Listen. We’re students. As fun as Christmas is, we all have looming exams and deadlines waiting for us around the corner, and it often means we’re working round the clock to cram in all that content. We’ve all been there. And, often, that means that we don’t have time to be reading all about all the various awards and nominations that seem to be happening daily. So, without further ado, here’s a definitive guide to the 2020 Awards Season so far.
Golden Globes
The ceremony took place on 6th January, and didn’t disappoint. The biggest reaction of the night went to Ricky Gervais, the host of the ceremony, whose scathing opening speech called out the hypocrisy of Hollywood stars for their cover-ups and political speeches.
In terms of film awards, Once Upon A Time… In Hollywood won the night, taking three awards: Best Musical or Comedy, Best Supporting Actor (for Brad Pitt) and Best Screenplay. The Best Actor and Actress awards went to Joaquin Phoenix (Joker) and Reneé Zellweger (Judy) in the Drama categories, and Taron Egerton (Rocketman) and Awkwafina (The Farewell) for the Comedy/Musical categories.
As far as the television categories were concerned, it was a big night for Fleabag, as it won Best Musical/Comedy Series, and Best Actress in a Musical/Comedy Series for Phoebe Waller-Bridge. It was rather surprising that Andrew Scott didn’t win for his own role in Fleabag, but the Best Supporting Actor trophy instead went to Stellan Skarsgard for his role in Chernobyl.
Perhaps another surprise was the fact that Sam Mendes scooped up Best Director, despite being up against Martin Scorsese himself. Mendes’s film 1917 also beat Scorsese’s Netflix creation, The Irishman, to pick up Best Drama. In fact, despite being tipped to win big, Netflix’s night was probably rather disappointing – of their 34 nominations, they picked up just two awards: Laura Dern for Best Supporting Actress in Marriage Story, and Olivia Colman for Best Actress in The Crown.
Read the full list of Golden Globe winners here.
Oscar Nominations
Netflix won’t have been disappointed with their Golden Globes performance for too long, as they still have plenty of chance at the Oscars – 24 chances, to be precise.
Their movies, Marriage Story and The Irishman, are both up for Best Picture. The other nominees for this prestigious award are Ford v Ferrari, Jojo Rabbit, Joker, Little Women, 1917, Once Upon A Time… in Hollywood and Parasite.
The most nominated film overall, with 11 nods, is Joker, but Once Upon A Time… and The Irishman follow closely behind with ten each.
There’s been a fair bit of controversy around these nominations, because the vast majority of them are for white male-dominated films. The only non-white nominee was Cynthia Erivo, who is up for Best Actress for her performance in Harriet, and many feel that Lupita Nyong’o, Jennifer Lopez and Eddie Murphy were among those overlooked. Even Golden Globe winner Awkwafina missed out on a nomination – although, it’s worth noting that Taron Egerton was also snubbed. Many fans on Twitter were also outraged at Greta Gerwig’s lack of nomination for directing Little Women. All five nominees for Best Director are male; the award has only ever been won by a female director once, back in 2009 when Kathryn Bigelow won for The Hurt Locker.
For the full list of nominations, click here, or watch this video:
BAFTA Nominations
The BAFTA nominations were announced on 7th January, and the reaction to them has been pretty negative. They follow a similar trend to the Oscars – Joker is up for 11, Once Upon A Time… In Hollywood and The Irishman are up for ten, 1917 has been nominated nine times and Jojo Rabbit rounds out the top five with six nominations.
There are a few key differences from the other Awards so far – for example, the Golden Globe winner for Best Animated Motion Picture, Missing Link, has not been nominated here. Taron Egerton has once again been nominated for his role as Elton John in Rocketman, which must offer some consolation for his Oscars miss.
For the first time, BAFTA have introduced an award for Best Casting: the nominees are: Joker, Marriage Story, Once Upon A Time… In Hollywood, The Personal History of David Copperfield and The Two Popes.
Margot Robbie is nominated twice for Best Supporting Actress, both for Bombshell and Once Upon A Time… In Hollywood. This has sparked fierce debate, as there are no people of colour among any of the acting nominees, and yet she has been nominated twice. This has prompted the #BAFTAsSoWhite hashtag on Twitter, and has arguably been more controversial than the Oscars. Award-winning director Steve McQueen has said that BAFTA risks becoming ‘irrelevant’ if it does not do more to improve the diversity of nominations. Marc Samuelson, head of the BAFTA film committee, and Amanda Berry, BAFTA chief executive, have confirmed in an email to voters that in future they will try harder in this respect:
‘We will review all aspects of our voting process, listen to all interested parties, and tackle what more needs to be done to address the root cause of underrepresentation in our nominations.’
Read the full list of nominations here. Watch the nominations announcement below:
BRIT Nominations
Now we turn to music, with the announcement of the BRIT Awards nominees having taken place on 11th January. This year there is a decrease in the number of awards up for grabs, as there are now only nine as opposed to the usual 13; the awards for International Group, Outstanding Contribution to Music, Global Success and Best British Video have all been scrapped. Celeste has already won the Rising Star Award (formerly the Critics Choice Award), so eight will be presented on the night.
This year, Lewis Capaldi and Dave lead the pack with four nominations each, whilst Mabel follows closely behind with three. The biggest award of the night, Album of the Year, is an entirely male category: the nominees are Lewis Capaldi, Dave, Harry Styles, Stormzy and Michael Kiwanuka. The same five artists are also nominated for British Male Solo Artist. The nominees for British Female Solo Artist, meanwhile, are Charlie XCX, FKA Twigs, Mahalia, Freya Ridings and Mabel.
Many have commented that there are very few female artists nominated outside of the gender-specific categories. The nominees for British Group are entirely male: Bastille, Bring Me The Horizon, Coldplay, D-Block Europe and Foals. It is a similar story among the nominees for Best New Artist; aside from Mabel, the nominees are Lewis Capaldi, Aitch, Dave and Sam Fender.
Read the full list of nominees here, and watch a video of Celeste’s reaction to her Rising Star nomination below:
SAG Awards
The 26th annual Screen Actors Guild Awards took place on 19th January.
The biggest story of the night comes in the form of Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston. Pictures of them have been everywhere. Brad won Best Supporting Actor (Once Upon A Time… In Hollywood), and later was spotted backstage watching Jen win Female Actor in a Drama Series (The Morning Show; it’s also worth noting that she hasn’t won a SAG Award since her time in Friends). Then, they congratulated each other rather enigmatically, and it got everyone talking. It’s been 15 years since their marriage ended, and now that they’re both single again, who knows what could happen?
This was not the only reason for the SAG Awards making history this year. South Korean film Parasite has become the first foreign language film to win Best Ensemble Cast at the awards, beating contenders who have dominated the other awards ceremonies.
The Marvellous Mrs. Maisel won Outstanding Performance of an Ensemble Cast in a Comedy Series, whilst The Crown won the Drama equivalent. Robert De Niro won a Lifetime Achievement Award, presented to him by Leonardo DiCaprio. He announced that his next job will involve working with DiCaprio and Martin Scorsese.
Read the full list of recipients here. Watch Jennifer Aniston’s acceptance speech below:
Keep your eyes peeled for an update on next week’s Grammy Awards!
