“Barbie” has won the inaugural Outstanding Cinematic and Box Office Achievement Award at the Golden Globes. The Warner Bros. smash, the number one box office hit of 2023 ($1.44 billion in worldwide grosses), was a natural fit to win the award. With its creative, auteurist take on an existing property, the film has been credited as helping to revitalize a Hollywood still struggling post-Covid, and it’s been welcomed as a rare non-superhero-centric blockbuster.
“Barbie” also received the most nominations at the 81st Golden Globes overall this year, with nine total: in addition to Outstanding Cinematic and Box Office Achievement, it scored nods for Best Motion Picture — Musical or Comedy, Best Actress — Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for Margot Robbie, Best Supporting Actor for Ryan Gosling, Best Director for Greta Gerwig, Best Screenplay for Gerwig and Noah Baumbach, and three Best Original Song nods: “Dance the Night” for Mark Ronson, Andrew Watt, Dua Lipa, and Caroline Ailin, “I’m Just Ken” for Mark Ronson and Andrew Watt, and “What Was I Made For?” for Billie Eilish O’Connell and Finneas O’Connell.
“Barbie” has racking up awards elsewhere this season so far: The film placed eighth on IndieWire’s Critics Survey of the best films of 2023, the National Board of Review declared it among the 10 best films of the year, and Ryan Gosling was nominated for Supporting Performance at the Gotham Awards, where “Barbie” also received a Global Icon and Creator tribute. Plus, it received a whopping 16 nominations at the upcoming Critics Choice Awards.
IndieWire’s Kate Erbland wrote in her review of “Barbie” in July 2023, “Gerwig, as ever, has assembled a stellar supporting cast. All Barbies delight, but the Kens, appropriately enough, launch a real sneak attack, especially Simu Liu and Kingsley Ben-Adir, and Michael Cera nearly makes off with the whole thing as the singular sidekick Allan. There’s also a murderer’s row of below-the-line talent: Opuses can and will be written about Sarah Greenwood’s production design and Jacqueline Durran’s costumes. ‘Barbie’ is a lovingly crafted blockbuster with a lot on its mind, the kind of feature that will surely benefit from repeat viewings (there is so much to see, so many jokes to catch) and is still purely entertaining even in a single watch.”
The 81st Golden Globe Awards were held Sunday, January 8 at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Los Angeles, CA. Dick Clark Productions, which owns and produces the Golden Globes, is a Penske Media company. PMC is also IndieWire’s parent company.
