The 77th annual Golden Globes were held on January 5th and were broadcasted on NBC. The awards have taken place annually since 1944 and are presented by the Hollywood Foreign Press. The ceremony includes awards from both film and television from the last year, as well as a few “lifetime” awards that go out each year to honor someone’s lifetime contribution to the industry. 

This year’s ceremony was hosted by Ricky Gervais, who has hosted the Golden Globes five previous times. He opened with this fact, proclaiming it would be his final time hosting the show. His jokes in the opening monologue of the show were met with criticism from some as he touched on “serious topics” in a joking manner. Gervais began by bringing up Kevin Hart’s firing from the 2019 Oscars and comparing the incident to his own tweets. He also called the Hollywood Foreign Press racist for the lack of diversity in their nominations, before making a joke about the “In Memoriam” list also not being diverse enough. His humor received mixed feedback, though he has defended it on his Twitter a few times since the ceremony first aired. Based on the feedback, Hollywood Foreign Press has already announced that Tina Fey and Amy Poehler will host the show in 2021. 

As previously mentioned, the Hollywood Foreign Press presents two lifetime awards each year. The first being the Cecil B. DeMille Award, which is presented to someone who has had a significant impact on the film industry. This year the award was given to Tom Hanks. The second lifetime award is new as of last year and is named after Carol Burnett. Ellen DeGeneres was the second recipient of this award, which is given to someone who has had a lasting contribution on the television industry. 

Of course, the regular awards for film and television in the past year were also presented. Succession won for the Best Television Series Drama, while Fleabag won for Musical and Comedy. Brian Cox and Olivia Colman were awarded Best Performance in a Television Series Drama for their roles in Succession and The Crown. For the same category, but for a musical or comedy, Ramy Youssef (Ramy) and Phoebe Waller-Bridge (Fleabag) were given the awards. Joaquin Phoenix was given the award for Best Actor in a Motion Picture Drama for his role in Joker while Renée Zellweger received the award for actress in the same category for her roll in Judy.  For Best Performance in a Motion Picture Musical or Comedy, Taron Egerton (Rocketman) and Awkwafina (The Farewell) were presented with the awards. Sam Mendes won the award for Best Director for his contribution to 1917 which also won Best Motion Picture Drama. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood received the award for Best Motion Picture Musical or Comedy.