After the Golden Globes some Oscar races already look tied up – but here's why we shouldn't rule out upsets

We're at the stage of awards season where it's tempting to treat some of the big Oscar races as foregone conclusions.

After last night's Golden Globes, major acting wins for both Timothée Chalamet and Jessie Buckley saw the pair continue their strong momentum as they look to secure Best Actor and Best Actress prizes. Meanwhile, wins for One Battle After Another and Hamnet in the separate Best Film categories (Musical or Comedy and Drama respectively) means many pundits will now be looking at the Best Picture battle as a two-horse race between those two films.

But is it wise to completely rule out some of the other contenders? Well, a look back at previous years suggests there's still plenty of time for things to shift.

It's certainly understandable that people would lock in Chalamet and Buckley as probable winners. The former's main opponents for this year's Academy Award have long been considered Leonardo DiCaprio (for his role as Bob Ferguson in One Battle After Another) and Ethan Hawke (for his turn as Lorenz Hart in Blue Moon), with both being Chalamet's direct competition in the Comedy or Musical category.

Meanwhile, despite an extensive list of exceptional performances from a number of big name actresses this year – including Jennifer Lawrence in Die My Love and Amanda Seyfried in The Testament of Ann Lee – Buckley's heart-wrenching turn as Agnes in Hamnet has emerged as the clear frontrunner, already securing wins from a host of critics groups.

And so with both Chalamet and Buckley adding the Globe wins to last weeks successes at the Critic's Choice Awards, it is admittedly hard to see how either of them will be usurped when the Oscars roll around in March.

But while the Globes can certainly be used as an interesting barometer to forecast where awards might go at the Oscars, this is by no means a fool proof method of predicting. Last year, the film that emerged from the Globes as the most successful was Emilia Perez – which ultimately disappeared from the Best Picture race at the Academy Awards and was also beaten to the Best International Feature honour by Brazilian drama I'm Still Here.

Conversely, Anora left the Globes ceremony completely empty-handed only to dominate the Oscars – winning Best Picture in addition to multiple gongs for writer/director/editor Sean Baker and the Best Actress honour for Mikey Madison.

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And while the downfall of Emilia Perez can, in part, be put down to some of the external controversies that engulfed the film – including a string on unearthed comments made by its star Karla Sofia Gascon – if we look back at Globes history, it's actually not uncommon for the film that ends up winning Best Picture not to be rewarded.

In 2024, despite wins for Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan in the acting categories, Everything Everywhere All At Once was beaten in the Best Musical or Comedy category by The Banshees of Inisherin, while the year prior, eventual Best Picture winner CODA didn't win a single award.

That means of the last five Best Picture winners, only Oppenheimer and Nomadland won their Best Film categories at the Globes, while Parasite, The Shape of Water and Birdman are among the other films from the past decade or so to have won the main prize at the Oscars despite receiving little love from the Hollywood Foreign Press.

Meanwhile, one thing that we've certainly gleaned from the Globes is that the races in both the supporting actor categories are truly wide open. Last night, it was Teyana Taylor (One Battle After Another) and Stellan Skarsgård (Sentimental Value) who emerged victorious, a completely different outcome from the Critics Choice Awards, where Amy Madigan (Weapons) and Jacob Elordi (Frankenstein) took home the awards.

With the likes of Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas (Sentimental Value), Wunmi Mosaku (Sinners) and both Benicio Del Toro and Sean Penn (One Battle After Another) also remaining competitive, it's still anybody's guess who will be picking up Oscar statuettes in a couple of months time. This is perhaps as it should be – different actors being honoured by different awards bodies, rather than the somewhat more boring process of seeing the same stars awarded time and time again.

In other words, then, there's still plenty to play for – and it will be interesting to see how the race continues to take shape between now and mid-March. But Chalamet and Buckley will certainly take some beating...

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