This Thursday morning, the nominations for the 73rd annual Golden Globe Awards will be announced. For most people, this will be an exciting step in the 2016 Oscar season, as we hopefully gain some clarity into a thus-far wide open race. But for others, the Golden Globes mean something entirely different: they're the only major awards ceremony to honor both film and television. Will Game Of Thrones repeat its big win at the Emmys here? Do any broadcast shows have a prayer of being recognized? Will Netflix continue the ascendancy of streaming services in the awards game? Speaking of... How many Golden Globe nominations does Netflix have? And how many more are they poised to receive this year?
The streaming giant first burst onto the awards scene two years ago, after having premiered both political thriller House Of Cards and prison dramedy Orange Is The New Black to great acclaim (as well as the revival of FOX sitcom Arrested Development). Those first two shows went on to rack up even more noms in their second seasons — but Netflix is likely hoping to increase the number of "award worthy" shows in its stable beyond that pair of reliable workhorses.
Here are all the nominations Netflix has received so far from the Hollywood Foreign Press... as well as the shows most likely to earn them further recognition in 2016.
Arrested Development — 1 nomination
Although fans of the zany sitcom were ecstatic to have their favorite show back, that enthusiasm didn't translate into votes by the HFPA. The resurrected series only garnered one nomination: a Best Performance by an Actor in a Comedy Series nod for star Jason Bateman as Michael Bluth. (He had previously won that same award during the original run of the show back in 2005.) Andy Samberg ended up taking that trophy home for his performance in the freshman season of FOX's Brooklyn Nine-Nine.
Orange Is The New Black — 4 nominations
In its first season, Netflix's acclaimed ensemble show was submitted as a Drama... which didn't help its chances with the HFPA, since it was competing against a stacked deck including the final season of Breaking Bad and Netflix's own House Of Cards. That year, OITNB only received one nom a Best Performance by an Actress in a Drama Series nod for ostensible star Taylor Schilling. She didn't win. (More on that in a bit.)
In its second season, Netflix made the smart choice to submit OITNB as a Comedy instead — a switch that paid off, as the show's nominations increased by 300%. That time, the series itself and Supporting Actress Uzo Aduba were both recognized alongside Schilling, although those three awards were won by Amazon's Transparent, Jane The Virgin's Gina Rodriguez, and Downton Abbey's Joanne Froggatt. (The Supporting races combine actors from both dramas and comedies.)
House Of Cards — 7 nominations, 2 wins
The D.C.-set series produced by Netflix by film director David Fincher has been by far the streaming service's biggest award magnet. House Of Cards earned four nods in Season 1, for Best Drama Series, both stars Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright, and Supporting Actor Corey Stoll (as the ill-fated Congressman Peter Russo). The show took home one trophy from those four nominations for Robin Wright, who triumphed over not only the likes of Julianna Margulies, Tatiana Maslany, and Kerry Washington, but also OITNB's Schilling to become the first person to earn a Golden Globe for a series that airs on a non-broadcast platform.
Absent Stoll's terrific performance in the second season, HOC's tally went down to three nominations, once again for Series and its two stars; and once again, the show earned one trophy for one of its leading performances. This time Kevin Spacey was the one who took home the gold.
The Future
Last year, Netflix failed to add any new Golden Globe nominees to its roster of shows beyond HOC and OITNB; the only new scripted programs they had premiered in the interim had been a few continuations like AMC's crime drama The Killing and animated sitcom BoJack Horseman. But the streaming service has churned out hit after hit in the 12 months since the last round of nominations were announced, and so Netflix's nomination count is all but guaranteed to start climbing exponentially.
Netflix's biggest chances with the HFPA likely come from the Comedy side of things. The Tina Fey-scripted sitcom Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt is a veritable lock for a Series nomination, and stars Ellie Kemper, Tituss Burgess, and Jane Krakowski are all good bets for nods as well. Aziz Ansari's comedy Master Of None is more of a dark horse since it's so recent, although both the show and Ansari himself could conceivably land noms. And although Grace And Frankie probably won't find itself in the Best Comedy Series race, either or both stars Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda are solid choices for the Best Actress race.
Things are a little tougher on the Drama side. New shows Bloodline, Narcos, and Sense8 all found small if loyal audiences, although none of them exactly burst into the zeitgeist the way HOC or OITNB did three years ago. And then there's Netflix's two Marvel shows, Daredevil and Jessica Jones, by far its two buzziest new dramas — but will the HFPA really vote for a genre as niche as "superhero action" (even if that is a trite way to describe either series)? The safest bet for nominations in this category are for Bloodline's performances, since both Kyle Chandler and Ben Mendelsohn earned Emmy nods earlier this year for their roles in that intense family drama.
Netflix is also looking to make its mark in another way this year. There was some contention over whether a movie that premiered on a streaming service would be considered a Film or a Television Movie, as in the case of Netflix's Beasts Of No Nation. But the HFPA recently ruled that, "If a project is released simultaneously in theaters and on Netflix, it will be considered a motion picture, rather than a TV show." This means that Beasts, which falls under that criteria, and its star Idris Elba will be competing against the likes of Spotlight, Carol, and other frontrunners for Film nominations.
Two years ago, Netflix made history by becoming the first streaming service to earn nominations for its TV shows. Can it make history again this year by becoming the first streaming service to earn nominations for its films? We'll find out when the Golden Globe noms are announced this Thursday morning at 8 a.m. ET.
Images: Mike Yarish, JoJo Whilden, David Giesbrecht, Eric Liebowitz/Netflix
