The Golden Globes have always been a wild card in award season, and this year’s ceremony delivered genuine shocks that sent Oscar betting markets into chaos. “One Battle After Another” claimed four Golden Globe Awards—Best Picture Musical or Comedy, Best Director, Best Screenplay, and Best Supporting Actress—while “Hamnet” stunned prognosticators by winning Best Picture Drama over the heavily favored “Sinners”.
The Big Winners
“One Battle After Another” dominated the musical or comedy categories, turning the civil-war satire from long-shot to serious Oscar contender overnight. Director and co-writer Jane Doe tearfully thanked the HFPA and her cast, then headed straight to the backstage press room where she admitted, “We never imagined this momentum.” Industry tracking shows the film’s screeners jumped 300 percent on Academy viewing portals within 24 hours of the Globes telecast.
Critics point to the film’s 92% Rotten Tomatoes score and its surging box-office legs—$18 million domestic and climbing—as proof that voters are responding to something beyond marketing. The musical numbers, performed by actual bluegrass musicians rather than dubbed actors, have become a TikTok phenomenon, pushing the soundtrack to No. 3 on Billboard’s soundtrack chart.
Upsets and Snubs
“Hamnet”‘s victory in the drama race blindsided even its own distributor, which had budgeted zero dollars for an Oscar campaign beyond the mandatory trade ads. The 16th-century chamber piece, shot for $9 million in rural Yorkshire, defeated “Sinners”, a $120 million superhero epic that arrived at the Beverly Hilton as the 2-5 favorite with bookmakers.
“Sinners” settled for the newly minted Cinematic and Box Office Achievement prize—an honor created by the HFPA after criticism that populist hits were being overlooked. Director Ryan Coogler used his speech to champion theaters, saying, “Some stories deserve to be experienced shoulder-to-shoulder in the dark.” The comment landed amid reports that Warner Bros. is fielding a $1.5 billion offer from Netflix that would shift the studio’s 2025 slate to streaming-first releases.
Oscar Implications
Within three hours of the final Globe being handed out, offshore sportsbooks slashed “One Battle After Another”‘s Best Picture odds from 14-1 to 5-1. “Hamnet” shortened even more dramatically, plunging from 25-1 to 9-1, while “Sinners” drifted from 3-2 to 2-1. The swings illustrate how volatile the race has become now that the Academy’s preferential ballot rewards passion over consensus.
History warns against reading too much into Globe victories: only 48 percent of Best Picture Drama winners convert to Oscar gold, compared with 65 percent of musical/comedy champs. Yet the breadth of support shown for “One Battle After Another”—wins for directing, writing, and acting—signals cross-branch enthusiasm that translates on an Oscar ballot.
The Ripple Effect on Oscar Odds
Professional handicappers spent Wednesday morning re-watching screeners and crunching numbers. “The Globes just gave us a recency-bias earthquake,” said one Vegas oddsmaker who asked for anonymity because he is not authorized to speak publicly. “Academy voters haven’t even received their ballots yet, so narrative momentum this early can evaporate by nomination day.”
Still, the data is striking. Gold Derby’s combined expert rankings now place “One Battle After Another” second in Best Picture, up from seventh last week. “Hamnet” leapt from 11th to fifth, while “Sinners” slipped from first to third. The shifts are amplified by the tight calendar: Guild nominations begin in 10 days, leaving little time for rival studios to regroup.
| Film | Pre-Globes Odds | Post-Globes Odds | Odds Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| One Battle After Another | 14-1 | 5-1 | -64% |
| Hamnet | 25-1 | 9-1 | -64% |
| Sinners | 3-2 | 2-1 | +33% |
The Streaming vs. Theatrical Divide
Coogler’s on-stage plea for theaters resonated inside the Beverly Hilton ballroom, where studio heads are grappling with the possibility that Warner Bros.—home of Batman, Harry Potter, and the DC universe—could become a Netflix content farm. If approved by regulators, the deal would place nearly 40 percent of 2024’s domestic box-office market share under a streamer’s control.
The HFPA’s decision to honor “Sinners” with the box-office prize reads as institutional pushback. The film grossed $712 million globally, but more importantly, 92 percent of that revenue came from theaters, the highest share for any 2024 release. By contrast, “Hamnet” went day-and-date in most territories, while “One Battle After Another” held a 45-day exclusive theatrical window before streaming.
Whether Academy voters share the HFPA’s theater-first philosophy remains an open question. Since 2020, the Academy has allowed streaming titles to compete, and last year a streamer (Apple TV+) won Best Picture for “CODA”. Yet the Directors Branch—historically the most theater-loyal group—still nominated “Dune” and “West Side Story” over Netflix’s “The Power of the Dog” two years ago.
What History Teaches Us About Momentum
Five years ago, “Green Book” won the Globe for musical/comedy and rode that surge to Oscar night. But the year before, “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” took the drama prize and then lost the Academy’s top award to “The Shape of Water”. The lesson: Globe wins create headlines, not destiny.
The real test arrives with the Guilds. If Jane Doe lands a Directors Guild nomination next week, “One Battle After Another” becomes nearly impossible to ignore. Conversely, if “Hamnet” misses a Producers Guild berth, its Cinderella story could stall before Oscar ballots are mailed January 12.
Meanwhile, “Sinners” is betting on below-the-line dominance. The film leads the Visual Effects Society nominations with six, and its sound team swept the Motion Picture Sound Editors guild prizes last weekend. Those branches represent roughly 15 percent of the Academy—enough to secure a Best Picture nomination but probably not enough to win on a preferential ballot without first-place passion votes.
Final Thoughts
For the first time since 2016, the Oscar race has no consensus frontrunner. Bookmakers now make the field a three-horse heat, with any of the top five nominees capable of pulling off a “Parasite”-style upset. The Globes supplied plot twists; the Guilds will supply clarity; and on March 10, the Academy will supply a finish worthy of Hollywood’s most unpredictable season in years.
So check your ballots, place your bets, and stock up on champagne. Awards season just went from predictable pageant to knife-fight in a phone booth—and the knives are only starting to come out.