The Golden Globes always seem like the most fun of the legitimate movie awards shows. Nominees get to sit at tables and eat, and better yet, drink cocktails. The Hollywood Foreign Press Association, which puts on the Globes every year, even lets the television people in. They just have to sit in the back.
Airing at 7 p.m. Monday on NBC, the Globes are also loose-limbed in nominating actors and films.
Composed of Los Angeles-based journalists from 55 foreign countries, the HFPA also eschews the standard five-nominee rule when necessary, as evidenced by two key categories with six contenders this year.
Below is a list of Golden Globe nominees. I have picked a winner in each category, based on 2005 critics’ awards, the HFPA’s voting history, personal preference and pure guesswork. I’ve also noted those movies, actors and filmmakers hailed elsewhere but omitted by the Globes.
Best drama
Taut with thrillers, this category includes director Fernando Meirelles’ adaptation of John le Carre’s “The Constant Gardener”; David Cronenberg’s graphic-novel derived “A History of Violence”; and Woody Allen’s tale of an incendiary romantic triangle, “Match Point.” Rounding out the field are George Clooney’s “Good Night, and Good Luck,” about 1950s TV newsman Edward R. Murrow’s on-air fight against Sen. Joseph McCarthy, and Ang Lee’s “Brokeback Mountain,” a story of a longtime secret affair between two men who meet as sheep herders in 1963 Wyoming.
Winner: “Brokeback Mountain.” It garnered the most Globe nods with seven.
Missing: “Munich,” Steven Spielberg’s look at the aftermath of the murders of 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Summer Olympics; “Crash,” the acclaimed race-relations drama; and “Capote,” which details the period during which author Truman Capote wrote and researched “In Cold Blood.” Spielberg, “Crash” director Haggis and “Capote” director Bennett Miller are nominees for the prestigious Directors Guild of America award, along with Clooney and Lee.
Best actress in a drama
Also known as “the category without Reese Witherspoon.” The HFPA dug deep for this list in a wan year for actresses, honoring Gwyneth Paltrow’s moving turn as the tormented daughter of a math genius in “Proof,” which came out to scant box office and critical shrugs in September. Charlize Theron was great as a sexually harassed iron miner in October’s “North Country,” but that film also came and went.
“History of Violence” also was released in early fall, stuck around longer, giving Maria Bello more exposure than Theron and Paltrow for her fierce performance as a wife and mother under siege. Felicity Huffman’s fearless portrayal of a man becoming a woman in “Transamerica” and Ziyi Zhang’s performance in “Memoirs of a Geisha” — Her first extensive work in an American film — are even fresher in the minds of HFPA voters, because these films were released in December.
Winner: Huffman. Gender-bending and/or deglamorized performances always fare well, and the HFPA already likes Huffman in “Desperate Housewives,” nominating her this year as well as last in the musical/comedy TV category. Zhang fills the “we see great things ahead for you, kid” slot.
Missing: Naomi Watts, “King Kong.” Watts shows that expert acting and special effects aren’t mutually exclusive.
Best actor in a drama
Most years, this category holds several fine performances and maybe one or two great ones. This year, it’s bursting with amazing performances. Russell Crowe is so phenomenal in “Cinderella Man” that he overcame not just the phone-throwing incident but poor box office and a summer release to score a nod. David Strathairn serves as a calm face of justice in “Good Night,” and Terrence Howard announces himself as a star with his charismatic work as a pimp turned rapper in “Hustle & Flow.”
But this is really a two-person race between Philip Seymour Hoffman of “Capote” and Ledger of “Brokeback Mountain”: Ledger and Hoffman are neck-and-neck in critics’ awards for their immersive work as, respectively, a taciturn, love-struck ranch hand and a brilliant, troubled real-life author.
Winner: Ledger, but that’s mostly love talkin’. Hoffman’s performance, though extraordinary, doesn’t tug at the heartstrings like Ledger’s does.
Missing: Ralph Fiennes, “Constant Gardener.” His quiet, dignified performance as a man uncovering corruption and his late wife’s secrets might have been too subtle for the HFPA to notice.
Best musical or comedy
Count out “The Producers” immediately. Although it’s the only bona fide musical here, it’s not very good. “The Squid and the Whale,” about the rupture of an intellectual couple’s marriage and its effect on their kids, is funny-uncomfortable, not funny ha-ha, and too small a film for a win, as is “Mrs. Henderson Presents” about a rich 1930s British widow (Judi Dench) who stages a seminude musical review. That leaves the gorgeous, bright-spirited “Pride & Prejudice” vs. the beautifully acted, entertaining and overlong Johnny Cash biopic “Walk the Line.”
Winner: “Walk the Line,” because its lead performances (by Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon) are so memorable.
Missing: “The 40 Year-Old Virgin.” Funny, sweet and honest, it was the best comedy of 2005.
Best actress in a musical or comedy
A.k.a. “the category with Reese Witherspoon.” Her multilayered, charismatic turn as June Carter is such an Oscar favorite already that the Globes are academic. Keira Knightley, nominated for her delightful portrayal of Lizzy Bennet in “Pride,” and Judi Dench, recognized for playing a haughty woman with a naughty vocation in “Mrs. Henderson,” can use the Globes to practice losing gracefully to Witherspoon at the Oscars. Sarah Jessica Parker can view her nod for “The Family Stone” as an affirmation of her post-“Sex and the City” career. And Laura Linney, nominated for her work as a mousy libertine in “The Squid & the Whale,” can just go on being good in everything.
Winner: Witherspoon
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Missing: Nobody. The category’s already slightly padded.
Best actor in a musical or a comedy
Talk about everybody getting to play: This six-nominee category is so loose that Johnny Depp got a nod for “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” perhaps just to see him show up in a nutty outfit and scuffed boots. Nathan Lane, overcooked in “The Producers,” seems to have been recognized simply because he’s in a real musical. Pierce Brosnan gets a good-sport nod for spoofing his Bond image as an inelegant hit man in “The Matador.”
The true contenders: Jeff Daniels, infuriating and ingratiating as a self-involved writer in “Squid and the Whale”; Cillian Murphy, pure joy as a cross-dresser in search of Mummy in “Breakfast on Pluto”; and Joaquin Phoenix, mesmerizing as Cash in “Walk the Line.”
Winner: Phoenix. He’s the only likely Oscar contender in the bunch.
Missing: Steve Carell from “The 40 Year-Old Virgin,” though he’s nominated for “The Office.” The Globes, it seems, can appreciate good comedy on TV if not on film.
Best supporting actress
Oscar winners Frances McDormand and Shirley MacLaine got nods for their work as a fiery union rep in “North Country” and a regretful grandmother in “In Her Shoes,” respectively. But the competition is among Rachel Weisz, nominated for her haunting performance as a human-rights activist in “The Constant Gardener”; Scarlett Johansson, recognized for her nuanced work as an inconvenient woman in “Match Point”; and Michelle Williams, honored for her moving depiction of a wronged wife in “Brokeback Mountain.”
Winner: Johansson. The Globes love her, and she finally has given a performance worthy of a win.
Missing: Catherine Keener, a beacon of decency as author Harper Lee in “Capote,” and Amy Adams, a fount of ebullience and wisdom in “Junebug.”
Best supporting actor
Will Ferrell is amusing as a neo-Nazi playwright in “The Producers,” but he didn’t show anything new in the role. Paul Giamatti and Bob Hoskins get nods for sympathetic performances as embattled 1930s managers — one pugilistic and one theatrical — in “Cinderella Man” and “Mrs. Henderson,” respectively. George Clooney shows new depth as an aging CIA agent in “Syriana,” and Matt Dillon imbues his racist cop with great complexity in “Crash.”
Winner: Clooney. Partly because of his all-around banner year.
Missing: Terrence Howard, as the TV director brimming with shame and anger after his wife is abused by Dillon’s character in “Crash.”
Best screenplay
Woody Allen brings more zip than he’s shown in a while to “Match Point.” Clooney and Grant Heslov ably re-create the early 1950s political climate in “Good Night, and Good Luck.” Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana beautifully enhance Annie Proulx’s short story for “Brokeback Mountain” and Haggis and co-writer Bobby Moresco, in their “Crash” script, articulate ideas about race that most people don’t want to think about. Playwright Tony Kushner, co-writing with Eric Roth, brings a literary quality to the dialogue of “Munich.”
Winner: McMurtry and Ossana, for “Brokeback Mountain.” When the screenplay category is split into original and adapted at the Oscars, Clooney and Heslov might win as well.
Missing: Dan Futterman, “Capote.”
Best director
Allen a long shot in this talent-packed, six-nominee category. Peter Jackson once again shows his command of a big project with “King Kong,” but some see the film as popcorn fare. Meirelles and Cronenberg brought great immediacy to “Constant Gardener” and “History of Violence,” respectively, but nobody matches the visual elan of Spielberg and “Munich” (he got a nod though the film didn’t). But it’s Clooney, renaissance man of 2005, who poses the biggest threat to the early awards favorite, “Brokeback” director Lee.
Winner: Lee. The versatile director (“Sense and Sensibility,” “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”) demonstrates great visual skill and a way with actors, guiding his young cast to heartbreaking performances.
Missing: Haggis, for “Crash,” and Miller, for “Capote.”