There’s one thing about Jessie Buckley—the British Vogue cowl star fills a room with heat. On the 2026 Golden Globes, after selecting up the statuette for greatest feminine actor (drama) for her devastatingly emotional efficiency in Hamnet, she summed up her delight. “This isn’t a standard state of affairs to be in,” she mentioned, grinning broadly.
However then the Irish actress instantly made the glitzy awards ceremony really feel like her personal entrance room, speaking along with her effervescent, pure enthusiasm about her position as Agnes, spouse of William Shakespeare, in director Chloé Zhao’s profound re-imagining of the creation of Hamlet as a narrative of grief. “It was such a unprecedented set to be a part of as a result of we had been telling the story of most likely probably the most well-known Brit that ever lived, and we had a Chinese language director, numerous Irish, and largely Polish crew.”
She went on to thank Tomasz Sternicki, the grip on the film, for making soup on set. “It was scrumptious.” She concluded: “I like what I do, and I like being a part of this trade.” That spirit of appreciation for the sheer privilege of being allowed to make movies with one thing to say stuffed the ceremony.
Not the boozy get-together of outdated, the Globes have been streamlined in order that they’re now very a lot a part of the slick build-up to the Academy Awards on March 15. Their division into two movie genres—musical or comedy and drama—at all times makes it complicated to learn the runes of the remainder of the awards season, however there was little doubt of the 2 frontrunners that emerged: Hamnet and Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After One other, which gained 4 prizes.
On the floor, the 2 films couldn’t be extra completely different. Hamnet is a robust, deeply felt examine of grief and its affect on artwork and life; One Battle After One other is a spectacular semi-comic epic centered on Leonardo DiCaprio’s clueless ex-revolutionary who finds himself within the grip of the forces of response and hysteria in a timeless America. But each are made by visionary administrators who imagine within the energy of movie to remodel the best way folks suppose. “I like doing what I do, so that is simply enjoyable,” mentioned Anderson, in considered one of his many speeches of the evening.
Hamnet gained two awards, taking the very best image (drama) prize, barely unexpectedly, as a result of some pundits had felt the Globe would possibly go to Ryan Coogler’s radical Sinners, a preferred and significant success which brings the blues and vampires right into a sensational collision within the American South. Zhao seemed genuinely stunned and made some extent of singling out Coogler’s brilliance in her acceptance speech, which concluded with a tribute to the best way that filmmaking permits folks to be seen. “Let’s maintain our hearts open, let’s maintain seeing one another, and permitting ourselves to be seen,” she mentioned.
In the meantime, One Battle After One other, based mostly on a Thomas Pynchon novel, cemented its place because the Oscar frontrunner, successful the Globes for greatest image (musical or comedy), greatest director, greatest screenplay, and greatest supporting feminine actor for Teyana Taylor, who makes a superb on-screen affect as DiCaprio’s fellow revolutionary and lover. Her speech, one of the vital tearful of the evening, ended along with her dedication of her award to “my brown sisters and little brown women watching tonight… We belong in each room we stroll into. Our voices matter and our desires deserve house.”
Anderson’s a number of speeches contained a shout-out to Michael De Luca, chairperson of the beleaguered Warner Bros, now topic to a bidding warfare between Netflix and Paramount. That is the studio that backed each Sinners (which is the best grossing unique movie previously 15 years) and One Battle After One other. “About 25, 30 years in the past, he got here into my life and he wished to be my champion and he single-handedly has supported me and the films that I wished to make. He mentioned he had a dream of operating a studio sooner or later, and he was going to let administrators do regardless of the hell they wished.” Anderson, who has by no means gained a Golden Globe earlier than, additionally paid tribute to his assistant director Adam Somner, with whom he has labored with for a few years, and who died in 2024.
