Golden Globes 2021 Review: 8 Ups & 6 Downs

5. The Baffling Movie Actress Winners

Though the HFPA awarded a number of truly deserving winners, their selections in all three cinematic actress categories raised many eyebrows among viewers.

For starters, Borat Subsequent Moviefilm's Maria Bakalova, the widely expected winner of Best Actress (Musical/Comedy), was beaten by Rosamund Pike for I Care A Lot. Pike's performance is rock solid, no question, but this really felt like Bakalova's to lose.

Next, Amanda Seyfried, whose performance in Mank has been a buzzed-about favourite all awards season, was pipped to the post for Best Supporting Actress by Jodie Foster's turn in The Mauritanian, a film whose major awards hype quickly cooled.

And in perhaps the most unexpected win of the entire evening, Andra Day scooped Best Actress (Drama) for The United States vs. Billie Holiday, beating out frontrunners Carey Mulligan (Promising Young Woman) and Viola Davis (Ma Rainey's Black Bottom).

This isn't to disparage Day's performance at all, but the film itself is so thoroughly mediocre that it actively works against her, such that it's tough to view her win as worthy compared to the more unqualified successes of Mulligan and Davis' performances.