Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another looks unstoppable ahead of the Oscars, despite Timothée Chalamet’s triumph over Leonardo DiCaprio for best actor
The biggest backlash brewing concerns Ryan Coogler’s Sinners, lauded by critics and embraced – especially in the US – by audiences as one of 2025’s key cultural landmarks. The thriller did win two Globes – for cinematic and box office achievement and original score – but both wound up not really counting. The first is the Globes’s consolation prize (it was won by Barbie in 2023 and Wicked last year); the second wasn’t even broadcast on the telecast. Coogler missing out on screenplay to One Battle After Another was perceived by some as a slap in the face – the Oscars and Baftas separate the category into original and adapted, however, so a corrective could come.
The Globes had no love for meta-comedy Jay Kelly, about an ageing film star trying to connect with his daughters – and on the face of it, Joaquin Trier’s Sentimental Value (about an ailing film director trying to connect with his daughters) looked to have suffered the same fate. But its sole win was a big one, and the 72-year-old now edges ahead of the slightly underpowered pack (Mescal, Penn, Sandler, Del Toro, Elordi). His speech about the primacy of cinema will also help.
