Who will win the film awards at this year’s Golden Globes?

Daniel Sarath
Published: January 8, 2016

Best Supporting Actor

Nominees: Paul Dano - Love & Mercy, Idris Elba - Beasts Of No Nations, Mark Rylance - Bridge Of Spies, Michael Shannon - 99 Homes, Sylvester Stallone - Creed

Prediction: Mark Rylance - Bridge Of Spies

Mark Rylance has been a popular name in the theatre scene for some time - he's a Tony and Olivier award winner who was the artistic director of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre in London - but the actor hadn't really broke into cinema until Steven Spielberg put him in Bridge Of Spies this year. Playing the UK born Russian spy arrested by the FBI and being used as currency in an exchange for captured US pilot Gary Powers, he gives a tender and surprisingly humane performance.

Best Director

Nominees: Todd Haynes - Carol, Alejandro G Inarritu - The Revenant, Tom McCarthy - Spotlight, George Miller - Mad Max: Fury Road, Ridley Scott - The Martian

Prediction: George Miller - Mad Max: Fury Road

George Miller breathed fresh new life into the mainstream action movie with his return to the Mad Max franchise. It is deranged, eccentric and completely unlike any other blockbuster we have seen in the last few years. Shot largely without CGI in the Namibian desert, it is also a staggering technical achievement. Many are hoping Mad Max will scoop Best Picture, but while that might be a little too bold for the Golden Globes, giving Miller the Best Director award is a very likely consolation prize.

Best Motion Picture - Animated

Nominees: Anomalisa, The Good Dinosaur, Inside Out, The Peanuts Movie, Shaun The Sheep

Prediction: Inside Out

The most beloved animated film of the year, Pixar's return to form Inside Out, is more or less a lock in this category. The imaginative tale of what happens in a little girl's mind as she grows from being a child into an adolescent managed to enrapture kids and adults alike.

Best Motion Picture - Foreign Language

Nominees: The Brand New Testament, The Club, The Fencer, Mustang, Son Of Saul

Prediction: Son Of Saul

Hungary's entry for this year's Golden Globes is the foreign language film everyone is talking about this year. It's a Holocaust drama unlike any we have seen before - unsentimental, unconventional and brutally matter-of-fact - as it follows a father who finds his son among the dead at Auschwitz. It is hard to imagine the movie not leaving a powerful impression on voters who have seen it, as it will audiences in the United Kingdom when it finally comes out here in April.

Best Screenplay

Nominees: The Big Short, The Hateful Eight, Room, Spotlight, Steve Jobs

Prediction: Spotlight

The best feature of Spotlight, arguably, is the brilliant screenplay by its director Tom McCarthy and co-writer Josh Singer. As it focusses on the complex nuts-and-bolts of the journalists' investigation, Spotlight could have been complicated at best, boring at worst. However, it tells the story with grace and simplicity to make the film a gripping drama.

Best Original Score

Nominees: Carter Burwell - Carol, Alexandre Desplat - The Danish Girl, Ennio Morricone - The Hateful Eight, Daniel Pemberton - Steve Jobs, Ryuichi Sakamoto - The Revenant

Prediction: Carter Burwell - Carol

Much of the romance that occurs in Carol is implied as its protagonists, two women who fall in love in 1950s New York, are forced in explore their relationship hidden in plain sight due to the stigma of homosexuality in this era. It means the music has to tell a lot of the story in Carol, and Carter Burwell rises to the challenge with a stirring, heartbreaking score.

Best Original Song

Nominees: Love Me Like You Do - Fifty Shades Of Grey, One Kind Of Love - Love & Mercy, See You Again - Furious 7, Simple Song 3 - Youth, Writing's On The Wall - Spectre

Prediction: See You Again

Wiz Khalifa's song See You Again is a tribute to the late Paul Walker that was used on the soundtrack of Furious 7. The film was in the middle of shooting when the actor died in a tragic car accident. It is an emotionally charged song that was incredibly popular with listeners upon release in the early summer.