This year’s Golden Globe Awards will be singular in a lot of ways, from its live-virtual hybrid to the fact that virtually all of its movie awards will go to films that premiered on VOD or streaming services. In virtually every category, the movie that wins will be the lowest-grossing movie ever to win in that category. You can thank the COVID-inspired theater closings for that.
Here are some other records that might be broken Sunday night:
• If “Nomadland” or “Promising Young Woman” wins Best Motion Picture – Drama, it would be the first movie directed by a woman to win in the category, and the second to win in either of the best-picture categories. (The first was Barbra Streisand’s “Yentl,” which won in the Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy category in 1984.)
• If Chloe Zhao (“Nomadland”), Regina King (“One Night in Miami”) or Emerald Fennell (“Promising Young Woman”) wins best director, it’ll be the second time that award has gone to a woman, after Streisand for “Yentl.”
• If Zhao wins Best Director, she would be the first Asian woman to win, and the second Asian person after Ang Lee (who won in 2001 and 2006).
• If King wins, she would be the first Black winner of either sex in the category.
• If Zhao or Fennell wins, it would be the fourth consecutive year that the award has gone to a director not born in the U.S.A., as well as the fifth time in six years and the sixth time in eight years. The other winners were Sam Mendes from the U.K. and Alfonso Cuaron, Guillermo del Toro and Alejandro G. Inarritu from Mexico.
• If Chadwick Boseman wins in the Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama category for “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” he would become the second posthumous best-actor winner, after Peter Finch for “Network” in 1977. If he wins in the Best supporting Actor in a Motion Picture category for “Da 5 Bloods,” he would become the second posthumous winner in that category, after Heath Ledger for “The Dark Knight” in 2009.
• If Sacha Baron Cohen wins in the Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy category for “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm” and in the Best Supporting Actor category for “The Trial of the Chicago 7,” he’d be the fifth person, and the first man, to win two acting awards in the same year, and the third person and first man to win two film acting awards in the same year. Sigourney Weaver won film awards for “Working Girl” and “Gorillas in the Mist” (in a three-way tie) in 1988 and Kate Winslet won for “The Reader” and “Revolutionary Road” in 2009, while Joan Plowright in 1993 and Helen Mirren in 2007 each won one film award and one television award – Plowright for “Enchanted April” and “Stalin,” Mirren for “The Queen” and “Elizabeth I.”
• If Olivia Colman wins for both “The Father” and “The Crown,” she’ll become the fifth actress to win two acting Globes at the same show, and the third to win in a film and a TV category.
• Those two wins for Colman would also make her the only person to win five acting Globes in only five nominations. (It took Ed Asner 11 nominations to get to five wins, which would be the second quickest.)
• If Colman only wins in one of those two categories, she’ll still have four wins in fewer nominations than any other actor.
• If Baron Cohen he wins for “Borat,” he’ll be the second actor to win Globes for two different film performances as the same character, after Peter O’Toole for performances as King Henry II in 1964’s “Becket” and 1968 “The Lion in Winter.” He would be the first to do so in the comedy categories.
• If Maria Bakalova wins for “Borat,” she’ll be the first Bulgarian actor or actress to win a Golden Globe. (She’s the only one ever nominated.) She’ll also be the first Eastern European actress to win.
• If Helena Zengel wins Best Supporting Actress for “News of the World,” she’d be the youngest winner in any current Golden Globes category, beating Claire Danes, who was 15 when she won for “My So-Called Life.” But Zengel would not be the youngest winner ever, because Ricky Schroder won in the now-defunct New Star of the Year in a Motion Picture – Male category when he was 9, for “The Champ.”
• If Anthony Hopkins wins for “The Father,” he’d become the oldest Globe acting winner ever, at 83. The current oldest is Henry Fonda for “On Golden Pond,” at 76. The oldest winner in any category is Ennio Morricone, who won for his score to “The Hateful Eight” when he was 87.
• If Viola Davis wins for “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” it’ll be her second Globe win, which will tie her with Denzel Washington, Whoopi Goldberg, Louis Gossett Jr., Gail Fisher, Don Cheadle and Bill Cosby for the most wins for any Black actor.
• If Davis wins Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama for playing Ma Rainey, or if Andra Day wins for playing Billie Holiday in “The United States vs. Billie Holiday,” it’ll be the second consecutive win for an actress playing a real-life singer, after Renee Zellweger’s win last year for playing Judy Garland in “Judy.”
• If “Hamilton” wins for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy, it’ll be the first filmed record of a stage production to win that award (as opposed to a theatrical musical restaged for the screen, many of which have won). It’ll also be the first winner in the category that isn’t eligible for the Academy Awards.
• If Andra Day (“The United States vs. Billie Holiday”) or Leslie Odom Jr. (“One Night in Miami”) win for acting and for Best Original Song, it’ll be the first time a person has won in both categories since Barbra Streisand did it for “A Star Is Born” in 1977.
• If “Minari” wins the award for Best Foreign Language Film, it’ll be the first winner in that category from the United States since Clint Eastwood’s “Letters From Iwo Jima” in 2007.
• If “Music” wins for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy, it’ll set a record for the lowest Rotten Tomatoes score (11%) for any Globes best-picture winner ever.
And by the way, this year’s Globes won’t set a record for the smallest audience or the weirdest show — because in 2008, the ongoing Writers Guild of America strike caused the HFPA to cancel the show and instead announce the awards during a 32-minute press conference.