Golden Globes 2019 nominations: Vice leads pack, Widows snubbed – and 6 other talking points

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Awards season has officially kicked into gear with the announcement of the Golden Globe nominations – the full list of which you can find here.

The films and television shows vying for success at the annual awards ceremony were revealed today (6 December) by Terry Crews, Leslie Mann, Christian Slater and The Walking Dead star Danai Gurira who earned acclaim this year for her role in Black Panther.

Below are the main talking points from the list of nominees, including new frontrunner Vice, the success of hit BBC series Bodyguard and the continued lack of women directors.

Bale’s Cheney biopic is the film to beat

About a month ago, no one was talking about Vice – now, it sits high as this year’s most nominated film at the Golden Globes with a grand total of six. Award voters have clearly embraced Adam McKay’s Big Short follow-up, featuring an “unrecognisable” Christian Bale as former vice president Dick Cheney, after the first screening that rocked Hollywood a few weeks back. Its placement here – with noms for Bale, Amy Adams and Sam Rockwell – establishes the late awards race entrant as a firm frontrunner. Jacob Stolworthy

Black Panther lands a Best Picture nomination

Perhaps it’s proof the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) is widening its scope when it comes to the Golden Globes, or simply a testament to how much Ryan Coogler’s blockbuster resonated with audiences, but Black Panther has become the second superhero film ever to receive a Best Picture nomination at the awards. That’s after last year’s rather tongue-in-cheek nomination for Deadpool in the Musical or Comedy category. Of course, that didn’t translate into an Oscar nomination for Ryan Reynold’s antihero, but could the hype behind Black Panther be enough to push to the centre of the awards conversation? Clarisse Loughrey

Olivia Colman gets an overdue Best Actress nomination

All hail, Queen Olivia. Unforgivably overlooked for her unflinching turn in Tyrannosaur in 2012, the British actor won a Globe five years later for her role in the spy TV drama The Night Manager. She now gets her first film nod for Yorgos Lanthimos’s The Favourite, which re-imagines the reign of Queen Anne as an absurdist farce with a lesbian twist. Quite right, too. As Queen Anne, she’s brilliantly funny, never missing a beat as she veers wildly between maudlin and child-like wonderment. A lot of the talk will be about Lady Gaga, but, really, this is the performance to cherish the most. Patrick Smith

Roma’s not nominated for Best Picture - but don't worrt

Considering it won Venice Film Festival’s coveted Golden Lion award – the same trophy won by The Shape of Water last year – Alfonso Cuarón’s masterpiece seemed destined to overcome its foreign-language status to be nominated in the main film category. So why isn't it there? Well, silly HFPA rules mean that world cinemas doesn't qualify for the category. The good news is that Cuarón received recognition as director and screenwriter meaning Roma’s been nominated for all it could possibly be. Don't expect the same thing to happen at the Academy Awards where no such rule exists. Jacob Stolworthy

Female directors have been shut out (again)

You would think the HFPA would take notice after Natalie Portman cracked a joke about the total lack of female directors nominated at least year’s Golden Globes. Presenting the award for Best Director, she commented: “And here are all the male nominees”. Whoever is chosen to present this year’s award would do well to repeat Portman’s statement: once again, no female director has been nominated in the category, and no film directed by a woman has been nominated for Best Motion Picture. For an awards season that elsewhere looks encouragingly diverse, with recognition in the film categories for the likes of Black Panther, If Beale Street Could Talk, BlackKklansman, and Crazy Rich Asians, this feels like an unnecessary embarrassment, especially when Lynne Ramsay’s You Were Never Really Here and Debra Granik’s Leave No Trace were both released this year. Clarisse Loughrey

The Brits are coming!

It’s become something of a cliché to insist this every awards season – but this year they’re genuinely on the march. Amongst the film nominees, Rachel Weisz (The Favourite), Claire Foy (First Man), and Richard E Grant (Can You Ever Forgive Me?) earned supporting actor nods, while Christian Bale (Vice), Emily Blunt (Mary Poppins Returns), Rosamund Pike (A Private War) and Olivia Colman (The Favourite) were recognised for their leading roles. As for TV, Richard Madden, who starred in Jed Mercurio’s phenomenally successful BBC drama Bodyguard, was nominated in the TV drama category, while Benedict Cumberbatch (Patrick Melrose), Hugh Grant (A Very English Scandal) and Thandie Newton (Westworld) were nominated elsewhere. It was a shame not to see Killing Eve’s Jodie Comer nominated alongside her brilliant co-star Sandra Oh, and Florence Pugh was overlooked for her stunning turn in The Little Drummer Girl, but we’re just nit-picking now. Alexandra Pollard

Widows becomes this award season’s major snub

A lot of people will be scanning the nominations list this year, baffled not to find a single nomination for Steve McQueen’s Widows. It’s an electric thriller, which received a huge amount of critical acclaim upon its release, and features one of this year’s most formidable casts. It’s disappointing not only to see the film omitted but also to see the Golden Globes sleep on the always excellent Viola Davis, in what may be one of her finest roles yet. Clarisse Loughrey

Step forward, Elsie Fisher

At 15, Eighth Grade star Elsie Fisher isn’t quite the youngest lead actress nominee in the Golden Globes’s 74-year history – that honour goes to Beasts of the Southern Wild star Quvenzhané Wallis, who was 9 when she was nominated. If Fisher wins, though, she’ll be the youngest ever winner, surpassing Children of a Lesser God’s Marlee Matlin, who was 21 when she won the award in 1987. Fisher is raw and magnetic as a struggling middle schooler in Bo Burnham’s acclaimed directorial debut, having been cast after Burnham spotted her on YouTube. Alexandra Pollard

You can catch up with our live blog running through all the nominations as they were announced below

The 76th Annual Golden Globe Awards ceremony will air on 6 Jan 2019, presented by Killing Eve star Sandra Oh and Brooklyn Nine-Nine‘s Andy Samberg.

These nominations establish the early front-runners ahead of the BAFTAs and Academy Awards.