45 Fun Facts About Golden Globes

Which music biopic beat A Star Is Born to win Best Motion Picture – Drama at the 2019 Golden Globes?

Bohemian Rhapsody won even though its director, Bryan Singer, was fired during filming; Dexter Fletcher finished the shoot while Singer kept sole credit.

The first Golden Globes were held during which war?

World War II: the first ceremony, in January 1944 at 20th Century Fox, handed out scrolls, because the globe statuette wasn't designed until the following year.

Which hotel's International Ballroom hosts the Golden Globes each year?

The Beverly Hilton: in 1987 it was bought by entertainer Merv Griffin, who created the game shows Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune.

Which pop star won the 1997 Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy?

Madonna won for playing Eva Perón in Evita, yet the Oscars didn't nominate her, even as the film's song 'You Must Love Me' won Best Original Song.

Which film set a Golden Globes record in 2017 by winning all seven of its nominations?

La La Land swept all seven, then was wrongly announced as Best Picture at the Oscars before the envelope mix-up was caught and Moonlight named the winner.

Which 1975 Robert Altman film received a record 11 Golden Globe nominations?

Nashville earned 11 nominations at the 1976 ceremony but won only one, for Keith Carradine's 'I'm Easy', which also took the Oscar for Best Original Song.

As of 2025, which performer holds the record for the most Golden Globe nominations?

Meryl Streep used her 2017 Cecil B. DeMille Award speech to condemn Donald Trump's imitation of a disabled reporter, and Trump called her 'over-rated'.

In 2010, who became the first host of the Golden Globes since 1995?

Ricky Gervais's 2011 jokes at the nominees' expense drew complaints, yet he was back to host for a third straight year in 2012.

Which comedy duo hosted the Golden Globes three years running from 2013 to 2015?

Tina Fey and Amy Poehler hosted in 2013, 2014 and 2015, then returned in 2021 for a pandemic show with Fey in New York and Poehler in California.

Who was the second recipient, in 1953, of the Golden Globes' film lifetime achievement award?

Walt Disney followed Cecil B. DeMille, whose name went on the award because the press association wanted it to carry an internationally recognized and respected name.

Who became the first woman to receive the Cecil B. DeMille Award, in 1962?

Judy Garland was honoured 12 years after MGM suspended her contract, following her repeated failures to report for work.

Which star received the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 1982, 18 years after winning the Best Actor Oscar?

Sidney Poitier had moved behind the camera by then, directing Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder in the 1980 comedy Stir Crazy.

Which actress received the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2021, 41 years after her father did?

Jane Fonda bought the rights to On Golden Pond for her father, Henry, and the role won him the Best Actor Oscar.

The Golden Globes' TV lifetime-achievement award, first presented in 2019, is named after which comedian?

Carol Burnett accepted the first one herself; on her variety show she tugged her ear at the end of each episode as a message to her grandmother.

For which film did Barbra Streisand win the Golden Globe for Best Director?

Yentl made Streisand the first woman to win the directing Globe, yet the Academy left her out of its Best Director nominations.

Who became the second woman to win the Best Director Golden Globe, in 2021?

Chloé Zhao cast real nomads as versions of themselves in Nomadland, and two months later she won the Best Director Oscar as well.

Which actor won the 2021 Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Drama posthumously?

Chadwick Boseman won six months after dying of colon cancer, an illness he had kept private while he went on making films.

Which film received the first Golden Globe for Cinematic and Box Office Achievement in 2024?

Barbie won it, yet weeks later Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie were left out of the Oscar races for Best Director and Best Actress.

Which film led the 2024 Golden Globes with five wins, including Best Motion Picture, Drama?

Oppenheimer went to Universal after Christopher Nolan split with Warner Bros., unhappy that it had put its 2021 films on HBO Max the same day as in cinemas.

Which Killers of the Flower Moon star won Best Actress – Drama at the 2024 Golden Globes?

Lily Gladstone opened her acceptance speech in Blackfeet, the language of the community that raised her, before switching to English.

Which comedian hosted the 2024 Golden Globes, drawing poor reviews for his monologue?

Jo Koy later admitted he'd be lying if he said the backlash to his monologue didn't hurt.

Who became the first woman to host the Golden Globes solo, in January 2025?

Nikki Glaser hosted the 82nd ceremony in January 2025, the first woman to do it alone; nominated the same night for her special Someday You'll Die, she lost to Ali Wong and was invited back for 2026.

Which film became the most-nominated musical or comedy in Golden Globes history, with 10 nods in 2025?

Emilia Pérez won four Globes, but resurfaced offensive tweets by its star, Karla Sofía Gascón, soon got her sidelined from the film's Oscar campaign.

Flow, the 2025 Best Animated Feature winner, was the first film from which country to win a Golden Globe?

Latvia had never won a Golden Globe before Flow, which beat Pixar's Inside Out 2 and DreamWorks' The Wild Robot, then won the Oscar too.

Which series made O Yeong-su the first Korean actor to win a Golden Globe, in 2022?

Squid Game: his character, the frail old man Oh Il-nam, turns out to be the game's creator.

What new category did the Golden Globes introduce at the 2026 ceremony?

Best Podcast was added to honour a fast-rising medium, which Globes president Helen Hoehne called a new form of storytelling.

The 2008 Golden Globes ceremony was cancelled and replaced by a press conference because of what?

A Writers Guild strike, running from November 2007 to February 2008, threatened pickets that stars refused to cross, so the winners were read at a press conference.

Why was the 2022 Golden Globes ceremony held as a private, non-televised event?

A diversity boycott of the HFPA followed a February 2021 Los Angeles Times report that it had no Black members; NBC dropped the telecast and Tom Cruise returned his Globes.

Which actor won the 2016 Golden Globe for Best Actor – Drama, then his first Oscar weeks later?

Leonardo DiCaprio won both for The Revenant and used his Oscar speech to warn that climate change is real and happening right now.

Which network took over the Golden Globes broadcast from NBC starting with the January 2024 ceremony?

CBS: the switch followed the HFPA's 2023 sale of the Golden Globes to Dick Clark Productions and Eldridge.

Which US body accused the 1968 Golden Globes of misleading the public, prompting NBC to drop the show until 1974?

Federal Communications Commission: the allegations included telling stars that if they didn't attend, their award would go to someone else.

Whose 1982 New Star of the Year win drew charges that her husband had bought the award?

Pia Zadora won for Butterfly after her husband, Meshulam Riklis, flew voters to his Las Vegas casino; the same role won her two Razzies, including Worst Actress.

In 2011 the HFPA was mocked for nominating which film as a comedy?

The Tourist, starring Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie, was submitted as a drama, but after screening it the HFPA ruled it more comedy than straight drama.

Which American film about a Korean family in Arkansas did the HFPA controversially class as Foreign Language in 2021?

Minari was ruled a foreign-language film because most of its dialogue is Korean, and it won that award; filmmaker Lulu Wang said she had not seen a more American film that year.

Which film won Best Motion Picture – Drama at the 2006 Golden Globes but lost the Best Picture Oscar to Crash?

Brokeback Mountain came out on top in 2015, when The Hollywood Reporter asked hundreds of Academy members to recast their ballots for that year.

Which former American Idol contestant won a Golden Globe in 2007?

Jennifer Hudson won for Dreamgirls after placing only seventh on American Idol, and then won the Oscar for the same role.

Until 2018, what was the title of the celebrity's child who handed winners their Golden Globes?

Miss Golden Globe, occasionally Mr. Golden Globe, became Golden Globe Ambassador in 2018 to make the role more inclusive.

Which band's 'Ordinary Love' beat Frozen's 'Let It Go' for Best Original Song at the 2014 Golden Globes?

U2 wrote the song for Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom, but at the Oscars weeks later it lost to 'Let It Go'.

Which Pixar film was the first winner of the Golden Globe for Best Animated Feature, introduced in 2007?

Cars beat Happy Feet and Monster House for the new award, but at the Oscars a month later Happy Feet won instead.

Which actor won a 1998 Golden Globe for playing Don King and handed it to Jack Lemmon on stage?

Ving Rhames insisted when Jack Lemmon tried to refuse, and Lemmon called it one of the sweetest moments of his life.

Which Chicago Hope actress was in the bathroom when her 1998 Golden Globe win was announced?

Christine Lahti was in the ladies' room when her Chicago Hope win was announced and hurried to the stage after a delay; Renée Zellweger repeated the feat in 2001 for Nurse Betty.

Which streaming service earned the most nominations of any distributor at the 2025 Golden Globes?

Netflix led the nominations, yet FX's Shōgun was the night's big TV winner, taking four awards including Best Television Series – Drama.

Which film became the first South Korean production to win a Golden Globe, in 2020?

Parasite: accepting it, Bong Joon Ho urged viewers to overcome 'the one-inch tall barrier of subtitles' to find many more amazing films.

Which future governor of California won the Golden Globe for New Star of the Year in 1977?

Arnold Schwarzenegger won for Stay Hungry, seven years after his thick Austrian accent got every line dubbed in his debut, Hercules in New York.

Which talk-show host invoked the Time's Up movement in her 2018 Cecil B. DeMille Award speech?

Oprah Winfrey spoke on a night when practically every guest wore black in support of the #MeToo and Time's Up movements.