The 5 Most Surprising Film Wins at the 2016 Golden Globes

Kevin Polowy
·Senior Correspondent, Yahoo Entertainment
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While the Hollywood Foreign Press Association is known for having some loose criteria when it comes to the Golden Globes categories — see Ricky Gervais (and Twitter) mercilessly mocking the inclusion of Ridley Scott’s sci-fi thriller The Martian in the Best Musical or Comedy category (where it won!) — the ceremony doesn’t typically provide many jaw-dropping results on the film side.

But this year’s edition had a few surprises that could affect the rest of the awards season. Chief among them: The Revenant. While that film’s star, Leonardo DiCaprio, was expected to land a Globe, The Revenant’s wins over the movie most pundits considered the favorite, Spotlight, in the Best Picture and Best Director races were wholly unexpected.

But there were a few other big shockers over the course of the evening.

Related: The 2016 Golden Globes Winners List: ‘The Revenant’ Wins Big

5. Sam Smith, “Writing’s on the Wall” (Best Original Song)

Sam Smith is a big name in music, and a four-time Grammy winner. But despite the fact that his SPECTRE theme, “Writing’s on the Wall,” broke a Guinness World Record for becoming the first Bond song to reach No. 1 on the U.K. music charts, the 007 ballad was generally met with mixed reactions from fans and critics (heck, many preferred the rejected Radiohead version). It seemed much likelier that Best Original Song would go to Wiz Khalifa’s powerful Paul Walker tribute “See You Again” from Furious 7 or Brian Wilson’s original entry for his biopic Love & Mercy, “One Kind of Love.” In the end, the biggest pop star prevailed.

4. Aaron Sorkin (Best Screenplay)

The West Wing scribe is arguably the most prominent screenwriter in Hollywood, but Sorkin’s latest film, the biopic Steve Jobs, underperformed badly at the box office and wasn’t considered a major awards threat. The odds-on favorite in this category appeared to be the script for Spotlight (co-written by director Tom McCarthy and Josh Singer). Turns out the HFPA had zero love for that drama, and instead the voters went with one of their all-time favorites. Jobs was Sorkin’s sixth Globes nomination (he was even recognized for the disappointing Charlie Wilson’s War), and the screenplay win marks his second, after 2011’s statue for The Social Network.

3. Alejandro González Iñárritu (Best Director)

Iñárritu saw the masterful work he did inside a Broadway playhouse in last year’s Birdman and raised it with the thrilling frontier epic The Revenant. There was no doubt the film would land Iñárritu in every major race (especially with the sort of obstacles the filmmaker had to famously overcome), but considering his recent Oscars for Birdman, most pundits believed Spotlight’s McCarthy (or a more sentimental pick like The Martian’s Ridley Scott or Mad Max’s George Miller) would take this category. However, Iñárritu didn’t win the Globe last year (that went to Boyhood director Richard Linklater), which may have played in his favor here.

2. Kate Winslet (Best Supporting Actress)

Winslet, who had won three previous Globes (for The Reader, Revolutionary Road, and Mildred Pierce) over the span of 10 nominations coming into the night, was considered an Oscar favorite for her portrayal of Joanna Hoffman when Steve Jobs premiered at the Telluride Film Festival in the early fall. But, as mentioned above, Jobs had seemed to have lost its awards mojo, and here most experts figured the Globe would go to either double-nominee Alicia Vikander (Ex Machina) or Jennifer Jason Leigh (The Hateful Eight). Instead, Winslet gets No. 4.

Related: Golden Globes 2016: The Highs and Lows

1. The Revenant (Best Picture, Drama)

Did Spotlight just lose its standing as the awards-season frontrunner? Quite possibly. It was completely shut out at the Globes, which also failed to nominate its trio of actors with the most Oscar buzz (Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo, and Rachel McAdams). The situation is reminiscent of last year, when Boyhood entered the season as the seeming favorite only to be taken down by Iñárritu’s Birdman in the top two categories on Oscar night. Of course, we’ve still got seven weeks until the Oscars. If anything, a Revenant score at the Globes makes the derby more interesting — in addition to creating doubt about Spotlight’s ability to win it all, Sunday’s win could open the door for other movies (like Mad Max: Fury Road) to collect the biggest prize of them all come Feb. 28.