Golden Globes 2024, TV predictions: who will win, and who should win
The dilemma for the first big glitzy awards ceremony of the year is this: salute the old or anoint new? A gaggle of awards favourites came to an end in 2023 – Succession, The Crown, Ted Lasso, Barry, The Marvelous Mrs Maisel – and surely the Globes will want to send them off in style. Or do they, instead, look to the younger pretenders – The Last of Us, Beef, Poker Face, Slow Horses, The Bear? Here’s who we think should win the major TV awards at the Golden Globes this week – and who will win.
Best Television Series – Drama
The nominees
1923, Paramount+
The Crown, Netflix
The Diplomat, Netflix
The Last of Us, HBO
The Morning Show, Apple TV+
Succession, HBO
Who should win: Succession
Awards for Succession and “coals to Newcastle” springs to mind, yet Jesse Armstrong’s bittersweet opus deserves a little more fanfare – we will be talking about it for decades to come and the ending was spectacular. That can’t be said of The Crown or The Morning Show.
Who will win: The Last of Us
The world’s most-loved video game becomes the world’s most-loved TV drama. HBO won’t mind swapping the shiniest crown over from the dastardly Roys to the navel-gazing zombie-squashers Ellie and Joel.
Best Television Series – Musical or Comedy
The nominees
Abbott Elementary, ABC
Barry, HBO
The Bear, FX
Jury Duty, Amazon Freevee
Only Murders in the Building, Hulu
Ted Lasso, Apple TV+
Who should win: The Bear
Missed out last year to the decent but derivative Abbott Elementary, the Chicago kitchen-shrink drama has swaggered onto the scene and made itself right at home. The second season perhaps had too much sugar and not enough salt, but this is a unique dish. Repeat after me, however: The Bear Is Not A Comedy (Or A Musical).
Who will win: Only Murders in the Building
After two superb seasons, OMITB stumbled at the third, replacing a drum-tight conceit with a grab-bag of bells, whistles, frills and frou-frou involving a Broadway musical. The Globes, however, loves bells, whistles, frills and frou-frou.
Best Television Limited Series, Anthology Series, or Motion Picture Made for Television
The nominees
All the Light We Cannot See, Netflix
Beef, Netflix
Daisy Jones & the Six, Prime Video
Fargo, FX
Fellow Travelers, Showtime
Lessons in Chemistry, Apple TV+
Who should win: Beef
Lee Sing Jun’s chaos agent of a comedy-drama – the TV equivalent of a child gleefully chucking a bouncy ball into a fine-china emporium – arrived on Netflix like a smack in the face. When did the streamer last have a great drama? Well, they have one now. And how. Sensational.
Who will win: Beef
Let’s give the Globes some credit. With the exception of Fargo, which refound its form with an excellent fifth season, the other nominees barely deserve to breathe the same air as Beef. There’s a reason all your annoying artsy friends are talking about this show.
Best Performance in a Television Series – Drama: Actor
The nominees
Brian Cox, Succession, HBO
Kieran Culkin, Succession, HBO
Gary Oldman, Slow Horses, Apple TV+
Pedro Pascal, The Last of Us, HBO
Jeremy Strong, Succession, HBO
Dominic West, The Crown, Netflix
Who should win: Gary Oldman
Sure, it looks like Succession vs Succession for this one, but I’d like to see Oldman’s flatulent, ornery Jackson Lamb rewarded. The Oscars fluffed it when they didn’t allow themselves to give Johnny Depp Best Actor for Jack Sparrow – worried, surely, that it was a little cartoony. Oldman has created a pungent instant classic.
Who will win: Pedro Pascal
Oldman, however, doesn’t glower handsomely while looking ravishingly sad. Now that’s acting – according to some. And it should be enough to grant the excellent Pascal this award.
Best Performance in a Television Series – Drama: Actress
The nominees
Helen Mirren, 1923, Paramount+
Bella Ramsey, The Last of Us, HBO
Keri Russell, The Diplomat, Netflix
Sarah Snook, Succession, HBO
Imelda Staunton, The Crown, Netflix
Emma Stone, The Curse, Showtime
Who should win: Emma Stone
A strong field, but Stone has pulled off a harder trick than her fellow nominees. Her Whitney Siegel – a wealthy entrepre-dogooder wanting to break into reality TV – is a fag paper away from American Psycho’s Patrick Bateman. Sure she doesn’t murder anyone, and on paper she is relatively harmless – but Stone makes her a monster.
Who will win: Helen Mirren
The Globes loves bells, whistles and Taylor Sheridan. The latest Taylorverse (not that one) product will surely walk away with something, and in America they weren’t utterly horrified by Helen Mirren’s attempt at an Irish accent.
Best Performance in a Television Series – Musical or Comedy: Actor
The nominees
Bill Hader, Barry, HBO
Steve Martin, Only Murders in the Building, Hulu
Jason Segel, Shrinking, Apple TV+
Martin Short, Only Murders in the Building, Hulu
Jason Sudeikis, Ted Lasso, Apple TV+
Jeremy Allen White, The Bear, FX
Who should win: Bill Hader
A strange list. All superb actors, having created compelling, memorable characters (Shrinking aside, perhaps), yet none can have been said to have enjoyed a vintage season. Hader’s am-dram hitman, however, deserves recognition.
Who will win: Steve Martin
It’s impossible not to enjoy Martin as Charles-Haden Savage, the washed-up actor turned podcaster/sleuth. No matter how many times I tell people “It wasn’t a patter song”, his “patter song” from series three will likely tip the scales Martin’s way. Why not? It’s Steve Martin!
Best Performance in a Television Series – Musical or Comedy: Actress
The nominees
Rachel Brosnahan, The Marvelous Mrs Maisel, Prime Video
Quinta Brunson, Abbott Elementary, ABC
Ayo Edebiri, The Bear, FX
Elle Fanning, The Great, Hulu
Selena Gomez, Only Murders in the Building, Hulu
Natasha Lyonne, Poke Face, Peacock
Who should win: Ayo Edebiri
It’s Not A Comedy. No matter. Edebiri deserves something on her mantelpiece for an effortlessly brilliant turn as the tormented genius sous chef, Sydney. It takes some performance to wrestle attention away from Jeremy Allen-White and Ebon Moss-Bachrach, but she does it.
Who will win: Natasha Lyonne
Lyonne’s millennial Columbo didn’t do a lot for me – essentially: imagine if her character from Russian Doll was Columbo! But I was one of few who weren’t wowed by her gravel-voiced hard-drinking human lie-detector. Would be a very popular choice. Brosnahan will run her close.
Best Performance in a Limited Series, Anthology Series, or a Motion Picture Made for Television: Actor
The nominees
Matt Bomer, Fellow Travelers, Showtime
Sam Claflin, Daisy Jones & the Six, Prime Video
Jon Hamm, Fargo, FX
Woody Harrelson, White House Plumbers, HBO
David Oyelowo, Lawmen: Bass Reeves, Paramount+
Steven Yeun, Beef, Netflix
Who should win: Woody Harrelson
My heart says Steven Yeun, but I can’t suggest that Beef should win everything, can I? (See below.) Then why not Woody? Harrelson has long excelled in tragicomic heroes, dancing deceptively lightly on the line between serious drama and fourth-wall winking clownery. His Watergate CIA putz is vintage Harrelson.
Who will win: Jon Hamm
He’s done plenty since Don Draper (including a reboot of Chevy Chase’s Fletch films – why, Jon?), but little that has seemed more than a second-gear Hammeo. Enter Sheriff Roy Tillman, a Constitution-loving rancher-preacher who bleeds stars and stripes. It’s been lovely to see Hamm back at full throttle.
Best Performance in a Limited Series, Anthology Series, or a Motion Picture Made for Television: Actress
The nominees
Riley Keough, Daisy Jones & the Six, Prime Video
Brie Larson, Lessons in Chemistry, Apple TV+
Elizabeth Olsen, Love & Death, Max
Juno Temple, Fargo, FX
Rachel Weisz, Dead Ringers, Prime Video
Ali Wong, Beef, Netflix
Who should win: Ali Wong
Wong has long been a fine performer – and an excellent stand-up - but I had no idea she had this in her. Her Amy Lau doesn’t so much as have a midlife-crisis as eat it, regurgitate it, deconstruct it and then sell it back to us as tasteful fine art. Ferocious. Nothing else like it.
Who will win: Riley Keough
We could debate the plusses and negatives of Keough’s performance as the freewheeling Seventies singer Daisy Jones – but the suspicion is simply that the Globes can’t resist giving an award to Elvis’s granddaughter.
Best Performance in a Supporting Role on Television: Actor
The nominees
Billy Crudup, The Morning Show, Apple TV+
Matthew Macfadyen, Succession, HBO
James Marsden, Jury Duty, Amazon Freevee
Ebon Moss-Bachrach, The Bear, FX
Alan Ruck, Succession, HBO
Alexander Skarsgard, Succession, HBO
Who should win: Matthew Macfadyen
Another alpha male Succession pile-up, but this time the show should get the nod. Macfadyen’s Tom Wambsgans is an extraordinary thing – spineless, lily-livered, weak-chinned, yet utterly poisonous. As if Iago was a yuppie. And Tom won!
Who will win: Ebon Moss-Bachrach
Unlike Wambsgans, Moss-Bachrach’s hotheaded Richie is not a one-off – he’s an intense, charismatic, spiteful, decent failure in the Arthur Miller tradition. But that’s to take nothing away from the power of Moss-Bachrach’s performance.
Best Performance in a Supporting Role on Television: Actress
The nominees
Elizabeth Debicki, The Crown, Netflix
Abby Elliott, The Bear, FX
Christina Ricci, Yellowjackets, Showtime
J Smith-Cameron, Succession, HBO
Meryl Streep, Only Murders in the Building, Hulu
Hannah Waddingham, Ted Lasso, Apple TV+
Who should win: J Smith-Cameron
Another strange list of nominees. Again, you can’t fault any of them. But are you really rooting for any of them to win this one? By default, it should go Smith-Cameron’s beleaguered Gerri.
Who will win: Elizabeth Debicki
They’re going to give it to 1997-era Diana, aren’t they?
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