Top 10 Goofiest Golden Globe Nominations of the 21st Century
Sunday, February 7, 2021 at 9:00PM by Christopher James
If the awards season were members of your family at the Thanksgiving table, the Golden Globes would be your delightfully kooky Great Aunt. She always brings a bottle of great wine, wears loud colored clothes and tells stories of the scandals of distant family members of generations ago. She'll always manage to surprise you in new, yet similar ways.
What would the Golden Globes be without their penchant for movie stars, musicals with extra glitter and star vehicles that may or may not exist? More than anything, the Golden Globes love to surprise. In honor (and in some cases dishonor) of this weeks’ nominations, let's rank the 10 Goofiest Golden Globe nominations of the past two decades.
Please note: This does not mean 10 worst nods. These are just the 10 that were the most head-scratching based on the season they happened in...
Kate Winslet received pies and a Golden Globe nomination (but little else) for her work in "Labor Day."Kate Winslet - Labor Day (2013)
In order to write this blurb, I rewatched the trailer for Labor Day and I highly recommend everyone else follow suit. A year in advance, this felt like Winslet’s next ticket to an Oscar nomination. However, with each new still, trailer and clip, it became crystal clear that Labor Day would be a mess. Before even opening, Winslet nabbed a Best Actress nomination in a stacked Drama lineup. Once the film was released in January, critics and audiences were in agreement. It was bad news for Labor Day, aka Kate Winslet’s journey in sensual pie making.
Before she was Emily in Paris, Lily Collins was Marla in Hollywood in "Rules Don't Apply."Lily Collins - Rules Don’t Apply (2016)
This isn’t Emily in Paris’ first rodeo. The Globes first honored Lily Collins for her role in the infamous bomb Rules Don’t Apply. Collins played Marla Mabrey, a religious actress who is caught in a love triangle between Howard Hughes and his driver. Try ignoring the 52 year age gap between Collins and Warren Beatty’s Howard Hughes. We know the HFPA loves their movie stars, but it’s unclear why they went for Collins instead of Beatty in his far-from-triumphant return to screen. Maybe the rules really don’t apply.
The only people asking "Where'd You Go, Bernadette?" were Hollywood Foreign Press members.Cate Blanchett - Where’d You Go, Bernadette (2019)
Cate Blanchett is perfect, her movies are not. In Richard Linklater’s adaptation of the bestselling novel of the same name, Blanchett plays an eccentric Seattle mother who drops off the grid to go on an adventure. It turns out, the best place Blanchett’s Bernadette could’ve hid was in any of the empty movie theaters in August 2019. The movie flopped and quickly left theaters. Only the Globes remembered Blanchett and her unplaceable accent in Where’d You Go, Bernadette.
Yes, Tropic Thunder had Oscar buzz. Robert Downey Jr. was nominated at the Golden Globes on his way to an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor. However, who knew the Globes' love for the film would extend to Tom Cruise’s surprise cameo-esque role as deranged studio mogul Les Grossman? Cruise hams it up in a fat suit throughout the film and is terrific fun. Yet, he was far from the awards conversation throughout the year. This nomination also happened in the supporting category where drama and comedy compete against one another, so the competition is usually pretty fierce. Lastly, if the Globes loved the movie enough to nominate Cruise alongside Downey Jr., it’s wild that Tropic Thunder didn’t make it into any of the categories where Musical/Comedy are separated from Drama, including Best Picture.
Jonah Hill found his way into the Comedy/Musical race for "War Dogs" in 2016.6. Jonah Hill - War Dogs (2016)
The Golden Globes are my favorite voting group. That’s simply because the Golden Globes are essentially a random poll of anyone over 70 at an art house theater at 2pm on a Sunday. So why have my beloved Landmark wine Goddesses chosen Jonah Hill in a film called War Dogs. According to reputable sources such as IMDB, Wikipedia and my few straight male friends, the movie is about guns. Sure, at this point Hill had two Oscar nominations under his belt. However, the Globes didn’t go for him for The Wolf of Wall Street, so why did they catch up to him here?
"And they're in Yemen" - Kristen Wiig and Will Ferrell in one of my favorite Golden Globes bits of all time.5. Salmon Fishing in the Yemen (2012)
It’s no secret that the Globes prefer musicals over comedies in the Comedy/Musical field. What isn’t talked about enough is how much they enjoy a “pleasant movie.” These movies are neither funny, nor dramatic and certainly not musical. They hum along, make you smile and sometimes lull you to sleep. The HFPA loves a good pleasant movie. There’s no better way to describe Salmon Fishing in the Yemen. The genial romance opened in March of 2012, barely causing a peep from critics or audiences. When it showed up nine months later with Best Picture, Actor (Ewan McGregor) and Actress (Emily Blunt) nominations, pundits were shocked. However, we should never doubt the Globes’ love for Emily Blunt or quiet little romances.
"Infinitely Polar Bear" received strong reviews out of Sundance and had a small theatrical run in summer. 4. Mark Ruffalo - Infinitely Polar Bear (2015)
I’m not 1,000% sure I got the title right and will never feel confident about it. The film stars Mark Ruffalo as a Father struggling with bipolar disorder who attempts to win his wife back. The Sundance Grand Jury Prize nominee received strong reviews and decent indie box office in the summer of 2015. However, people had forgotten the movie by the time awards season began. The few small groups who remembered it (Black Reel Awards, NAACP Image Awards and Women’s Image Network Awards) all singled out Zoe Saldana. Ruffalo was far out of the conversation, even among indie circles. The Globes don’t often go for Sundance movies at the same rate that Oscar does. That’s what made this nomination so strange.
Despite competing in 2010 "Frankie & Alice" was not released until 20143. Halle Berry - Frankie & Alice (2010)
Has Frankie & Alice been released yet? On paper, the film seemed like a strong awards play for Halle Berry. Based on a true story, Berry played Frankie, a go-go dancer in 1970s LA who suffers from dissociative identity disorder. In practice, the film had a long road to release. Filmed in 2008, it was given an awards qualifying run in December 2010, which is when the Globes nominated the film. If you did not catch the film during that one week in LA, you were out of luck. The film wasn’t given a proper release to the public until April 2014, four years after Berry’s nomination. Any buzz the film once had long dissipated by that time. The movie failed to even crack $1 million at the box office.
The amount of searches for "Kate Hudson in Music" must've spiked at 5:30am PST on Wednesday morning when the Golden Globe nominations were announced.2. Music (2020)
Few people had heard about Music, written and directed by Sia, before Golden Globe nominations were announced on Wednesday. The few that were aware of the film were not happy about it. Featuring 10 original songs, the movie tells the story of a recovering drug addict (Golden Globe Nominee Kate Hudson) who becomes the sole guardian of her autistic half-sister, Music (Maddie Ziegler). Currently, the film holds a sub-30% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. No one had on their 2021 bingo card that a bald Kate Hudson would get nominated for a movie directed by Sia where she plays a character named Zu. Once you get past the goofiness of the Music nominations, it just makes you mad. The film has faced multiple controversies around casting a neurotypical actor (Maddie Ziegler) for the role of an autistic child, a scene where restraint is used on an autistic character and Sia’s own response to the criticism. We know the HFPA loves musicals...but at what cost?
Of course we have to talk about "The Tourist."1. All Choices in 2010 Other Than The Kids Are All Right
I admire the HFPA for absolutely going for it in 2010. Every choice in the Comedy/Musical section, outside of eventual Best Picture nominee The Kids Are All Right, leaves one scratching their head. Let’s start with Best Picture:
- Alice in Wonderland: I guess a billion dollars will buy you a Best Picture nomination at the Globes. Especially with 11 years distance, it’s hard to think of an uglier mainstream blockbuster. The reviews also weren’t kind to it at the time, but Depp’s Mad Hatter became a cultural (and gift shop) mainstay. Aren’t we all happy to be out of that time?
- Burlesque: Easily the second best nominee in the category, and not just because I will gladly vote for any movie that has Cher say “wagon wheel watoosie.” The HFPA has never met a musical they haven’t loved, so its inclusion makes sense here. If we learned anything from Burlesque, the sky's the limits, especially if you have the air rights.
- Red: Pardon me, what? The action-comedy earned decent reviews and strong box office. Yet, the Globes don’t often look at action movies. Yes, they are eternally devoted to Dame Helen Mirren. Yet, they didn’t even bother to nominate Mirren for Actress, and they’ll nominate her for anything, even if the movie doesn’t exist.
- The Tourist: The Johnny Depp-Angelina Jolie romantic-thriller bomb was already a punchline before it earned three Globe nominations. I have so many questions. How? Did they watch the movie? How can a movie be a comedy when it has zero attempts at jokes? How can a movie be considered a musical if there are no songs? It takes great talent to make movie stars like Depp and Jolie look so wooden and uncomfortable. No matter which way you squint your eyes, The Tourist is a Razzie-level movie that somehow was a huge hit with HFPA. Anyways, I hope the bribe was good.
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The acting categories repeat many of the same offenses we saw in Best Picture. Depp gets nominated twice, something that had aged poorly the minute it was uttered on nomination morning. Jolie isn’t the only big name that gets roped in for an invite. Love & Other Drugs co-stars Anne Hathaway and Jake Gyllenhaal make the cut for their charming, nudity-filled This Had Oscar Buzz type movie. Yet, one of the most perplexing nominees is easily Kevin Spacey for something called Casino Jack. No part of me wants to Google “Kevin Spacey Casino Jack.”
Helen Mirren surprised everyone and no one at the same time when she earned a nomination for "The Leisure Seeker."While far from shocking, we also need to give a special Cecil B. DeMille Award to the goofiest string of Golden Globe nominations to Dames Helen Mirren and Maggie Smith. Some people say the HFPA will nominate Meryl Streep for anything, and they (almost) will. Still, all of Meryl’s Globe nominations were plausible and had some degree of Oscar buzz. If we were to name the HFPA’s favorite actors, it would undoubtedly be a neck-and-neck race between Dames Helen Mirren and Maggie Smith. Obviously both actresses have done incredible work in the past twenty years, even earning a couple Oscar nominations a piece. However, the Globes will truly nominate them for anything and everything.
For Helen Mirren, the Globes have bolstered her chances for performances that came close to Oscar, like Hitchcock (2012) and Trumbo (2015). However, few were expecting The Hundred-Foot Journey (2014) or Calendar Girls (2003) to show up at other award shows. In fact, no one even knew who or what The Leisure Seeker (2017) was until it randomly appeared in 2018. Sidenote: who classifies an Alzehimer’s road trip as a “Comedy/Musical?” Only the Globes!
The same could be said about Maggie Smith, who notoriously will not show up no matter how many times you nominate her. A Globes nomination for The Lady in the Van (2015) makes sense as she was in the hunt for an Oscar that year. However, as legendary presenting duo Will Ferrell and Kristen Wiig noted, no one knows about Quartet (2012).
What are the strangest or goofiest Golden Globe nominations you remember from the millennium? Let us know in the comments below.
Reader Comments (34)
Goldie Hawn in The Banger Sisters
Quvenzhane Wallis in Annie
Kevin Spacey in Beyond the Sea
Those weird St. Vincent nominations
If I remember correctly BURLESQUE was nominated for best comedy/musical, but Cher was not nominated for Actress right?
Don't remind me of Kevin Spacey in Beyond the Sea.... GODDAMN!!!!! I hate that fucking movie. It was so smug and so awards-baiting and it had one of the worst endings to a film that didn't deserve that ending.
some of these were so strange that i had totally forgotten they were nominated and didn't believe you and had to double check. THAT'S HOW BIZARRE. Like, Rules Don't Apply and War Dogs... ARE YOU SURE, CHRISTOPHER? 🤣
Having two American films compete in foreign language film in one year -- Letters from Iwo Jima by Clint(!) and Apocalypto from Mel(!!) -- it's like they're trying to push the boundaries of their own rules and mess with us! Respect the troll!
This writeup is perfect. I agree with all of your choices and appreciate your sense of humor.
People like to joke about the HFPA taking bribes, but reading this list makes the bribery explanation nonsensical.
A successful bribe needs parties willing to pay as well as parties willing to accept and be influenced. The result would represent the largest or best bribes.
What backers thought using their bribe account for these films would be a good investment? If bribe accounts existed, would these nominations be likely to have been the largest bribe offer?
Love this post!! I agree with all the mentions above.
The Banger Sisters is assembly-line studio product, which is why it's doubly surprising that Goldie Hawn is so excellent and deserved her nomination.
"That’s simply because the Golden Globes are essentially a random poll of anyone over 70 at an art house theater at 2pm on a Sunday."
DEAD.
Best take on Jonah Hill's nom for WAR DOGS ever. You and me and the Landmark wine goddesses any time, Chris.
I laughed so much at some of these. Thank you for the great write-up, Chris.
Watching Kristen Wiig and Will Ferrell announce those nominees is the single-funniest moment I’ve ever watched at an awards show. (It also gave birth to the grumpy Tommy Lee Jones meme.) I seriously wish they could host some ceremony in that vibe.
LOL at Helen Mirren's movies that doesn't actually exist. I didn't know back then what the Hundred-Foot Journey was and to this day I haven't mustered the will to find out.
Frankie and Alice was also inexplicable. It's like the Globes want to be first so desperately they'd nominate anything that has a famous person in it and hasn't opened yet, just 'cause, you know, maybe it lands. No shame.
I agree with your picks. Just for fun I'd add Christoph Waltz for Big Eyes (total filler nod) and Al Pacino for Danny Collins (??) as some of the Globiest nominations of these past decades. Also Simon Helberg from The Big Bang Theory got nominated for Florence Foster Jenkins? I felt like we all erased that one from memory.
I might be in the minority but I would have loved to see Cruise nominated and win the Oscar, for Tropic Thunder. It was a total self-aware reimagination of his career that could have easily backfired.
WInslet in "Labor Day" is GREAT, one of her best roles, to be honest, so putting her on this list is ridiculous. :)
by the way, just learned Bakalova also won London Film Critics... which kind of underlines my suspiction she's the BAFTA frontrunner... GG + BAFTA may convince AMPAS winners they should nominate and maybe give her the Oscar?
I have to ask it somewhere. Finally I've seen Hillbilly Elegy. Someone can argue why is a bad movie, please? And creepy makeup is not an answer
"We know the HFPA loves musicals...but at what cost?"
I don't know. We didn't see it yet and Internet controversy are not reviews. Personally I'm very curious about this project
Not to mention the inexplicable Aaron Taylor Johnson win for Nocturnal Animals.
@PP
for me the fact is a mediocre film is because it feels uninspired, plus the message is quite ugly... it's based on a real story written by the central character in real life... the message of the book and the film basically tells that there is no excuse to not achieve success and doesn't feel real compassion to the weaknesses of her mother and her grandmother, and therefore there is no excuse to not overcome all the hurdles that life could throw at you, because if he could... then everybody should. At least I understood it like that, it lacks compassion, understanding and empathy with the characters and comes out as a man bitching about his family and how miserable it is... that is how I understood it.
I saw that Blanchett movie theatrically.
"Not to mention the inexplicable Aaron Taylor Johnson win for Nocturnal Animals."
Well, actually it was totally explicable. He was very good in this movie and deserved the win. :)
"I don't know. We didn't see it yet and Internet controversy are not reviews. Personally I'm very curious about this project"
I thought the same thing. Who cares about controversies? Controversies are for morons who don't have their own lifes and therefore make lifes of other people miserable.
He's a few that I thought of on reading this funny article,not necessarily all bad just why?
Nathan Lane The Producers
John Travolta Hairspray
Renee Zellweger Miss Potter
Diane Lane Under the Tuscan Sun
Julia Roberts Charlie Wilson's War
Scarlett Johansson A Love song for Bobby Long
Annette Benning The Report
Brenda Blethyn Saving Grace
Johnny Depp Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Ashley Judd De Lovely
Jodie Foster Carnage
John Cameron Mitchell Hedwig
William H. Macy Seabiscuit
Beyonce Knowles Dreamgirls
That KATE Nom was well deserved, hoped that she will popp up this Year, too fpr Ammonite, but she doesn´t. She is so brillant. But she is shortlistet for a satellite Award and longlisted for the BAFTAS. Hope she can sneak in. Bad Timing. Female Categoriy is so rich this Year. Last Year she wold definitly sneak in. Can we have her back Academy? 1 Time after her Oscar win in 12 Years breaks my hart, especially since Meryl Streep gets in for less effektive Achievements.
Personally, I thought Aaron Taylor Johnson was better than Michael Shannon in Nocturnal Animals and his Globe nomination was well deserved.
I also think that he would be a deserving Oscar nominee, in spite of being a strong year (Patel, Bridges, Hedges and Ali were all good nominees).
Christopher, your writing is a tonic for the funny bone. Thank you!
I don't remember what "Salmon Fishing in the Yemen" is about, but I do remember watching it on a plane and getting teary eyed. There's something about traveling that makes me emotional. It happened as well while watching "The Way, Way Back."
I would never be a member of this.
Say what you will about the messiness, but I respect the Globes way more than any other awards group for unapologetically standing firm in their identity as an awards body.
This list is wholly entertaining, though. I feel like there could definitely be a Pt. II and III and shit, probably a IV too. lol.
Christopher James is to humorous pieces as Claudio Alves is to poetic emotive pieces.
Julia Roberts - Duplicity.
@ Jesus Alonso: You missed the entire point of "Hillbilly Elegy" then. I wouldn't expect you to understand its American themes anyways.
@Yolanda: I am so incredibly flattered. Any comparison to Claudio's beautiful writing is a win in my book.