The Golden Globes are the first major award ceremony of the year.  Handed out by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, the Golden Globes honor the year’s highlights in both film and television and offer a wider variety of categories, breaking its awards into Comedy and Drama.  Even so, these awards are often looked to as precursors to the biggest awards in television and film, the Emmys and Academy Awards, respectively.

The nominations were announced today by ‘American Horror Story: Hotel’ star Angela Bassett along with America Ferrera, Chloë Grace Moretz, Dennis Quaid, Miss Golden Globe Corinne Fox, HFPA president Lorenzo Soria, and Dick Clark Productions EVP Barry Adelman.  The winners will be announced on the live broadcast of the ceremony on January 10th, hosted by Ricky Gervais.

Genre shows and movies aren’t typically honored by such nominations, but as hinted at by some earlier accolades, George Miller’s ‘Mad Max: Fury Road‘ showed a surprisingly good showing, landing a nomination for Best Motion Picture, Drama, with Miller landing a nomination for Best Director.  Will it succeed against possibly more emotional dramas like ‘Room’, ‘The Revenant’ and ‘Spotlight’?  Maybe, maybe not.  But if it does land an upset victory, it could be a big step toward “legitimizing” sci fi/action films in the realm of artsy “serious” films.

More likely to be debated is the category of Best Motion Picture, Comedy which includes the not-so-funny ‘The Martian‘, which sparked some controversy a few weeks back, with directors of more outright laugh riots publicly voicing their displeasure at the HFPA’s allowing the film to be considered in that category.  Then again, also up for this award is ‘The Big Short’ and I’d venture to say tonally, it falls within the same arena in terms of LOLs.  Meanwhile, ‘The Martian’ also earned Ridley Scott a nomination for Best Director and Matt Damon for Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture, Musical, or Comedy and he actually has a good shot considering his biggest competition comes from Christian Bale and Steve Carrell, both for ‘The Big Short’ and often when two actors are nominated for the same movie, they tend to cancel one another out.

In another genre role, Alicia Vikander was nominated for Best Supporting Actress In A Supporting Role in a Motion Picture for her role as an android in ‘Ex Machina‘.  In a surprising move, Vikander is also nominated for Best Performance By an Actress in a Motion Picture, Drama for her lead role in ‘The Danish Girl’.

Noticeably snubbed were Charlize Theron for her gutsy role as Furiosa in ‘Mad Max’ and Tom Hardy.  Hardy as Mad Max was a long shot but he was also passed over for his more dramatic role in ‘The Revenant’.

Here is the complete list of nominees in the film categories:

Best Motion Picture, Drama
Carol
Mad Max: Fury Road
The Revenant
Room
Spotlight

Best Motion Picture, Musical, or Comedy
The Big Short
Joy
The Martian
Spy
Trainwreck

Best Performance By an Actress in a Motion Picture, Drama
Cate Blanchett, Carol
Brie Larson, Room
Rooney Mara, Carol
Saoirse Ronin, Brooklyn
Alicia Vikander, The Danish Girl

Best Performance By an Actress in a Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy
Jennifer Lawrence, Joy
Melissa McCarthy, Spy
Amy Schumer, Trainwreck
Maggie Smith, The Lady in the Van
Lily Tomlin, Grandma

Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture, Drama
Bryan Cranston, Trumbo
Leonardo DiCaprio, The Revenant
Michael Fassbender, Steve Jobs
Eddie Redmayne, The Danish Girl
Will Smith, Concussion

Best Performance By an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture
Paul Dano, Love
Idris Elba, Beast of No Nation
Mark Rylance, Bridge of Spies
Michael Shannon, 99 Homes
Sylvester Stallone, Creed

Best Performance by Actress in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture
Jane Fonda, Youth
Jennifer Jason Leigh, Hateful Eight
Helen Mirren, Trumbo
Alicia Vikander, Ex Machina
Kate Winslet, Steve Jobs

Best Director, Motion Picture
Todd Haynes, Carol
Alejandro González Iñárritu, The Revenant
Tom McCarthy, Spotlight
George Miller, Mad Max: Fury Road
Ridley Scott, The Martian

Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture, Musical, or Comedy
Christian Bale, The Big Short
Steve Carell, The Big Short
Matt Damon, The Martian
Al Pacino, Danny Collins
Mark Ruffalo, Infinitely Polar Bear

Best Screenplay, Motion Picture
Emma Donoghue, Room
Tom McCarthy, Josh Singer, Spotlight
Charles Randolph & Adam McKay, The Big Short
Aaron Sorkin, Steve Jobs
Quentin Tarantino, The Hateful Eight

Original Score, Motion Picture
Carter Burwell, Carol
Alexander Desplat, The Danish Girl
Ennio Morricone, The Hateful Eight
Daniel Pemberton, Steve Jobs
Ryuchi Sakamoto, The Revanant

Best Motion Picture, Animated
Anomalisa
The Good Dinosaur
Inside Out
The Peanuts Movie
Shaun the Sheep Movie

Best Original Song, Motion Picture
“Love Me Like You Do,” Fifty Shades of Grey
“One Kind of Love,” Love & Mercy
“See You Again,” Furious 7
“Simple Song #3,” Youth
“Writing’s on the Wall,” Spectre

Best Motion Picture, Foreign Language
The Brand New Testament
The Club
The Fencer 
Mustang
Son of Saul

Check back later for the nominations for outstanding television performances.

What do you think so far?  Do you feel like any sci fi or fantasy films were snubbed?  Comment below!

Source: Entertainment Weekly