Dick Cheney Biopic ‘Vice’ Leads Golden Globe Nominations

Vice, a biopic about Dick Cheney starring Christian Bale as the former US vice president, picked up the most nominations for the 76 Golden Globe Awards with six including best comedy film, as the race to the Oscars begins.

The Golden Globe announcements on Thursday are the first major indicator of momentum going into the Academy Awards, which take place in February. They come a week before the influential Screen Actors Guild nominations.

Vice upset many predictions, earning one more nomination than popular music romance reboot A Star Is Born, but both are now well placed for awards glory.

Sharing a tally of five nominations with A Star Is Born are raucous royal tale The Favourite and offbeat race comedy Green Book.

Right behind them are Spike Lee’s BlackkKlansman, the true story of a black police officer who infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan with the help of a white partner, and hotly-awaited Disney sequel Mary Poppins Returns.

Filling out the Best Motion Picture–Drama category are new superhero success Black Panther, If Beale Street Could Talk by Oscar winning director Barry Jenkins and the emotionally wrenching Freddie Mercury retrospective Bohemian Rhapsody.

Better known as an actor, Bradley Cooper receives his first director’s nomination for his debut A Star is Born, for which he also receives a Best Actor nomination. Joining him in the Best Director group are Alfonso Cuaron (Roma), Peter Farrelly (Green Book), Spike Lee (BlacKkKlansman) and Adam McKay (Vice). And Cooper will face a hard fight for the acting award from Willem Dafoe (At Eternity’s Gate), Lucas Hudges (Boy Erased), John David Washington (BlacKkKlansman) and Rami Malek (Bohemian Rhapsody).

Cooper’s co-star, Lady Gaga, is also nominated in the Best Actress category. But novice actress Lady Gaga will have to beat off established competition from Nicole Kidman, Glenn Close, Melissa McCarthy and Rosamund Pike.

In the Foreign Language section, it is hard to imagine anyone pipping Alfonso Cuaron’s Roma to the post. But it is a particularly strong category, including Capernaum, Girl, Never Look Away and the Cannes Palmes d”Or winning Shoplifters. Cuaron is also nominated in both the Best Director and Best Screenplay category for his majestic new film. But, interestingly, foreign films do not qualify for the overall best picture award.

The television drama categories are unsurprisingly dominated by The Americans, which finished its final season earlier this year. Both leading actors Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys have received nomination nods.

The Golden Globes will be presented by Sandra Oh and Andy Samberg on January 6 in Beverly Hills.