The 2020 Golden Globes had several surprising snubs. Hosted by the Hollywood Foreign Press and MC’d once again by Ricky Gervais, the Golden Globes are widely recognized as the jumping-off point for the awards season.
That being said, their relevance in predicting the winners of the remaining awards shows is largely contested; and given the fact that none of the fantastic female film directors this year, including (but not limited to) Greta Gerwig (Little Women), Lulu Wang (The Farewell), and Céline Sciamma (Portrait of a Lady on Fire), were even nominated, 2020 already had some major snubs before the show even started.
In that spirit, the Golden Globes surely snubbed some award-worthy performances and artists at this year’s assembly – though perhaps the greatest surprise of the night is that the show only ran nine minutes late. Here are the snubs that stood out the most.
Bill Hader from Barry
It was surprising enough that Bill Hader missed out on a Golden Globe last year for his impeccable crime comedy Barry. Though the best performance by an actor in a musical or comedy television series is regularly the most unpredictable and competitive category, Hader’s ground-breaking work on the second season of the HBO series seemed like a shoe-in for this year’s award.
Category: Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series – Musical or Comedy
Who won instead: Ramy Youssef, Ramy
Jared Harris from Chernobyl
HBO’s miniseries Chernobyl, which told the paralyzing true story about what led to the Russian nuclear disaster, took the pop culture world by storm earlier this year. Nabbing one of the top spots on IMDb’s highest-rated TV series (and the top one for a while), and a 96% on Rotten Tomatoes, Chernobyl seemed prepared to bulldoze the awards season in all contending categories. Harris, also known for his supporting role on Mad Men, led the spellbinding cast and seemed especially prepared to take home the globe.
Category: Best Performance by an Actor in a Limited Series or Motion Picture Made for Television
Who won instead: Russell Crowe, The Loudest Voice
Noah Baumbach from Marriage Story
This is not the first time a Hollywood award show gave an award to a Hollywood film about how great Hollywood is and rest assured, it surely won’t be the last. That being said, Noah Baumbach’s deeply personal, touching, and somehow humorous screenplay for Marriage Story felt like a sure Globe-worthy achievement. The film, which follows a brutal separation between an ambitious playwright (Adam Driver) and an ambitious actress (Scarlett Johannsson), is a profound and aptly neutral look at the ways in which good people are transformed in vulnerable positions. Baumbach based the film slightly on his own divorce with actress Jennifer Jason Leigh, and that golden vault of personal experience and tragedy should have, without a doubt, been enough to bring him home a trophy.
Category: Best Screenplay Motion Picture
Who Won Instead: Quentin Tarantino, Once Upon a Time in…Hollywood
Emily Watson from Chernobyl
Again, Chernobyl getting booted from another acting award. Emily Watson, who played a nuclear physicist in the wake of the titular disaster, had some competition this year, most notably from The Crown’s Helena Bonham Carter and the awards predator Meryl Streep (Big Little Lies), but Patricia Arquette…didn’t see that one coming.
Category: Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Limited Series or Motion Picture Made for Television
Who Won Instead: Patricia Arquette, The Act
Martin Scorsese from The Irishman or Bong Joon-ho from Parasite
Admittedly, the best director category this year was stacked – even with the blatant exemption of every single female director who offered their unique and exceptional voices to the 2019 box office – but either Bong Joon-ho or Martin Scorsese, the auteurs behind the two films at the top of the Best Picture race, felt like the obvious choice. Scorsese, who returned to mobster glory in the three-hour Netflix epic, crafted a picture that felt like a reunion with an old friend; and Joon-ho, in his wildly original and totally bonkers production, found perhaps the most interesting way to tackle class politics than any film in the modern era. Either would have been acceptable, but neither is shocking.
Category: Best Director Motion Picture
Who Won Instead: Sam Mendes, 1917
Eddie Murphy from Dolemite is My Name
Ever since the groovy, rambunctious, true story film Dolemite is My Name premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, comic icon Eddie Murphy was getting awards buzz for his performance as raunchy comedian Rudy Ray Moore. Projecting the ideals of hope, perseverance, kindness, and representation onto the big screen, Murphy’s explicit performance was utterly phenomenal and, most importantly, a demonstration of the tenacious energy audiences have missed for so long.
Category: Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy
Who Won Instead: Taron Egerton, Rocketman
Everybody From The Irishman
Who would have thought that Martin Scorsese’s return to genre glory, The Irishman, with five nominations and a stockpiled legendary cast, would have been completely shut out at the Golden Globes? Well, that’s what happened, as Scorsese’s mobster epic left the night with 0 trophies in hand. But even so, it felt as if the production could have landed the final prize of the event, though that award ended up going to Sam Mendes’ 1917. Mendes had won the Golden Globe for Best Director as well.
Category: Best Motion Picture – Drama
Who Won Instead: 1917
