The Golden Globes were making the familiar series of safe commercial bets, of course, but there were some great movies being distinguished, too, and this was a notable triumph for Sam Mendes with the success of his first world war movie 1917, winning best drama and best director for Mendes – a triumph that must have brought back agreeable memories of these same victories 20 years before at the Globes for Mendes’s feature film debut American Beauty.

Golden Globes 2020: 1917 and Fleabag lead British invasion with major wins Read more

This thrilling, immersive and technically audacious movie shows – in one apparently unbroken travelling shot – two young British soldiers who must make a suicidally dangerous sortie across no man’s land on a desperate mission to warn their comrades to halt an advance into which they have been lured by an enemy stratagem. It is a film that has been compared to Peter Weir’s Gallipoli and Yann Demange’s 71, but this is still such distinctive and personal work from Mendes.

It is a film on a grand scale, a real cinematic spectacular – an awards-hungry monolith arguably, and yet the conversation around awards season hadn’t obviously been tipping 1917 for glory, with the discussion focusing instead on the two big Netflix contenders: Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman and Noah Baumbach’s Marriage Story. As it was, Scorsese’s movie went home empty-handed, which is a shame, although Laura Dern got a well-deserved best supporting actress Globe for her performance as the cunning divorce lawyer in Marriage Story. Perhaps what this points up is that the Globes have no category for best cinematography. If they did, this would surely go to 1917’s director of photography Roger Deakins.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Awkwafina with the best musical or comedy actress Golden Globe. Photograph: Rex/Shutterstock

Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite, winner of the Palme d’Or at Cannes, was rewarded with best foreign language film, and this is a film that has been most loved by the cognoscenti in Los Angeles: the fascinating satire of the predatory family that moves into a wealthy household as live-in servants. Many had been hoping that Bong would also win best director, but it was not to be.

Quentin Tarantino’s dazzling black-comic exercise in cinephile euphoria Once Upon a Time in Hollywood was rightly rewarded on the night with best musical or comedy film and best screenplay, with Brad Pitt picking up the best supporting actor Globe for his portrayal of an easygoing stunt double, content to live in a trailer with his dog while his best friend, the cowboy actor played by Leonardo DiCaprio lives in a fancy LA establishment. It is a reminder that Pitt is an excellent actor, who in middle age is achieving a kind of Gary Cooper calm, heft and weight to his performances.

As to the main acting prizes, it is great to see the best musical or comedy actress Globe go to Awkwafina, star of The Farewell, for her portrayal of the Chinese-American woman who must make a journey to China for a wedding party that has been heartbreakingly contrived so that the extended family can gather to make a secret farewell to her grandmother, who has terminal cancer, but doesn’t yet know. For me, Awkwafina was an absolute revelation in this part: smart, delicate, nuanced, yet also tough when the role calls for bewilderment and anger.

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As I (and many others) predicted, the best drama actress Globe went to Renée Zellweger for her depiction of Judy Garland in her declining years, and this is a plausible award, though I was sorry that Cynthia Erivo was not rewarded for her terrific portrayal of the anti-slavery campaigner Harriet Tubman in Harriet. Will this lead to an Academy award for Zellweger, and so create the ironic spectacle of Zellweger getting more Oscar glory than Garland herself? Possibly – although Garland did get a Golden Globe for A Star Is Born.

Golden Globes 2020: British winners soar as Ricky Gervais crashes – as it happened Read more

The award for best drama actor to Joaquin Phoenix for his leading role in Todd Phillips’s Joker, the origin-myth story of Batman’s arch-villain, will be seen by many as the most deserving and even the only possible outcome. I have to reiterate my scepticism about this overblown movie and this performance, noting again that Phoenix has been more interesting elsewhere. Fan though I am of Phoenix, I think Antonio Banderas should have won for his performance in Pedro Almodóvar’s Pain and Glory.

Taron Egerton got best musical or comedy actor for his portrayal of the young Elton John in Dexter Fletcher’s Rocketman – and when the Academy Awards roll around he may well replicate the success enjoyed last year by Rami Malek for his impersonation of Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody. This deja vu might make many groan, and I have to say I would have preferred to see DiCaprio get this, but Egerton’s performance is game and heartfelt, and he did all his own singing. In a category that specifies “musical” this is something to consider.