‘Marriage Story’, ‘Irishman’ lead Golden Globes 2020 nominations

PTI, Dec 10, 2019, 9:48 AM IST

Los Angeles: Divorce drama “Marriage Story”, Martin Scorsese’s gangster epic “The Irishman” and Quentin Tarantino’s revisionist period story “Once Upon a Time… In Hollywood” emerged as frontrunners at the 2020 Golden Globe Awards nominations on Monday.

The Globe, which marks the beginning of Hollywood award season that culminates with the Oscars, threw up surprises by recognising Bong Joon-Ho’s acclaimed Korean drama “Parasite” in the best foreign film, best director and best screenplay categories.

But it was Noah Baumbach’s “Marriage Story”, starring Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver in their career-defining performances, that took the lead with six nominations in the drama category, including best picture, best actor, best actress and best supporting actress for Laura Dern.

The Netflix film was joined by two other major movies from the streamer, “The Irishman” and “Two Popes”. “The Irishman” and Tarantino’s “Once Upon…” tied at the second place with five nods each, including nominations for best picture drama.

Both Scorsese and Tarantino will compete in the best director category alongside Joon-Ho, Sam Mendes (“1917”) and Todd Phillips for “Joker”.

Best motion picture – drama category, one of the most competitive segments this year, also features “Joker” and “1917”.

Johansson has a tough fight ahead in the best actress drama category where she is pitted against Renee Zellweger (“Judy”), Charlize Theron (“Bombshell”), Saoirse Ronan (“Little Women”) and Cynthia Erivo (“Harriet”).

Driver is a strong contender in the best actor drama category, provided he edges out this year’s most talked about performance of Joaquin Phoenix as and in “Joker”. They are joined by Christian Bale (“Ford v. Ferrari”), Antonio Banderas (“Pain and Glory”) and Jonathan Pryce (“The Two Popes”).

Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” earned nominations for best picture in the comedy or musical segment where it will fight it out with Rian Johnson’s “Knives Out”, Eddie Murphy-starrer “Dolemite Is My Name”, Taika Waititi-directed “Jojo Rabbit” and Elton John biopic “Rocketman”.

Both Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt, the lead stars of “Once Upon”, have earned Golden Globe nominations with DiCaprio in the leading actor musical or comedy category and Pitt in the best supporting list.

Besides DiCaprio, the best actor musical and drama category features names like

Murphy, Daniel Craig (“Knives Out”), Taron Egerton (“Rocketman”) and Roman Griffin Davis (“Jojo Rabbit”).

Awkwafina leads the musical or comedy actress’ list with her critically-lauded turn in “The Farewell”. Other nominees are: Beanie Feldstein (“Booksmart”), Ana de Armas, (“Knives Out”), Emma Thompson (“Late Night”) Cate Blanchett in (“Where’d You Go, Bernadette?”).

“Parasite”, a dark satire on South Korea’s class divide, is a front-runner in the best foreign language film category where it faces competition from Pedro Almodovar’s “Pain and Glory”, “The Farewell”, “Portrait of a Lady on Fire” and “Les Misrables”.

Baumbach may have been snubbed in the best director category but the Globes made it up to him by nominating him in the best screenplay category.

The competition, however, is strong with names such as Tarantino, Anthony McCarten (“The Two Popes”), Joon-ho and Han Jin-won (“Parasite”) and Steven Zaillian (“The Irishman”) also in the fray.

The most star-studded category of the Globes is perhaps the best supporting actor where Pitt will go up against Hollywood veterans Anthony Hopkins (“The Two Popes”), Tom Hanks (“A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood”), Al Pacino and Joe Pesci (“The Irishman”).

Apart from Dern, the best supporting list features Jennifer Lopez (“Hustlers”), Margot Robbie (“Bombshell”), Kathy Bates (“Richard Jewell”) and Annette Bening (“The Report”).

In totality, Netflix dominated the film categories with a record 17 nominations for its four features.

Disney dominated the animated category with “Frozen 2”, “Toy Story 4” and “The Lion King”. The list also featured “How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World” and “Missing Link”.

Best original score category features Thomas Newman (“1917”), Alexandre Desplat (“Little Women”), Hildur Guonadottir (“Joker”), Randy Newman for (“Marriage Story”) and Daniel Pemberton (“Motherless Brooklyn”).

Best original song features “(I’m Gonna) Love Me Again from “Rocketman”, Spirit” from “The Lion King”, “Into the Unknown,” from “Frozen 2”, Stand Up from “Harriet” and Beautiful Ghosts from “Cats”.

The 77th annual Golden Globe Awards nominations were announced by Tim Allen, Dakota Fanning and Susan Kelechi Watson on Monday.

They were joined by Dylan and Paris Brosnan, Golden Globe Ambassadors; Lorenzo Soria, Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) president; Barry Adelman, executive producer and executive vp television at dick clark productions.

The award ceremony will take place on January 5 with Ricky Gervais serving as the host.