50 Fun Facts About Golden Globes

Which organisation founded the Golden Globes and ran them until 2023?

The group began in 1943 as the Hollywood Foreign Correspondent Association, formed by Los Angeles-based journalists filing cinema news to markets outside the United States.

In which year was the first Golden Globe Awards ceremony held?

The first ceremony, honouring 1943 films, took place on January 20, 1944 at the 20th Century-Fox studios rather than a hotel ballroom.

Since 1961 the Golden Globes have been staged in the International Ballroom of which hotel?

The 1,700-seat ballroom, then the largest on the West Coast, opened in 1958. Early ceremonies moved between venues including the Roosevelt and the Beverly Hills Hotel.

The Golden Globes split top film prizes into Drama and which other genre grouping?

The split dates from 1951. It doubles the number of movie stars in the room and is the reason The Martian was once nominated as a comedy.

Which film holds the record for most Golden Globes won by a single movie, going seven for seven in 2017?

Damien Chazelle's musical swept its picture category plus Director, Actor, Actress, Screenplay, Score and Song, breaking the record set by One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

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

Keith Carradine's 'I'm Easy' won Best Original Song at both the Globes and the Oscars. Fifty years on, no film has matched the 11 nominations.

Which performer holds the record for the most Golden Globe nominations, with 34?

She has won eight of them and also holds the record for Oscar nominations. She famously left her Kramer vs. Kramer Oscar in a restroom after her speech.

In 2010, who became the first regular host of the Golden Globes after decades without one?

He returned for the next two years and again in 2016 and 2020, hosting five times in all and building a reputation for roasting the room.

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

They came back for a fourth turn in 2021, when the pandemic forced a split-coast show with one host in New York's Rainbow Room and the other in Beverly Hills.

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

Cecil B. DeMille got the inaugural honour in 1952, the year The Greatest Show on Earth premiered. Samuel Goldwyn later became the oldest honoree at 93.

Who was the youngest ever Cecil B. DeMille Award honoree, receiving it at age 39 in 1962?

She was also the first woman to receive it. Only 18 of the 71 honorees through 2025 have been women.

In 1982, who became the first African-American recipient of the Cecil B. DeMille Award?

It took another 36 years for the first African-American woman to receive it: Oprah Winfrey in 2018, whose speech that night launched a wave of presidential speculation.

Jane Fonda received the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2021, how many years after her father Henry?

They are the only two members of one family to receive it. Henry Fonda was honoured in 1980, two years before his Oscar for On Golden Pond.

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

Later recipients include Ellen DeGeneres, Norman Lear and Ryan Murphy.

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

She was the first woman to write, produce, direct and star in a major studio film. The movie also won Best Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy.

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

She was also the first woman of Asian descent to win it, and went on to take the Best Director Oscar for the same film.

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

He had kept his colon cancer diagnosis private while filming. His widow Simone Ledward Boseman accepted the award in a tearful video speech.

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

The category is limited to films grossing at least $100 million domestically and $150 million worldwide. Its nine nominations tied Cabaret for the second-most in Globes history.

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

Christopher Nolan, Cillian Murphy, Robert Downey Jr. and composer Ludwig Göransson all won, and the film went on to seven Oscars including Best Picture.

Who became the first Indigenous actor to win a Golden Globe, for Killers of the Flower Moon?

She opened her acceptance speech in the Blackfeet language. Weeks later she became the first Native American nominated for the Best Actress Oscar.

Which comedian's hosting of the 2024 Golden Globes was so panned that his successor was praised just for landing jokes?

He was announced only 17 days before the show after several A-list comedians reportedly turned the job down, including the SmartLess podcast trio.

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

She was nominated that same night for her stand-up special Someday You'll Die and lost to Ali Wong. Reviews were strong enough that she was invited back for 2026.

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

Jacques Audiard's Spanish-language musical went on to become the first non-English-language film to win Best Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy.

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

Gints Zilbalodis's dialogue-free story about a cat surviving a flood beat Pixar and DreamWorks and later won the animated Oscar too.

Who is the mother of the 2025 Golden Globe Best Actress in a Drama winner for I'm Still Here?

Torres won Best Actress in a Drama for I'm Still Here; her mother had been nominated for Central Station at the 56th ceremony.

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

Nominees came from a list of the 25 most-listened-to shows compiled from platform data. Good Hang with Amy Poehler was the inaugural winner.

Which film led the nominations for the 2026 Golden Globes with nine, including five for acting?

It became only the sixth film in Globes history to earn at least one bid in each of the four acting categories.

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

Writers threatened to picket the show and stars would not cross the line. NBC declined to air the press conference at all, filling the slot with a Dateline special.

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

After a Los Angeles Times exposé revealed the HFPA had no Black members, Netflix, Amazon and NBC cut ties, and Tom Cruise sent his three trophies back.

Which actor returned his three Golden Globes in 2021 in protest at the HFPA?

He had won them for Born on the Fourth of July, Jerry Maguire and Magnolia.

In June 2023 the Golden Globes were bought by which company, producer of the telecast since 1993?

Its owner Todd Boehly, better known as co-owner of Chelsea FC and the LA Dodgers, had served as the HFPA's interim CEO during the reforms.

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

It was the show's first live airing on that network since 1982, and a five-year deal followed, bundled with rights to the American Music Awards.

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

Among the allegations: nominees were told that if they did not show up, their award would be handed to a losing nominee who had.

Whose 1982 New Star of the Year win became the Globes' most infamous vote-buying scandal?

Her millionaire husband had flown voters to his Las Vegas casino. She had actually made her film debut 17 years earlier in Santa Claus Conquers the Martians.

In 2011 the HFPA was mocked for nominating which Depp and Jolie spy thriller as a comedy?

Sony had reportedly flown voters to Las Vegas for a Cher concert, which also produced a comedy nomination for her poorly reviewed film Burlesque.

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

Critics noted Inglourious Basterds and Babel had been allowed into the top categories despite also failing the 50 percent English-dialogue rule.

To be eligible for the Golden Globes, a film must run at least how many minutes?

It also needs a seven-day run in Greater Los Angeles before midnight on December 31, though that run can be on pay-per-view or by digital delivery.

What minimum share of non-English dialogue does a film need to qualify as a Golden Globe Foreign Language Film?

Such films need not have been released in the United States at all, and there is no cap on how many one country can submit.

How many episodes must an actor appear in to be eligible for a TV series Golden Globe?

For a TV movie or miniseries the bar is instead five percent of the running time. Reality and unscripted shows are barred altogether.

From 1963 until 2018 the trophies were handed out by a celebrity's child holding what title?

The role was renamed Golden Globe Ambassador in 2018. Parents competed for the honour, and holders have included daughters of Clint Eastwood, Melanie Griffith and Idris Elba.

The Golden Globes' theme music, introduced in 2012, was written by which Japanese musician?

The X Japan drummer and pianist composed it after the HFPA decided a show broadcast to 167 countries deserved its own fanfare.

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

For its first years the category had only three nominees instead of five. English-language animated films remain barred from the two Best Motion Picture races.

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

He said 'being an artist is about giving.' Lemmon tried to hand it back, and the HFPA later struck a duplicate so both men could keep one.

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

Renée Zellweger repeated the feat in 2001, and Lahti later joked in her Emmy speech that she had checked the bathroom first.

Which actress first publicly discussed her sexuality in her 2013 Cecil B. DeMille Award speech?

The 70th ceremony was also the first hosted by Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, and Argo took Best Drama.

Which streaming service led all distributors with 36 nominations at the 2025 Golden Globes?

Its haul was tabulated by KPMG, which took over the count from Ernst & Young after more than fifty years.

The Henrietta Award for World Film Favorite was named after which press association president?

Its first winners in 1951 were Gregory Peck and Jane Wyman; the Henrietta name survived through 1980.

The first Golden Globe for Television Achievement was presented at the ceremony held in which year?

Permanent TV categories for Best Series, Actor and Actress did not arrive until the 19th ceremony in March 1962.

How many voters made up the Golden Globes' voting body as of the 2024 ceremony?

They included journalists from 76 countries, of whom 95 had been members of the old HFPA.

Which New York firm collaborated with the HFPA on the 2009 redesign of the Golden Globe statuette?

The year-long project added a unique marble and boosted the trophy's gold content, unveiled at the Beverly Hilton before the show.