The Most Memorable Moments of the 2025 Golden Globes
The stars shone Sunday night in Los Angeles at the 82nd annual Golden Globes, the world’s largest award show celebrating both film and television.
Emilia Pérez boasted not only the most nominations but also racked up several awards throughout the night, culminating in the top honor of the night: best motion picture in the comedy or musical category. The Brutalist won the award for best motion picture in the drama category, and its star, Adrien Brody, won the award for best male actor in a drama. Fernanda Torres made history as the first Brazilian actor to win the award for best female actor in a drama film for I’m Still Here.
[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]Baby Reindeer earned best limited series, while other top television awards of the night went to Shōgun, for best drama series, and Hacks, for best comedy series.
Comedian Nikki Glaser made Golden Globes history as the first woman to solo host the ceremony. She just came off of a banner year. Her 2024 comedy special Someday You’ll Die is nominated for a Golden Globe tonight and also earned an Emmy nomination. She went viral for her 2024 roast of NFL star Tom Brady, and is perhaps best known for hosting the hit reality dating show Fboy Island over the last few years.
Here are some of the highlights of the 2025 Golden Globes:
Nikki Glaser kicked the night off in her signature style
Glaser started out swinging in her monologue by welcoming the crowd to the Golden Globes, “Ozempic’s biggest night.” (Later, she even gave props to the servers of the night, charged with giving the actors food they would simply look at, not eat.)
She took shots at the streaming sites, joking that nominee Eddie Redmayne played an elite sniper that no one can find because his show, The Day of the Jackal, is on Peacock. Glaser joked that she’s seen more actual Peacocks than shows on Peacock. And poking fun at the content on Netflix, she called the film Emilia Pérez—nominated for 10 Golden Globes—“the most ambitious film to play after Is It Cake?”
Timothée Chalamet was among several celebrities who got roasted in the monologue when Glaser shouted out Tilda Swinton for being nominated for her “role as” Chalamet and joked that his impersonation of Bob Dylan’s singing in A Complete Unknown was so accurate because it is “absolutely horrible.” She also called on Adam Sandler in the audience to say Chalamet’s last name in his distinct babyish voice.
Glaser ended the monologue with some real talk, saying that the point of making art isn’t to win awards. The point “is to start a tequila brand so popular, you never have to make art again.”
Demi Moore’s affirming win for The Substance
Demi Moore has been nominated for a Golden Globe three times, but she won for the first time tonight. While accepting her first Golden Globe for her starring role in the body horror comedy The Substance, she opened up about how a producer once called her a “popcorn actor.” The degrading remark ate her up over the years, so much so that when the role for The Substance came up, she was questioning whether to keep acting or not. As she put it, “The universe told me that you’re not done.”
She urged women to be kinder to themselves, explaining, “I had a woman say to me, just know you will never be enough, but you can know the value of your worth if you just put down the measuring stick.”
WickedWicked jokes
Decked out in a pink-sequined gown, Nikki donned a version of the mitre—a tall hat that the Pope wears—and she started to sing “Popular” as “Pope-ular,” before she pretended to take a call in which the person on the other line told her to stop because it wasn’t funny. It wasn’t the first Wicked gag of the night. In the monologue, she cracked that her “boyfriend’s boyfriend really loved Wicked.”
Best supporting actors give the most supportive speeches
Zoe Saldana burst into tears when it was announced that she had won her first Golden Globe: best supporting female actor for Emilia Pérez. The tears didn’t stop flowing when she got on stage, where she thanked director Jacques Audiard and her co-stars, Karla Sofía Gascón and Selena Gomez, who was also nominated in the category.
Kieran Culkin won a best supporting male actor award for his role in the movie A Real Pain, in which he paid Jesse Eisenberg’s cousin who acts like a total brat on a trip to see his Jewish grandmother’s ancestral homelands in Poland. Apologizing for being too tipsy from a shot of tequila that he can’t remember his speech, he improvised, singing his wife’s praises several times and lavishing praises on the screenwriter and director Jesse Eisenberg.
Shōgun’s Tadanobu Asano won the award for best supporting male actor in a television drama series. He started off his speech saying, “Maybe you don’t know me. I’m an actor from Japan.” Fist-pumping, he explained that he was happy to accept this “very big present” and that he was flying back to Tokyo right after the show for a shoot in the morning.
Funniest lines in acceptance speeches
Jessica Gunning won TV’s best supporting female actor award for playing a stalker in Baby Reindeer. When she got on stage, she said she almost tripped, and “almost showed my Golden Globes.” She told the audience she hasn’t been this excited since her parents bought her a hamster.
When Peter Straughan accepted the award for best motion picture screenplay, he joked, “I’m one ball of gratitude squeezed into a borrowed tux.”
While accepting the award for best comedy series for Hacks, director Paul W. Downs had one PSA: “We do have to shoot tomorrow, and we have a call time of 6am, so if Jean Smart asks you for a shot, please do not give it to her. Kate Winslet I’m looking at you, wherever you are. Give her water.”
Accepting her first Golden Globe for best female actor in a drama series, Shōgun’s Anna Sawai joked, “Thank you to the voters for voting for me, even though I’d vote for Kathy Bates any day.”
Presenting the best presenters
Jennifer Coolidge introduced the best male actor in a musical or comedy TV series category “men who had the daunting task of carrying the entire weight of a series on their shoulders.” She joked that the lead actors get the best treatment, the only ones who get green juice.
Seth Rogen and Catherine O’Hara had a raunchy introduction to the award for best female actor limited series, which went to Jodie Foster for True Detective: Night Country. They called each other kindred spirits for their Canadian heritage, with O’Hara talking about her long career in acting in Canadian films, losing “half a nipple” along the way, while Rogen claimed he was an adult film star in Canada, sweeping the Beaver awards.
Appearing with Brandi Carlile to present the award for best film score, Elton John (TIME’s 2024 Icon of the Year) cleared up the speculation about the eye infection that has damaged his eyesight, joking, “It’s not as bad as it seems, so I’m so glad to be here with my co-host Rihanna.”
Melissa McCarthy was on a roll presenting the award for best TV series musical or comedy with Awkwafina. On The Bear, she quipped, “The bear really opened my eyes to the severity of cocaine addiction in the bear community.” She also voiced her opposition to murders, while introducing Only Murders in the Building. On Nobody Wants This, McCarthy simply said, “It is hard to get behind a show that hates itself.” The winner was Hacks.
News that mews
The top prize for animated film went to Flow. The film is about a cat whose home is destroyed by a flood, and the feline winds up on a boat with multiple different kinds of animals. In classic cat-like fashion, Captain America: Brave New World stars Anthony Mackie and Harrison Ford had a brief staring contest before announcing the award winner.
Ace!
The Golden Globes served up the award for best film score to the tennis movie Challengers, about a love triangle between two male tennis players who are fighting over a retired female tennis star, played by Zendaya.
In her monologue, Glaser referred to Challengers as “more sexually charged than Diddy’s credit card.”
Speaking of a director’s cut…
While accepting the award for best motion picture in the drama category, The Brutalist director Brady Corbet talked about how hard it was to get the greenlight for the award-winning film, which is more than three-hours long and includes an intermission. He was told no one would go see it, and it would never get distributed.
He said this award should be a lesson to studios to trust the filmmakers and their original visions. “Final cut tiebreak goes to the director,” he said. “Films don’t exist without the filmmakers. Please let’s support them. Let’s prop them up.”