Barbie leads Golden Globe nominations, just ahead of Oppenheimer

Barbie has topped the list of nominees for Hollywood’s Golden Globe awards with nine nods, outpacing the eight for the historical drama, Oppenheimer.

The Greta Gerwig-directed, pink-fuelled doll adventure will compete for best comedy or musical film alongside American Fiction, The Holdovers and others at a red-carpet ceremony in January that will kick off the Hollywood awards season.

Oppenheimer, starring Cillian Murphy as the man behind the creation of the atomic bomb, will face off with Killers of the Flower Moon, Maestro and others for best drama film.

Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon tells the story of the murder of Native Americans in Oklahoma in the 1920s. Bradley Cooper plays composer Leonard Bernstein in Maestro and also directed the film.

Barbie, a vivid “feminist” satire about the all-conquering line of plastic dolls, will compete for best musical or comedy picture. Its actors, Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling, and three of its original songs have also been nominated.

Barbie tied for second-most nominations in Globes’ history with Cabaret (1972). Robert Altman’s Nashville remains the record-holder with 11 nominations.

Oppenheimer, a critically acclaimed drama about the inventor of the nuclear bomb, has been nominated in the best drama picture category. Its main actors – Cillian Murphy, Robert Downey Jr and Emily Blunt – have also been nominated.

The two blockbusters have been collectively dubbed “Barbenheimer” after their theatrical releases happened to fall on the same date.

In television categories, cutthroat family drama Succession led all series with nine nominations, including for the series’s stars Brian Cox, Jeremy Strong, Sarah Snook and Kieran Culkin.

Winners will be announced on January 7 at a ceremony broadcast live on CBS and streamed on Paramount+.

‘Exciting change’

The Golden Globes are one of the key contests that can provide a boost to movies on the road to the Academy Awards in March.

But the awards have endured a rough few years after a Los Angeles Times expose in 2021 showed the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) – which votes on the awards – had no Black members.

That revelation triggered the airing of a wide range of other long-simmering criticisms about the HFPA, including allegations of amateurism and corruption. In June, HFPA was disbanded.

This year, Globe winners will be chosen by a new organisation, Eldridge Industries and Dick Clark Productions, who are operating the awards as a for-profit venture. The voting body now consists of 300 journalist members from 75 countries with 60 percent racial and ethnic diversity, organisers said.

Hollywood-based former HFPA members have been banned from accepting gifts, and are now paid a salary to vote for their favourite films and shows, while more than 200 nonmember (and unpaid) voters from around the world have been added to the Globes mix.

“This has been a year of exciting change for the Golden Globes,” said the group’s president, Helen Hoehne, at Monday’s nominations announcement.

“Our voting body has grown to 300 members from 75 countries, making the Golden Globes the most culturally diverse major awards body.”