# Oscars or Golden Globes: which is better? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 26, 2013, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oscars-or-golden-globes-which-is-better/667168 "2013-08-26T02:19:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2013, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oscars-or-golden-globes-which-is-better/667168/1 "2013-08-26T02:19:02Z")
At first glance, it’s no contest. An Oscar is a much more prestigious award than a Golden Globe. Everyone agrees on that. But I happened to be reading the list of movies which won the Golden Globe for best drama. Compare them to the movie that won the Oscar that same year. (These are, obviously, the years when different movies won.) 1950 - Golden Globe: _Sunset Boulevard_ - Oscar: _All About Eve_ 1951 - Golden Globe: _A Place in the Sun_ - Oscar: _An American in Paris_ 1953 - Golden Globe: _The Robe_ - Oscar: _From Here to Eternity_ 1955 - Golden Globe: _East of Eden_ - Oscar: _Marty_ 1958 - Golden Globe: _The Defiant Ones_ - Oscar: _Gigi_ 1960 - Golden Globe: _Spartacus_ - Oscar: _The Apartment_ 1961 - Golden Globe: _The Guns of Navarone_ - Oscar: _West Side Story_ 1963 - Golden Globe: _The Cardinal_ - Oscar: _Tom Jones_ 1964 - Golden Globe: _Becket_ - Oscar: _My Fair Lady_ 1965 - Golden Globe: _Doctor Zhivago_ - Oscar: _The Sound of Music_ 1968 - Golden Globe: _The Lion in Winter_ - Oscar: _Oliver!_ 1969 - Golden Globe: _Anne of the Thousand Days_ - Oscar: _Midnight Cowboy_ 1970 - Golden Globe: _Love Story_ - Oscar: _Patton_ 1973 - Golden Globe: _The Exorcist_ - Oscar: _The Sting_ 1974 - Golden Globe: _Chinatown_ - Oscar: _The Godfather Part II_ 1977 - Golden Globe: _The Turning Point_ - Oscar: _Annie Hall_ 1978 - Golden Globe: _Midnight Express_ - Oscar:\* The Deer Hunter\* 1981 - Golden Globe: _On Golden Pond_ - Oscar: _Chariots of Fire_ 1982 - Golden Globe: _E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial_ - Oscar: _Gandhi_ 1989 - Golden Globe: _Born on the Fourth of July_ - Oscar: _Driving Miss Daisy_ 1991 - Golden Globe: _Bugsy_ - Oscar: _The Silence of the Lambs_ 1992 - Golden Globe: _Scent of a Woman_ - Oscar: _Unforgiven_ 1995 - Golden Globe: _Sense and Sensibility_ - Oscar: _Braveheart_ 1998 - Golden Globe: _Saving Private Ryan_ - Oscar: _Shakespeare in Love_ 2002 - Golden Globe: _The Hours_ - Oscar: _Chicago_ 2004 - Golden Globe: _The Aviator_ - Oscar: _Million Dollar Baby_ 2005 - Golden Globe: _Brokeback Mountain_ - Oscar: _Crash_ 2006 - Golden Globe: _Babel_ - Oscar: _The Departed_ 2007 - Golden Globe: _Atonement_ - Oscar: _No Country for Old Men_ 2009 - Golden Globe: _Avatar_ - Oscar: _The Hurt Locker_ 2010 - Golden Globe: _The Social Network_ - Oscar: _The King’s Speech_ 2011 - Golden Globe: _The Descendants_ - Oscar: _The Artist_ Looking at the two lists, what’s your opinion? ---
**Author:** ![Equipoise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/equipoise/32/151_2.png) [@Equipoise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Equipoise)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2013, 9:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oscars-or-golden-globes-which-is-better/667168/2 "2013-08-26T09:43:35Z")
I personally think that the Golden Globes got it right more often than not, though in many years both got it wrong. For me they especially got it right in 2005 and 2010. They’re very different entities though. The Globe voters are a small, elite group of non-American film critics, while the Academy voters are a huge group of wildly eclectic film industry workers from all around the world. They encompass all ages and disciplines, ranging from Polish cinematographers to Australian costume designers to aged English actresses in nursing homes to experimental musicians from Iceland. And everything in between. I console myself by knowing that just because **The King’s Speech** (which I liked) won over **The Social Network** (which I LOVED) in no way means that ALL the voters thought The Social Network was the inferior movie, just that enough of a majority chose The King’s Speech to make it win out. It’s often done, I even do it myself sometimes, but it’s simplistic to say “The Academy” as if it were a monolithic entity of one mind. It’s simplistic to say that “The Academy” as a whole is, especially now, a stodgy group of rich, out-of-touch elites. Most are not rich. Generally, outside of the most famous actors, the most well-known directors, famous composers and the most successful producers they’re just average folks doing their jobs in an interesting industry. You have make-up artists and sound people and editors and art directors and musicians and shorts filmmakers & documentary makers who are maxing out their credit cards and struggling to pay the bills, and so on. The older members are dying off and a younger demographic is waiting in the wings. A growing majority is not stodgy or out-of-touch, which is mostly reflected in the nominees. Another great thing the Globe voters have that the Academy voters do not is the separation of Drama and Comedy/Musical. George Clooney would never have been nominated for **O Brother, Where Art Thou?** at the Oscars, whereas he (quite rightly) WON a Golden Globe for that role. ---
**Author:** ![BrokenBriton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@BrokenBriton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrokenBriton)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2013, 9:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oscars-or-golden-globes-which-is-better/667168/3 "2013-08-26T09:56:41Z")
I think you’ll find tv is the new cinema, rergadless of self-congratulating, self-promoting ‘award’ shows. ---
**Author:** ![Equipoise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/equipoise/32/151_2.png) [@Equipoise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Equipoise)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2013, 10:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oscars-or-golden-globes-which-is-better/667168/4 "2013-08-26T10:02:23Z")
TV is NOT “the new cinema” (whatever the fuck that means). Threadshitters, Jesus! Go back to your TV threads. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2013, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oscars-or-golden-globes-which-is-better/667168/5 "2013-08-26T16:30:32Z")
I’ll admit the Golden Globes got it right some of the time, but in 1991, they chose Bugsy over Silence of the Lambs and in 2006 Babel over The Departed. I don’t agree with those choices. And my understanding is that the membership of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association isn’t very elite. (And I think it’s a tiny group, like less than a hundred members.) ---
**Author:** ![Equipoise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/equipoise/32/151_2.png) [@Equipoise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Equipoise)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2013, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oscars-or-golden-globes-which-is-better/667168/6 "2013-08-26T17:01:57Z")
I agree with you about those Oscar choices being better. I meant elite in terms of rarified, not high-falutin’. It is a rarified group of voters. It isn’t as if they let just anybody and their brother in because as I understand it their numbers have always been small, under 100 (I did say small). If you could easily buy or manipulate your way in, their voter numbers would be in the hundreds or thousands by now. Hell, anyone can buy their way in to voting for the Independent Spirit Awards (I almost got a membership a few years ago specifically to vote for Winter’s Bone and Company but I never had the extra cash) and no one ever complains about them. ---
**Author:** ![DMark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@DMark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DMark)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2013, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oscars-or-golden-globes-which-is-better/667168/7 "2013-08-26T17:02:22Z")
> [@Equipoise](#): > > They’re very different entities though. The Globe voters are a small, elite group of non-American film critics, while the Academy voters are a huge group of wildly eclectic film industry workers from all around the world. This. As far as actual EVENT - the Golden Globes are more fun to watch - everyone has had a few drinks, the awards are nice, but everyone knows the voters were about two dozen foreign celebrity whores who just want to hobnob with Hollywood stars. The Oscars have the real prestige and mean far more when receiving one…whereas winning a Golden Globe is just a cool thing to have on the bookshelf. Now, that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t want to win a Golden Globe - but you might notice it is more normal to mention an actor is an Oscar winner or was an Oscar nominee, but would rarely, if ever, hear that about a Golden Globe…so there most certainly is a difference in the actual award. ---
**Author:** ![Gangster\_Octopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a8b319/32.png) [@Gangster\_Octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gangster_Octopus)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2013, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oscars-or-golden-globes-which-is-better/667168/8 "2013-08-26T17:07:21Z")
I’d say throughout the 70s the Oscars almost always got it right versus the Golden Globes, since then it is pretty split. ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2013, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oscars-or-golden-globes-which-is-better/667168/9 "2013-08-26T23:26:49Z")
Golden Globes voters can essentially be bought via junket or the opportunity to schmooze with stars; witness Harvey Weinstein, whose relentless wooing has paid him back handsomely (the best example of that was **The Reader** ). Still, who cares? It’s all bullshit, and the whimsy of the Globes adds to the fun, rather than subtracting from it. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2013, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oscars-or-golden-globes-which-is-better/667168/10 "2013-08-26T23:32:20Z")
IMO they kinda alternate sucking. For example, in 50, 51, 55, 60, 64, 65, 68, 69, 95, 04 and 05, the Golden Globes were the correct choice. In the other years they weren’t. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2013, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oscars-or-golden-globes-which-is-better/667168/11 "2013-08-27T02:15:40Z")
> [@Equipoise](#): > > I agree with you about those Oscar choices being better. Actually, I personally voted the other way. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2013, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oscars-or-golden-globes-which-is-better/667168/12 "2013-08-28T01:59:17Z")
> [@Maserschmidt](#): > > Golden Globes voters can essentially be bought via junket or the opportunity to schmooze with stars; witness Harvey Weinstein, whose relentless wooing has paid him back handsomely (the best example of that was **The Reader** ). **The Reader** got Kate Winslet a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress; she also got the Oscar for Best _Actress_. It was nominated for – but didn’t win – Golden Globes in Director and Screenplay and Best Picture; it was likewise nominated for each of those Oscars, likewise winning none. What, exactly, does that prove in a Globes-v-Oscars contest? ---
**Author:** ![diggerwam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/919ad9/32.png) [@diggerwam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/diggerwam)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2013, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oscars-or-golden-globes-which-is-better/667168/13 "2013-08-28T02:22:58Z")
Independent Spirit Awards, day before the Oscars is always very fun. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2013, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oscars-or-golden-globes-which-is-better/667168/14 "2013-08-28T02:33:03Z")
> [@diggerwam](#): > > Independent Spirit Awards, day before the Oscars is always very fun. In my opinion, the fact that they give out their awards the day before the Oscars discredits them. They’re basically trying to use Oscar week publicity to call attention to their claim that they’re independent - and by using this strategy, they’re disproving their claim. Real independence would be scheduling their event away from the Oscar ceremony. ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2013, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oscars-or-golden-globes-which-is-better/667168/15 "2013-08-28T03:18:59Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > **The Reader** got Kate Winslet a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress; she also got the Oscar for Best _Actress_. It was nominated for – but didn’t win – Golden Globes in Director and Screenplay and Best Picture; it was likewise nominated for each of those Oscars, likewise winning none. > > What, exactly, does that prove in a Globes-v-Oscars contest? Fair enough, I picked the wrong example. Golden Globes voters are still junket/schmoozing whores. ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2013, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oscars-or-golden-globes-which-is-better/667168/16 "2013-08-28T03:21:50Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > In my opinion, the fact that they give out their awards the day before the Oscars discredits them. They’re basically trying to use Oscar week publicity to call attention to their claim that they’re independent - and by using this strategy, they’re disproving their claim. Real independence would be scheduling their event away from the Oscar ceremony. The last few years their picks have looked more and more like the other awards, but not completely - last year for example it was great to see John Hawkes win. ---
**Author:** ![Yookeroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yookeroo/32/323_2.png) [@Yookeroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yookeroo)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2013, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oscars-or-golden-globes-which-is-better/667168/17 "2013-08-29T01:47:08Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > IMO they kinda alternate sucking. For example, in 50, 51, 55, 60, 64, 65, 68, 69, 95, 04 and 05, the Golden Globes were the correct choice. In the other years they weren’t. So eleven times in the last 60+ years is alternating? > [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > In my opinion, the fact that they give out their awards the day before the Oscars discredits them. They’re basically trying to use Oscar week publicity to call attention to their claim that they’re independent They’re trying to user Oscar week to call attention to the fact that they exist. Not sure why this discredits them. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2013, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oscars-or-golden-globes-which-is-better/667168/18 "2013-08-29T02:21:46Z")
> [@Yookeroo](#): > > So eleven times in the last 60+ years is alternating? 11 **of the years they differed from the Oscars.** That’s 11/32. Reasonable alternation to me. ---
**Author:** ![JustinC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justinc/32/8083_2.png) [@JustinC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JustinC)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2013, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oscars-or-golden-globes-which-is-better/667168/19 "2013-09-01T15:53:17Z")
I never considered either to be more ‘right’, and after looking at that list I think they’re both equally off-target about the same amount of time. ---
**Author:** ![MovieMogul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f08c70/32.png) [@MovieMogul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MovieMogul)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2013, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oscars-or-golden-globes-which-is-better/667168/20 "2013-09-01T16:10:06Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > In my opinion, the fact that they give out their awards the day before the Oscars discredits them. They’re basically trying to use Oscar week publicity to call attention to their claim that they’re independent - and by using this strategy, they’re disproving their claim. Real independence would be scheduling their event away from the Oscar ceremony. Nonsense. Getting that many industry people in one place is logistically very challenging. They’re not under any illusion that they’re on par (in name recognition or popularity) with the Oscars, but since there is some inevitable overlap between the two ceremonies, capitalizing on the presence of all worldwide media and big Hollywood types that one weekend makes perfect sense and does nothing to undermine any “independent” standing.