With that, Andy Samberg and the night’s other host, an ebullient Sandra Oh, breezed through a “nicing” of the room instead of the usual roasting.
In an early surprise, Michael Douglas won best actor in a television comedy or musical for “The Kominsky Method,” a Netflix series about show-business war horses. The award had been expected to go to Bill Hader, a nominee for the buzzy HBO comedy “Barry.”
The second award was also a relative surprise: “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse,” a Sony movie, won the Globe for best animated film, beating a pair of Disney entries.
Before the Globes, NBC and the givers of the awards, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, promised “One Big Party!” in ads. There were bubbles (3,500 minibottles of Moët & Chandon Champagne) and a ballroom stuffed with 15,000 tulips.
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Oh, yes. And the trophies. Those are almost beside the point at this particular awards stop, which is mostly seen as a moneymaking moment — for NBC, for studios that gain a marketing hook for winter films, for the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. Besides, the association, with a long history of voting idiosyncrasies, has only 88 people who cast ballots. The Oscars, awarded next month, are voted on by about 8,200 movie industry professionals.
Over the past 10 years, the Globes and the Oscars have agreed on best picture winners 50 percent of the time. Last year, the foreign press association crowned “Lady Bird” and “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.” Neither won at the Academy Awards, which recognized “The Shape of Water.”
For a change, the big winner Sunday was expected to be a movie that most people have actually seen: “A Star Is Born,” with roughly $390 million in global ticket sales, was the favorite for best drama. Lady Gaga, who plays the title role, was considered a lock for best actress in a drama, while her tear-jerker “Shallow” is the front-runner to win best song. Bradley Cooper was nominated for his acting and direction, but there were challengers in those categories.
For all of the attention given to the movie winners, the Globes ceremony almost always starts with accolades for television work. And best actress in a TV drama promised to be one of the most intriguing matchups, pitting a co-host versus a Hollywood legend.
Oh was up for her performance in BBC America’s buzzy “Killing Eve.” But so was the Oscar-winning Julia Roberts, nominated for playing a mysterious counselor on Amazon’s “Homecoming,” her first regular television role. Oh was passed over by Emmys voters in September.
The best drama category was expected to come down to “Killing Eve” and “Homecoming.” “Homecoming” had the inside edge, if only because the press organization has a soft spot for Amazon. The streaming service has had far fewer hits than its rival Netflix, but you wouldn’t know it by looking at the Globes. Amazon has won the best comedy award in three of its past four tries, with nods for “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” “Transparent” and the little-watched and much-forgotten “Mozart in the Jungle.”
“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” was expected to repeat in the best musical or comedy award, making it the first consecutive winner in the category since “Glee” in 2010 and 2011. “Barry,” about a hit man who becomes an aspiring actor, had strong upset potential.
Few films had more riding Sunday night than “Green Book.” It has been a box-office disappointment, collecting $35 million (roughly half of which goes to theater owners) and costing an estimated $50 million to make and market. Some people adore the film’s feel-good depiction of interracial friendship in the Deep South during the 1960s. Others have been appalled by its reliance on racial clichés.
Winning best comedy or musical would give “Green Book” a much-needed boost. Its biggest competitor was “The Favourite,” a pitch-black comedy about royal schemers.
Those two films also squared off in the screenplay field, where “Vice,” about Dick Cheney’s life, was also a factor. (“The Favourite” was the front-runner there.)
“Green Book” was similarly positioned in the supporting actor competition, where the Globe could easily go to Mahershala Ali, who plays an erudite pianist in the film, was nominated. Also up for a prize: Richard E. Grant, a nominee for playing an unscrupulous sidekick in the forgery drama “Can You Ever Forgive Me?”
Jeff Bridges was to collect the Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievement in film, and Carol Burnett was scheduled to accept a new award, named after her, for career achievement in television.
Neither are known for throwing down gauntlets. Bridges, 69, usually turns folksy when accepting awards, as he last did at the Globes in 2010, for his acting in “Crazy Heart.” Burnett, 85, has spoken about being proud of avoiding political topics during the tumultuous 1970s, when her “Carol Burnett Show” was at its peak. “I think that’s why our show is still viable 50 years later,” she told Conan O’Brien in May.
But lifetime achievement winners at the Globes have recently thrown lightning bolts — as Meryl Streep did in 2017, when she condemned President Donald Trump as “insidious,” and Oprah Winfrey did last year.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.