‘The Brutalist,’ Brady Corbet’s 215-minute postwar epic, was crowned best drama film at the 82nd Golden Globes on Sunday, putting one of 2024’s most ambitious films on course to be a major contender at the Academy Awards. ‘The Brutalist,’ shot in VistaVision and being released with an intermission, also won best director for Corbet and best actor for Adrian Brody. The film, about a Jewish artist in the aftermath of World War II, bears many connections to one of Brody’s most renowned films, ‘The Pianist.’ “Final cut tie break goes to the director,” said Corbet. “No one was asking for a three-and-half-hour film about a mid-century designer in 70mm. But it works.” The genre-shifting trans musical ‘Emilia Pérez’ won best film, comedy or musical, handing Jacques Audiard’s movie a major prize and elevating the Oscar chances of Netflix’s top Oscar contender. It also won best supporting actress for Zoe Saldaña, best song (“El Mal”) and best non-English language film. French director Audiard said through an interpreter that he hoped the film is “a beacon of light” in dark times.

 

“I don’t have sisters and maybe that’s why I made this film about sisterhood,” said Audiard. “If there were more sisters in the world, maybe it would be a better place.” The night’s big actor winners included some surprises. One shocker was Moore’s win for best actress in a comedy or musical. Her comeback performance in ‘The Substance,’ about a Hollywood star who resorts to an experimental process to regain her youth, landed the 62-year-old Moore her first Globe — a victory that came over the heavily favored Mikey Madison of ‘Anora.’ “I’m just in shock right now. I’ve been doing this a long time, like over 45 years, and this is the first thing I’ve ever won as an actor,” said Moore, who was last nominated by the Globes in 1991 for “Ghost.” “Thirty years ago, I had a producer tell me that I was a popcorn actress.” Best actress, in a drama film, was a surprise, too.

 

The Brazilian actress Fernanda Torres won for her performance in ‘I’m Still Here,’ a based-on-a-true-story drama about a family living through the disappearance of political dissident Rubens Paiva in 1970s Rio de Janeiro. Best supporting actor in a musical or comedy went to Sebastian Stan for another movie about physical transformation: ‘A Different Man,’ in which Stan plays a man with a deformed face who’s healed. Stan, who was also nominated for playing Donald Trump in ‘The Apprentice,’ noted that both films were hard to get made.

 

“These are tough subject matters but these films are real and they’re necessary,” said Stan. “But we can’t be afraid and look away.” Comedian Nikki Glaser kicked off the Globes, with a promise: “I’m not here to roast you.” But Glaser, a stand-up whose breakthrough came in a withering roast of Tom Brady, made her way around the ballroom of the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, California, on Sunday picking out plenty of targets in an opening monologue she had worked out extensively in comedy clubs beforehand. While Glaser might not have reached Tina Fey and Amy Poehler levels of laughs, the monologue was mostly a winner, and a dramatic improvement over last year’s host, Jo Koy. Last year’s Globes, following a diversity and ethics scandal that led to the dissolution of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, were widely panned, but delivered where it counted. Ratings rebounded to about 10 million viewers, according to Nielsen. CBS, who waded in after NBC dumped the Globes, signed up for five more years.