"The Help," "The Descendants" and "The Artist" are among the leaders in nominations for the 69th annual Golden Globe awards, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association announced on Thursday.
"The Artist" topped all films with six nominations, while "The Descendants" and "The Help" had five.
But George Clooney is the King of the Globes this year: Not only was he nominated for Best Actor for "The Descendants," but his film "The Ides of March" had a surprisingly strong showing, giving Clooney additional nominations for directing and for co-writing that political drama. The film was also nominated in the Globes' marquee category of Best Motion Picture, Drama.
In the Best Motion Picture, Drama category, the 80-odd HFPA voters chose six films rather than the usual five: "The Descendants," "War Horse," "Moneyball," "The Ides of March," "The Help" and "Hugo."
Competing for Best Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy are the two presumed frontrunners, "The Artist" and "Midnight in Paris," along with "Bridesmaids," "50/50" and "My Week With Marilyn."
In the Globes' television categories, new series like "Game of Thrones," "Homeland" and "American Horror Story" will square off against "Boardwalk Empire" in the TV Series, Drama category, while the Comedy or Musical category pits "New Girl" against "Enlightened," "Episodes," "Glee" and "Modern Family."
Laura Dern, Zooey Deschanel, Tina Fey, Alec Baldwin, David Duchovny and Matt LeBlanc are among the comedy acting nominees for TV, while the drama category includes Steve Buscemi, Bryan Cranston, Kelsey Grammer, Claire Danies and Julianna Margulies.
In typically star-heavy nominations from an organization long dazzled by the lure of celebrity, Glenn Close received one nod for starring in "Albert Nobbs" and another for writing lyrics to the film's closing song. Ryan Gosling received two acting nominations, one for the drama "The Ides of March" and one for the comedy "Crazy, Stupid, Love," but was overlooked for his most critically-acclaimed performance, in "Drive."
In the acting races, Rooney Mara was something of a surprise nominee for "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo," as was Michael Fassbender for "Shame." Melissa McCarthy was surprisingly missing for "Bridesmaids," though her castmate Kristen Wiig was nominated, and Max von Sydow was overlooked for "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close."
In fact, that Stephen Daldry drama, the final film to screen for the HFPA, was completely shut out.
Angelina Jolie was nominated for her foreign-language film "In the Land of Blood and Honey," and Madonna for a song from "W./E."
The companies with the most nominations were the Weinstein Company, which released "The Artist," "The Iron Lady," "My Week With Marilyn" and "W./E.," and Columbia Pictures, which had "The Ides of March," "Moneyball," "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo," "The Adventures of Tintin" (with Paramount) and "Arthur Christmas." Both picked up 12 nods -- although if you factor in Sony Pictures Classics and Sony Pictures TV, the Sony Pictures Entertainment umbrella had 25.
