The Bests, Worsts, Mosts, and Leasts of the 2025 Golden Globes

Beginning with a much better pre-show!

Intellectually, we all know we shouldn’t take the Golden Globes too seriously, given that the Hollywood Foreign Press Association -- or whatever the heck they’re re-named its governing body -- is still a very silly thing that no one truly understands. But the Globes were always destined to survive, despite the HFPA’s problems, because the show sits in pole position every year: Those of us who love this kind of pageantry are always excited for the return of a big, chock-a-block red carpet, and the Globes both reliably delivers that, and gets to be first out of the gate in a long awards season. The celebs are fresher, the speeches are seem less rehearsed, the wins often feel more surprising, and the circulation in our legs is better. It’s like any other vice: We know that we shouldn’t be in its thrall, and yet here we are. This was a fun night with a robust guest list and some great gowns, and we’re not sorry to say we enjoyed the ride.

Best Pre-Show Change: With all respect to what a nice person Laverne Cox seems to be, E! probably should have hired Zuri Hall to run point on the red carpet pre-show a while ago. While Cox’s vibe was generally gushy and supportive, Hall felt more professional and prepared even while being no less warm. She brought up Center Stage to Zoe Saldaña -- as one ought -- and got Eddie Redmayne to open up about the time he learned he was colorblind, and had a moderate rant about Amy Adams not having won an Oscar yet (to Amy Adams). So apparently we share many of Zuri Hall’s interests. Comedian Heather McMahan brought a slightly more unhinged energy, but in limited doses and never in a way that made us cringe inside. Overall, the entire experience felt polished and on-track. Relaxing!

Best Rebound: Nikki Glaser did not have a high bar to clear after Jo Koy’s epically bad (and ungenerous to his writers) performance as host last year. The good news is, Glaser didn’t use that low bar as an excuse to phone it in; while her monologue opened with an EXTREMELY tired “Ozempic’s biggest night” joke, it went up from there with a crack about how the room was full of “the hardest-working actors in show business: your servers;” a line about Timothee Chalamet’s mustache calling it “the most gorgeous eyelashes on your upper lip”; and a Dune 2 joke in which she told Zendaya, “I woke up for all your scenes.” We also enjoyed the counter for how many times the winners thanked the cast/crew, moms, God, and yes. Mario Lopez, who beat God. (I would have thanked Mario immediately thereafter to run up the score.) AND she worked in a deep cut System of a Down joke about Glenn Close¹?!? All told, the Globes’s first solo female host did very well; hopefully this means she won’t be the last.

Best Retro Inspiration: No, we’re not talking about anyone’s outfit. We loved the Pop-Up Video-ish fun facts about winners and presenters that, yes, popped up during the ceremony to teach us important things like, “Demi Moore has a separate house for her dolls.” The graphic arrows letting us know at which table any given nominee was seated was also (a) quite funny, and (b) helpful in terms of knowing how long it would take the winner to get to the stage. The whole thing was clever! Good job, everyone!

Best Fun Fact(s): In that vein, while we had actually heard that horrific truth about Demi and her dolls before, we learned quite a bit that we hadn’t. Let us know if we missed a juicy one, but we picked up that Kaley Cuoco was once a nationally ranked tennis player; that an octopus in Vancouver, Ceph Rogen, is named in Seth Rogen’s honor; that Tim Burton’s wedding gift to Catherine O’Hara was a private tour of the Vatican; that Jodie Foster has an asteroid named after her; that Andrew Garfield was an unpopular Starbucks employee because he kept getting caught sitting down on the job; and that Anthony Mackie works to repair roofs for people in New Orleans who are victims of natural disasters. But possibly our favorite fact came when Fernanda Torres won Best Actress in a Drama and the caption explained that she’s one of the most meme’d actors in Brazil, before it added, “She considers memes a superior form of art.”

Most Relatable Shout-Out: God bless Colin Farrell for thanking craft services at length, especially recognizing the woman who made sure he didn’t overheat in his Penguin costume by keeping him stocked with coconut water. Everything would grind to a halt without the folks who feed and hydrate the cast and crew; it’s nice to see them recognized. (It was also funny when Farrell opened his speech by announcing, “No one to thank on this one, I did it all by myself!” before backtracking.)

Sparkliest Trend: We’re thrilled to note that last night’s red carpet involved a LOT of major jewelry, from Selena Gomez’s diamonds and Zendaya’s giant emerald to Anya Taylor-Joy’s dramatic breast-plate-size necklace and Salma Hayek’s INSANE emerald earrings-and-necklace combo. Please let this trend continue; we have the feeling we’ll need to admire as many pretty things as possible in the upcoming year.

Biggest Moment for The CW: At last, Gossip Girl has a Golden Globe! Well, technically, it’s just former Gossip Girl star Sebastian Stan, who won for A Different Man, but we’re counting it. And he won it in front of his Gossip Girl love interest (and real-life ex), Leighton Meester, there to support Adam Brody. Wow, the aughts really are back. Now if only The CW and its history of teen soaps would roar back to life with it.

Biggest Sea Change: Jeremy Allen White -- absent presumably because he is off filming the new Springsteen biopic -- won as Best Actor in a Comedy, but The Bear was shut out of the rest of its four nominations, including Best Comedy, which went to Hacks. Given that Hacks also took the Emmy last year (at an awards show where all Bear actors were richly rewarded) we have to wonder if people are... kinda over The Bear? Maybe all that yelling about how it’s not actually comedy has done some real damage. We joked during the Emmys that people may simply be enraged that they were expected to find “Fishes” funny... but maybe we were right.

Best Subtlety: Yes, you did see Kylie Jenner sitting next to Timothee Chalamet, looking quite foxy in a sparkly dress and occasionally canoodling. But she did not walk the red carpet. Not even solo. Frankly, we love that for her, but... is she going to get in trouble with Mama Kris later?!?

Worst Cutaway: When the Emilia Pérez director referred to Karla Sofia Gascón in his speech, the camera cut to... Sofia Vergara. And then VERY quickly left her, presumably after someone screeched in someone else’s ear that not all Spanish-speaking actresses with “Sofia” in their name are the same person.

Best Inside Joke: Some of the presenter banter required a knowledge of this year’s slate of movies -- for example, the back-and-forth between Margaret Qualley and Demi Moore made no sense if you hadn’t seen or read a synopsis of The Substance. But nothing beat Vin Diesel sauntering out to present, glancing at the crowd toward his reported nemesis The Rock, and saying, “Hey, Dwayne,” with a smug grin. Commenter Sue C. put it best: “Petty shit is the best shit.”

Worst Time-Saver: Yes, Melissa McCarthy and Awkwafina were funny, and Catherine O’Hara and Seth Rogen did that amusing bit about Canada. But add up all the long patter and monologues and various bits, and then tell us if they were worth cutting the speeches of career honorees Viola Davis and Ted Danson, both of whom were honored in a non-televised portion of events. Viola got a rapturous ovation when she came out to present, and you cannot tell us that people wouldn’t have EATEN UP a montage tribute to comedy veteran Ted Danson. What is even the point?!? Well, we can tell you: Part of the point was having that whole separate event earlier in the weekend, which means more red carpet, and more publicity. But come on. At least play some footage of what they said, alongside some sampling of their admirable lifetimes of work. Boo!

Best Way to Enter Awards Season: In this one case, hooray for ignorance. We came into this night having read NOTHING about what was expected to win, and that meant everything -- well, everything but Shogun -- felt like a surprise. Maybe it was! Maybe it wasn’t! But as awards season goes on, there may be fewer and fewer jawdroppers as frontrunners emerge, so we very much enjoyed squawking in our Globes chat about whether Demi Moore came out of nowhere, or when The Brutalist became so popular. (Surely that one doesn’t have legs? Let’s not WHOLLY validate three and a half hour movies, even if they do include an intermission. Parking validation doesn’t even cover that time span in some places!)

Best Speech: It’s honestly hard to pick one. Jodie Foster! The aforementioned Colin Farrell! Demi Moore! Zoe Saldaña’s fountain of tears! Anna Sawai getting up there and being like, “Everyone, I’ll thank you in person later,” and scooting away! Karla Sofia Gascón (more on her below)! We’d probably give it to Demi, but we’re also fine with one giant tie. We love everyone’s feelings, but also their occasional brevity! We got the best of both.

Biggest Mystery: Anna Sawai could not move on the red carpet. She was practically shuffling down the step-and-repeat. We all lamented in the chat that Dior had done her wrong; that her dress needed a slit, and that this was terrible planning given that she was a shoo-in to win and have to walk up those stairs. But then... she did, and she DID, and it was fine?!? And it turns out her dress DID have a slit all along? So... what happened? Did her skirt stretch out? Did she make a covert, miraculous, night-saving shoe change? Did Christina Aguilera pop out of a lamp and grant her three wishes? Someone please solve this mystery.

Most Consistent: “A couple more things, then I’ll piss off,” said Kieran Culkin somewhere in the middle of his acceptance speech for A Real Pain. Culkin continues to walk that line of making you wonder how much of Roman Roy’s offhand “I don’t really give a fuck, except I probably do but I would rather eat nails than tell you that” vibe is his actual personality. He’s irreverent every single time he wins an award, which has become commonplace thanks to Succession, but it might ALSO be why some people wonder if he’s always just playing the same character. We’re big admirers of his, but when does consistency become one-note? We’re not sure.

Best Promise: To Zuri Hall, Nicole Kidman said she’s on a mission to support more women who direct, and a cursory glance at her recent and upcoming projects suggests she really means it. Good.

Biggest Curiosity: Emilia Pérez is many things, but “full of great, award-winning songs” is not one of them -- and while the one that won a Globe is definitely memorable for its staging and Zoe Saldana’s delivery, we cannot IMAGINE anyone performing it at the Oscars in a way that works as well?!? Ditto for the Selena Gomez tune from the movie, which was also Globes-nominated. We’ll see what the Oscars recognize, but here’s our pitch: Write a medley of everything and have Celine Dion sing it (backup plan: Ariana DeBose), and get in and out faster and with a minimum of context needed.

Best Color: Red had a huge night, but we’ve been begging to see Karla Sofia Gascón in more color, and last night she delivered. She wore a custom orange and yellow Saint Laurent, and during her emotional speech when Emilia Pérez won -- we’re thrilled they handed her the mic -- she said she chose them because light always prevails over darkness. Hopefully we can all carry that successfully with us this year.

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Last Call:

— Trigger warning here for mental health. This came up in the chat last night, because someone sent love to the families at the end of Brutalist director Brady Corbet’s speech, but in case you missed it: Jeff Baena, the filmmaker who is married to Aubrey Plaza, died by suicide this weekend. It’s terribly, terribly sad, especially given his earlier movie on the subject of his family’s mental health struggles and the content of Plaza’s current movie My Old Ass. We hope anyone out there who needs it knows you can always turn to a Broad for help in fighting the lies our brains try to tell us. You matter. You are wanted. — H

— Here is the full list of Golden Globe winners from last night! Next time we might try to put some predictive polls in the preamble, and close them when the telecast starts. Like a mini-pool. A pool of polls. — H

— As usual, we’re covering the fashion on Go Fug Yourself all day long. And frankly, deep into the week, because we’ve got post-parties, pre-parties, and a whole slew of gowns from Palm Springs. It is a font of content! A fontent! — H

1. Just joking that in addition to her acting credits, Glenn is also the drummer for System of a Down, but… again, deep cut! — H