No sir. I dream about being three time Golden Globe winning actor Jim Carrey.

Because then I would be enough.

It would finally be true.

And I could stop this terrible search for what I know ultimately won't fulfill me."

As much as we love some of the performers who make up the list of Most Globe Beloved it remains a fascinating mystery why some stars are just trophy magnets, as if no amount of hardware is enough to convince them our love is true, whereas others are expected to accept that our love is true though we deny them hardware and pat them on the back repeatedly with nominations.

But let's not get too philosophical about this.

Are Leo & Jennifer & Kate & Denzel the most popular actors ever with the HFPA? The answer is "no" but it's not far from "yes" since they all easily make the top 40 most beloved list. "The top 40 what?" you ask. I know it's a shock to discover a list here at The Film Experience but discover it you have dear reader.

Only actors with 3 or more acting trophies from the HFPA were considered for this list and only acting stats were included. That means Barbra Streisand, for example, is even more buried in Globes than this list implies, since they also like her as a director and singer. Any people like Streisand who have additional nominations or awards but not for acting have a * by their name. An old award the Globes used to give called "The Henrietta" was factored into this hierarhy too though not in totality. I didn't know what to do with Liz Taylor, for example. She only won one competitive Globe but they gave her three special prizes but I still left her off the list because only winning once competitively -- with a stingy nomination tally -- didn't feel like the right kind of love for this list even though they foung excuses to honor her somehow. I thought it was only fair to include TV because, unlike the Emmys, the Globes do not reward any actor several times for playing the same character.

ALL TIME FAVORITE ACTORS OF THE GOLDEN GLOBES

Meryl the Prophetess, one year ago.

Disclaimer/CrowdSourcing: It's possible I forgot someone as the initial list (pre-research) came mostly from memories of Globe ceremonies and general Globe knowledge after which I fact-checked individual histories. So if you see someone missing who has won at least 3 times for acting, let me know. But if this list is imperfect it's still perfectly true in its devotions.

01 Meryl Streep 29 nominations | 8 wins
02 Jack Nicholson 16 nominations | 6 wins | 1 special prize
03 Shirley Maclaine 19 nominations | 5 wins | 2 special prizes
04 Barbra Streisand* 9 nominations | 2 wins | 5 special prizes

Jane Fonda enjoying her 12th nomination with her son Troy Garity (remember that great TV movie he did "Soldier Girl"?)

16 Kate Winslet 11 nominations | 4 wins

17 Tom Hanks 8 nominations | 4 wins
[tie] Sarah Jessica Parker 8 nominations | 4 wins
[tie] Bette Midler 8 nominations | 4 wins
[tie] Helen Hunt 8 nominations | 4 wins

... SJP is the notable exception to the Globe rule that it's tough to win repeatedly for the same role. She won all 4 of her Globes for playing Carrie Bradshaw.

"Raw Bison Liver" is the new “Tracheotomy” pic.twitter.com/2HpjLshiPt
— Nathaniel Rogers (@nathanielr) January 11, 2016

Looks like Leonardo DiCaprio will finally be winning an Oscar. Those "we nearly died out there!" stories from the making of The Revenant really have hooked the media. So Leo will finally get his Oscar.

26 Leonardo DiCaprio 11 nominations | 3 wins
[tie] Ted Danson 11 nominations | 3 wins
[tie] Alec Baldwin 11 nominations | 3 wins

29 Nicole Kidman 10 nominations | 3 wins

Cate finds this statistic amusing, don't you?

30 Kelsey Grammar 9 nominations | 3 wins
[Tie] Mary Tyler Moore 9 nominations | 3 wins
[Tie] Cate Blanchett 9 nominations | 3 wins

...and yes this last one qualifies as the strangest triple time tie-mates of all time

33 Julia Roberts 8 nominations | 3 wins
34 Tom Cruise 7 nominations | 3 wins
35 Angelina Jolie 6 nominations | 3 wins
[tie] Renée Zellweger 6 nominations | 3 wins

37 Jennifer Lawrence 4 nominations | 3 wins

I hope Denzel doesn't half-assedly come out as a lesbian
— Seth Abramovitch (@SethAbramovitch) January 11, 2016

...one of the best jokes on Twitter last night when Denzel's Cecil B DeMille presentation began was this one from Seth. It's in reference to that very curious Jodie Foster speech from a few years back that we discussed at length on these pages. Brilliant joke and even better in hindsight (though I'm sure Seth didn't know this because who is insane enough to have committed this to memory) when you realize that these Inside Man co-stars have the EXACT SAME GOLDEN GLOBE STATS.