How to watch the 2024 Golden Globes

The film and TV awards ceremony marks the first major broadcast of awards season

The 2024 Golden Globes are taking place tonight (Sunday 7 January), officially kicking off awards season.

Well-known for its celebration of both film and television, the Globes also act as an early predictor for awards season contenders.

Here’s everything to know about the 81st Golden Globe Awards.

How can I watch the Golden Globes?

US audiences can catch the ceremony, broadcast live from the Beverly Hilton Hotel, beginning at 8 pm ET/ 5 pm PT. There is no live broadcast in the UK.

The three-hour show will have a strong lead-in since CBS is airing an NFL game directly before the Globes.

It will air on the CBS app and stream on Paramount+, but there’s an important caveat. Only Paramount+ subscribers with the Showtime add-on will be able to watch the show live. Otherwise, it’ll be available on the streaming platform on Monday (8 January). According to the Radio Times, Paramount+ subscribers will not be able to access a stream.

Who’s hosting the Golden Globes?

Jo Koy will host the Golden Globe Awards 2024 (2022 Invision)

This year’s ceremony will be hosted by comedian Jo Koy, who has headlined several Netflix specials and starred in last year’s comedy film Easter Sunday.

“We are thrilled to have Jo host the 81st Annual Golden Globe Awards and bring his infectious energy and relatable humour to kick off Hollywood’s award season,” Golden Globes president Helen Hoehne said last month. “We know Jo is bringing his A-game.”

Previous hosts include Ricky Gervais, whose jokes were particularly caustic, the duo of Tina Fey and Amy Poehler and last year's emcee, Jerrod Carmichael.

Who’s presenting the Golden Globes?

Amanda Seyfried, Angela Bassett, Gabriel Macht, George Lopez, Julia Garner, Justin Hartley, Michelle Yeoh, Patrick J Adams and Will Ferrell have been announced as the first batch of presenters, with more to be revealed soon.

Golden Globe nominees

Barbie leads this year with nine nominations, followed closely by Oppenheimer (eight).

The films reflect one unique aspect of the Globes – they split the top film winners into two categories: drama and musical/comedy. With Greta Gerwig's Barbie and Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer leading the way, it gives the show a chance to capitalise on the Barbenheimer craze that boosted theaters in 2023.

Films nominated for best motion picture drama include Oppenheimer, Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon, Bradley Cooper’s Maestro, Celine Song’s Past Lives, Justine Triet’s Anatomy of a Fall and Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone of Interest.

The ‘Barbenheimer’ craze boosted theaters in 2023 (AP)

In the best motion picture musical or comedy category, Barbie was joined by Ben Affleck’s Air, Cord Jefferson’s American Fiction, Alexander Payne’s The Holdovers, Todd Haynes’ May December and Yorgos Lanthimos’ Poor Things.

Succession was the top-nominated television program, with nine nods including for series stars Brian Cox, Jeremy Strong, Sarah Snook and Kieran Culkin, followed by Hulu’s The Bear and Only Murders in the Building, which have five nods apiece.

Find the full list of nominees here.

What are the Globes known for?

The Golden Globe Awards had long been one of the highest-profile awards season broadcasts, second only to the Oscars.

The show was touted as an A-list party whose hosts often took a more irreverent tone than their Academy counterparts. It also only honoured the flashiest filmmaking categories – picture, director, actors among them – meaning no long speeches from visual effects supervisors or directors of little-known shorts.

But the voting body – the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) – was a small group of around 87 members who wielded incredible influence in the industry and often accepted lavish gifts and travel from studios and awards publicists eager to court favour and win votes.

Some years, the HFPA were pilloried for nominating poorly reviewed films with big-name talent in hopes of getting them to the show – the most infamous being The Tourist, with Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp. In the past decade, they’ve more often overlapped with the Oscars. The show also recognises television.

Before the Los Angeles Times published a 2021 bombshell report, which found that there were zero Black members in the group, no one in the industry took much umbrage with who was voting on the awards. The show had become an important part of the Hollywood awards ecosystem, a platform for Oscar hopefuls and was, until recently, a reliable ratings draw. As of 2019, the broadcast was still pulling in nearly 19 million viewers. Following its boycotted 2022 ceremony, it made its return to broadcast television on NBC in 2023, with its smallest audience ever of 6.3 million viewers.

Who votes on the Golden Globes?

The group nominating and voting for the awards is now made up of a more diverse group of over 300 people from around the world.

Additional reporting by Associated Press