The night’s most frequent award recipient was the gritty frontier drama The Revenant, which took home the Golden Globe Award for the year’s best drama, and also earned awards for director Alejandro González Iñárritu and star Leonardo DiCaprio. The film is currently receiving the lion’s share of Academy Award buzz, so it will be interesting to see if its Golden Globe success carries over to the Oscars.
One of the most head-scratching moments of the ceremony involved the award for the year’s best musical or comedy movie, which went to Ridley Scott’s outer-space survival adventure The Martian. Even Scott himself seemed surprised that his film fell under the “Comedy” banner, but was happy all the same to take home the award. Similarly, The Martian star Matt Damon earned a Golden Globe Award as the year’s best actor in a “Comedy or Musical” movie.
There was also some vindication to be found for the team behind Steve Jobs, last year’s biopic of the Apple co-founder that was a surprising flop at the box office. Steve Jobs screenwriter Aaron Sorkin took home the Golden Globe Award for the year’s best screenplay, and Kate Winslet earned a supporting actress award for her portrayal of Apple marketing exec Joanna Hoffman.
Also noteworthy in the list of big winners was Sylvester Stallone, who took home a Golden Globe Award as the year’s best supporting actor in the boxing drama Creed, which had him reprise his role as iconic pugilist Rocky Balboa. As Stallone noted, receiving the award had essentially brought him — and the character of Rocky — full circle in their respective careers, with Stallone also receiving both Golden Globe Award and Academy Award nominations for his performance in the original Rocky back in 1977. Now playing a retired, aging version of the same character, Stallone seemed well aware of the long journey he and his character have taken.
“This is incredible. Last time I was here, that was 1977. I was kind of hit by a tumbleweed. It was a long time ago,” said Stallone while accepting the award. “It’s like a different, different situation, and the view is so beautiful now.”
On the television side, there were several surprising award recipients, with quite a few new faces replacing the traditional, expected winners.
Amazon’s musical series Mozart in the Jungle was named the year’s best comedy in the TV series category, earning a surprising win over perceived favorites Transparent (also produced by Amazon), Orange is the New Black, and Veep. Julia Louis-Dreyfus, who stars in Veep and has received a nomination for her performance every year since the show premiered, once again failed to bring home the Golden Globe Award after a surprising loss to Crazy Ex-Girlfriend star Rachel Bloom.
In similar fashion, USA Network’s Mr. Robot earned the Golden Globe Award for the year’s best television drama over traditional favorites Game of Thrones and Empire.
As surprising as some of the night’s winners were, the list of projects that didn’t receive any awards also raised a few eyebrows. The widely praised ensemble drama Spotlight failed to take home any hardware — a fate shared by fellow critical darlings Carol, Mad Max: Fury Road, and The Big Short.
You can read the full list of Golden Globe Award winners and nominees at the official Golden Globe Awards website.
