--- title: Golden Globes Nominations: Biggest Snubs, Surprises description: I May Destroy You? Emily in Paris? James Corden? These are the biggest snubs and surprises of the 2021 Golden Globe nominations canonical: https://time.com/5935604/golden-globes-nominations-snubs-surprises-2021/ author: Andrew R. Chow article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2021-02-03T18:07:15.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T04:50:04.334Z article:section: Entertainment og:title: Golden Globes Nominations: Biggest Snubs, Surprises og:description: I May Destroy You? Emily in Paris? James Corden? These are the biggest snubs and surprises of the 2021 Golden Globe nominations og:url: https://time.com/5935604/golden-globes-nominations-snubs-surprises-2021/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt576e12b116576085/698a16db011682f1709804ca/golden-globes-snubs-surprises.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Golden Globes 2021: Snubs and Surprises og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Golden Globes Nominations: Biggest Snubs, Surprises twitter:description: I May Destroy You? Emily in Paris? James Corden? These are the biggest snubs and surprises of the 2021 Golden Globe nominations twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt576e12b116576085/698a16db011682f1709804ca/golden-globes-snubs-surprises.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # The 11 Weirdest Golden Globe Nominations—And What Should Have Been Nominated Instead by [Andrew R. Chow](/author/andrew-r-chow/), [Eliana Dockterman](/author/eliana-dockterman/) and [Judy Berman](/author/judy-berman/) Feb 3, 2021 6:07 PM CUT  Delroy Lindo in Da 5 Bloods; Yeri Han and Steven Yeun in Minari; Michaela Coel in I May Destroy You; Lily Collins in Emily in Paris Delroy Lindo in Da 5 Bloods; Yeri Han and Steven Yeun in Minari; Michaela Coel in I May Destroy You; Lily Collins in Emily in ParisDavid Lee—NETFLIX; Josh Ethan Johnson—A24; Laura Radford—HBO; Paramount Network by [Andrew R. Chow](/author/andrew-r-chow/), [Eliana Dockterman](/author/eliana-dockterman/) and [Judy Berman](/author/judy-berman/) Feb 3, 2021 6:07 PM CUT Awards season is never _not_ a mixed bag, but the 2021 Golden Globe nominations landed with a particular thud on Wednesday. The obvious, baffling snubs were many. The heartwarming surprises were few. And even a pandemic that brought the film industry [to its knees](https://time.com/5917626/warner-bros-hbomax-movies/ "undefined") last year didn’t fully explain the raft of “Huh?”-inducing choices from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. (It may, however, help account for Netflix’s continued dominance, with a whopping 42 nominations, as fellow home-entertainment giant Amazon placed a distant second.) At least it wasn’t all bad news. We were happy to see nods for one of the most heartwarming series of the year, _Ted Lasso_; the adorable animated film _Wolfwalkers_; and the too-often-snubbed _Good Lord Bird_ star Ethan Hawke. Women filmmakers also [made history](https://time.com/5919410/women-directors-covid-19-patty-jenkins-cate-shortland/ "undefined"). In past years, they were lucky to get just one slot in the Best Directors category. This year, three women—Chloé Zhao for _Nomadland_, Regina King for _One Night in Miami_ and Emerald Fennell for _Promising Young Woman_—got nods. So that’s a little something to keep in mind as we survey the carnage. ## **Some very weird nominations**  Lily Collins in Emily in Paris Paramount Network ### **Big, silly Netflix spectacles that no one actually thought were good** It’s no surprise that Netflix, whose original content vastly outnumbers that of any other platform, dominates the list of nominations. And the streaming monolith has some worthy shows and movies up for big awards this year: _The Queen’s Gambit_, _Unorthodox_, _The Crown_, _Mank_. But it also has several noms that seem downright inexplicable. _Emily in Paris_ for comedy series? No shade to anyone who happily binged through it in a lockdown haze, but that show was pure, aspirational fluff. _Ratched_ for drama series? Yes, plenty of people watched it, there were some recognizable stars, and it looked great. It was also boring and aimless. _The Prom_ for musical or comedy film? In an otherwise spectacular year for theater adaptations, when standouts from _American Utopia_ to _Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom_ to _One Night in Miami_ got passed over for top honors? If I had to guess, I’d say the HFPA decided to award popularity over quality and got starstruck by big-name creators—Darren Star for _Emily_ and Ryan Murphy for the other two. Which still doesn’t explain why they preferred _The Prom_ to Murphy’s far superior 2020 theater adaptation, _The Boys in the Band_. > [](https://twitter.com/alyssavingan/status/1356967617567817731) ### **Brendan Gleeson as Donald Trump in** **_The Comey Rule_** We get it: like much of America, Hollywood hates Trump. But just about every impression of the former President presented for mass consumption—from Alec Baldwin on _SNL_ to every talk-show host ever—has been terrible. Gleeson is an international treasure, and he tried his best, but Showtime’s _The Comey Rule_ was a snooze, and his portrayal of 45 didn’t exactly break the slimy, mouth-breathing mold. ### **Seriously,** **_The Undoing_** **?** Do you know the difference between a good prestige thriller and a bad, dull, formulaic prestige thriller whose finale irritated a nation of viewers? The HFPA—which nominated HBO’s [_The Undoing_ ](https://time.com/5902435/undoing-review-hbo/ "undefined")for best limited series (and gave acting nods to its stars, Nicole Kidman, Hugh Grant and Donald Sutherland) when the outstanding HBO miniseries _I May Destroy You_ was _right there_—does not. ### **James Corden’s problematic** **_Prom_** **performance**  Meryl Streep, pictured with James Corden, is perfectly over-the-top in 'The Prom.' MELINDA SUE GORDON/NETFLIX—© 2020 Netflix, Inc. James Corden has sparked outrage for playing into offensive gay stereotypes in _The Prom_. The _Late Late Show_ host, who identifies as straight, played a gay actor who along with other theater performers descends on a small town in middle America to support a teenage girl who wants to bring her girlfriend to the prom. Corden’s casting alone rekindled a debate as to whether straight actors ought to be hired to play LGBTQ+ characters. Critics and activists [described it](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/movies/story/2020-12-14/james-corden-the-prom-criticism-twitter "undefined") as “aggressively flamboyent,” “homophobic” and “grossly inappropriate.” If the HFPA _had_ to nominate someone for this Ryan Murphy film, Meryl Streep was sitting right there. ### Glenn Close couldn’t save _Hillbilly Elegy_ _Hillbilly Elegy_ was little better than poverty porn. As TIME’s film critic Stephanie Zacharek [wrote in her review](https://time.com/5914888/hillbilly-elegy-review-netflix/ "undefined"), the movie condescends to the very characters it purports to champion. Despite her valiant efforts, Glenn Close cannot make _Hillbilly Elegy_ a good movie. She is buried under too much makeup and forced to utter too many cliche lines about her drug-addicted daughter, affirming just about every stereotype about hardened grandmothers in middle America. She has turned in far better performances in far superior movies, and to forever tie her name to this film in the cinematic history books is a crime. ### **Maybe it’s time to take Nazis a little more seriously?** Al Pacino was nominated for _Hunters_, Amazon’s Nazi-killing revisionist history series, plays like a poor man’s version of _Inglorious Basterds_—all of the Nazi bashing without the thoughtful consideration of how film, culture and propaganda can be used to alter history, for good or ill. Pacino turns in a campy performance that can be read as fun or offensive, depending on your stance on Nazi dramas. The early 2020 show was largely forgotten until now, and it should have stayed that way: After all, it’s hard to lose oneself in a cathartic revenge fantasy when there are actual Nazis wearing “Camp Auschwitz” sweatshirts [storming the Capitol](https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2021-01-13/anti-semitism-seen-in-capitol-insurrection-raises-alarms "undefined"). **More:** [_The 10 Best TV Shows of 2020_](https://time.com/5912862/best-tv-shows-2020/ "undefined") ## **Outrageous snubs**  Michaela Coel (left) and Weruche Opia in 'I May Destroy You' Natalie Seery/HBO ### **The best series of 2020—** **_I May Destroy You—_** **was shut out** Michaela Coel’s miracle of a show, _I May Destroy You_, was a masterclass in character development, subverting audience expectations and upending the typical tropes of television. The miniseries, at once hilarious and devastating, begins with a stranger drugging the main character Arabella (Coel) and raping her in a bathroom bar—a clear cut case of assault, and one that Arabella reports to the police. But rather than being a story of vengeance or catharsis, _I May Destroy You_ becomes a study in consent. Coel proceeds to place Arabella and each of her friends in situations that allow the show to examine the gray areas of the consent conversation. And as Arabella becomes more famous—and, to her friends’ horror, self-righteous—as a figure in the #MeToo movement, the show dares to posit that there’s no such thing as a perfect victim, and most relationships, sexual or otherwise, must be approached with radical empathy. Coel wrote and starred in the series, which stares unflinchingly at issues like sexism, racism and homophobia and yet manages to be spellbinding and entertaining. She promises to be one of the most gifted and influential artists of the next several decades. The fact that the show was not nominated in _any_ category will go down in history as one of the biggest flubs that Globes have ever made. > [](https://twitter.com/rachsyme/status/1356983889718370305) ### A historic year for Black ensemble work goes unacknowledged > [](https://twitter.com/dstfelix/status/1356990105559441408) The past twelve months have been a banner year for Black ensemble work in film and television. In projects like _Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Judas and the Black Messiah, One Night in Miami, Da Five Bloods, P-Valley, Insecure_ and _Lovecraft Country,_ Black actors are freed from the responsibility of representing their race for the white gaze, and have turned in mesmerizing communal performances of combat, union, grief, joy and spastic laughter. But while several individuals received nominations, the holistic projects, with the exception of _Lovecraft_, were ignored. ### **Where was** **_What We Do in the Shadows_** **—or anything else on FX?**  Kayvan Novak (left) and Harvey Guillén in 'What We Do in the Shadows' John P Johnson/FX The past year has been a transitional one for FX, which got shuffled to Disney when the latter megacorp bought Fox’s entertainment divisions in 2019\. Early 2020 brought a streaming hub for the prestige-cable standard bearer on Disney-owned Hulu—which, in turn, gave FX some of its biggest hits ever, from the thoughtful teacher-student sexual abuse drama _A Teacher_ to rapper Lil Dicky’s apparently goofy, sneakily ambitious comedy _Dave_. The network also launched a handful of elaborate, cerebral straight-to-streaming dramas on Hulu, most notably the star-studded second-wave feminist period drama _Mrs. America_ and _Annihilation_ director Alex Garland’s philosophical tech thriller _Devs_. Meanwhile, returning FX series _Better Things_ is among the most consistently great dramedies on TV. _What We Do in the Shadows_ might be the single funniest show airing right now. Even _Fargo_ took an intriguing, if not entirely convincing, new direction in its fourth seasons. With the exception of an obligatory acting nomination for _Mrs. American_ lead Cate Blanchett, all of these series got snubbed. What gives, HFPA? ### **_BoJack Horseman_** **loses its shot at Globes glory** There are few TV characters who understand better than[ Bojack Horseman](https://time.com/5706156/bojack-horseman-season-6-review/ "undefined") how meaningless the whole Hollywood awards complex can be. In season one, the alcoholic anthropomorphic horse even sneaks in a fantastic diss of the Golden Globes after winning a trophy for his book: “Do you guys actually watch the movies you give awards to, because I kind of get the sense that… also, my book was not a movie! You know that, right?” But even if we operate under the assumption, like Bojack, that awards shows are rigged or randomly-chosen illusory accomplishments that bring their winners little happiness, it’s still absurd that a show as consistently complex, hilarious and well-written as _Bojack Horseman_ couldn’t nab a _single_ nomination over its six-year run, which wrapped with its final gutting half-season season last January. After landing on countless [decade-end best-of lists](https://time.com/5722419/best-tv-shows-2010s-decade/ "undefined"), it appears in the Golden Globe universe only as a [cruel, uncaring void](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3978934/characters/nm0006670 "undefined"). Not even esteemed Character Actress Margo Martindale could get it any attention. As a certain diminutive sitcom character would say? [ “That’s too much, man.” ](https://bojackhorseman.fandom.com/wiki/That%27s%5FToo%5FMuch,%5FMan! "undefined") ### **_Minari_** **is shut out**  Yeri Han and Steven Yeun in Lee Isaac Chung's Minari Josh Ethan Johnson—A24 It didn’t come as a surprise that _Minari,_ a wrenching portrayal of a family struggling with isolation and aspiration in middle America, wasn’t nominated for the top prize, thanks to a peculiar Golden Globe rule that says that films spoken primarily in other languages can’t compete for the top prize. (The fact that the Globe’s voting base is foreign journalists makes this rule extra strange.) But _Minari_ was also shut out of every other category except for foreign language film, meaning no nomination for Lee Isaac Chung’s exquisitely paced and tempered screenplay or veteran actress Youn Yuh-jung’s twinkling, foul-mouthed turn as the family matriarch. _Minari_ is a uniquely American story with Big Themes that the Globes usually eat up: family, generational history, pioneering spirit, overcoming adversity. But the 2020 Sundance Grand Jury winner will have to find pre-Oscars momentum somewhere else. **More:** [_The 10 Best Movies of 2020_](https://time.com/5914535/best-movies-2020/ "undefined") ### **_The Good Lord Bird_** **deserved better** Showtime’s adaptation of James McBride’s instant-classic historical novel _The Good Lord Bird_ struck a nearly impossible balance, retelling the insane-but-true story of white abolitionist revolutionary John Brown with the perfect mix of humor and gravitas. Ethan Hawke, an executive producer who also helped write several episodes, disappeared into the bizarre character of Brown, and his acting nomination is richly deserved. But the show was hardly a solo effort; it easily merited a nom for best limited series. Newcomer Joshua Caleb Johnson, whose fictional protagonist Onion made the perfect foil for Brown, should also have gotten some recognition. ### **The Globes need to create a Best Docuseries category** In a year with few true cultural phenomena, the 1990s Bulls docuseries _The Last Dance_ stands out as a series that really ought to be rewarded. Not only did it provide plenty of excellent gameplay footage for starved sports fans during the early days of the pandemic, but Michael Jordan’s unabashed competitiveness—the man holds grudges decades after on-court beefs— delighted his millions of fans. > [](https://twitter.com/ringer/status/1356970087526318084) Indeed, some of the best and most popular shows to grace our screens in 2020—_Cheer_, _Immigration Nation_, _City So Real_, _Lenox Hill_, heck even _Tiger King_—fall into the docuseries category. Netflix, especially, is expanding aggressively into unscripted shows. It’s probably time for the Globes to acknowledge the burgeoning genre. ### **Spike Lee gets snubbed yet again**  DA 5 BLOODS (L to R) ISIAH WHITLOCK JR. as MELVIN, NORM LEWIS as EDDIE, CLARKE PETERS as OTIS, DELROY LINDO as PAUL, JONATHAN MAJORS as DAVID in DA 5 BLOODS. Cr. DAVID LEE/NETFLIX © 2020 David Lee/Netflix While Spike Lee’s children will be extremely present at the Golden Globe ceremonies—they were named the 2021 Golden Globe Ambassadors—there’s a good chance Lee himself will not. His [Vietnam War veterans](https://time.com/5852476/da-5-bloods-black-vietnam-veterans/ "undefined") film, [_Da 5 Bloods_](https://time.com/5851363/da-5-bloods-review-netflix/ "undefined"), failed to receive a single nomination: not for Lee’s longtime collaborator Delroy Lindo, whose harrowing portrayal of the PTSD-ridden MAGA-supporting Paul drew universal raves; not for Chadwick Boseman, who is instead being honored posthumously for his work in _Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom_; not for Lee’s direction or Terence Blanchard’s rousing musical score. Spike Lee has never been shy about speaking his mind on awards shows and their decision-making: he joined an [Oscars boycott ](https://time.com/4184380/spike-lee-oscar-boycott-oscarssowhite/ "undefined")following the #OscarsSoWhite campaign, and [raged against](https://time.com/5537269/green-book-oscars-race/ "undefined") _Green Book_‘s Best Picture victory over his film _BlacKkKlansman_ in 2019\. (“Every time somebody’s driving somebody I lose,” he quipped, referencing _Do The Right Thing_’s loss to _Driving Miss Daisy_ in 1990.) Expect verbal fireworks in the weeks to come. ### **Meryl is missing** > [](https://twitter.com/Variety/status/1356993498168233985) A short ode to Meryl Streep who surely has enough trophies on her bookshelf already. Streep starred in both _The Prom_ and Steven Soderbergh’s _Let Them All Talk_ this year. Were they the best performances of her career? No. Were they better than many of the performances nominated for Golden Globes this year? No doubt. The New York _Times_ [already snubbed](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/04/insider/best-actors-list.html "undefined") Streep in their controversial Best Actors of the 21st Century list late last year. How many more injustices can the greatest actor alive take? ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5935604/golden-globes-nominations-snubs-surprises-2021/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5935604/golden-globes-nominations-snubs-surprises-2021/"},"headline":"The 11 Weirdest Golden Globe Nominations—And What Should Have Been Nominated Instead","datePublished":"2021-02-03T18:07:15.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T04:50:04.334Z","description":"I May Destroy You? Emily in Paris? James Corden? 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