2021 Golden Globes Odds and Best Bets for Film – The Trial of Chicago 7 Favored to Win Best Screenplay

• Nominees for the 78th Annual Golden Globes will be announced on February 3, weeks before the ceremony on February 28
• This year, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler will return as co-hosts for the program, their fourth time doing so
• See the odds and best bets below ahead of the official nominations being announced

It’s the first awards season since Covid-19 reached North America, but that isn’t going to stop the entertainment elite from crowning the cream of the crop.

Up first: the Golden Globes Awards. This year, the ceremony reaches its 78th annual iteration, honoring the best in film and television.

With social distancing and safety measures rightfully in place, we will all have to miss watching our favorite stars cozying up around tables and getting their booze on this year. But at least we still have the actual awards ceremony to look forward to.

Our 93rd Academy Awards tracker shows a venerable roundup of what’s expected to appear once nominations are announced. The Golden Globes are expected to, of course, mirror the Oscars in a lot of ways, as usual.

Best Film Screenplay Odds

All odds as of January 11

Despite a year with shuttered theaters and halted film sets, Hollywood still managed to land a lot of films into home box offices, drive-ins, and the few theaters that managed to reopen.

With no surprise at all, The Trial of the Chicago 7 has the best odds. Aaron Sorkin’s historical legal drama actually mass premiered on Netflix in October rather than a wide theater release due to the pandemic. But in a year where many films had atypical release structures, don’t count Trial out for the big prizes.

We know how much Hollywood loves an ensemble cast, gritty subject matter, and dense drama. This film has all three.

Pick: The Trial of the Chicago 7 (+250)

Best Director Odds

Chloé Zhao’s Nomadland may have not been as widely advertised or heard about as some of the other flicks, but awards critics have been known to pluck moderately obscure art dramas out for award hardware.

The indie western stars awards favorite Frances McDormand and currently sits at a cool 97% on Rotten Tomatoes. What makes Zhao a strong contender in the Best Director category is her ability to turn Jessica Bruder’s non-fiction memoir into a gripping big-screen feature.

With subtlety and substance, Zhao’s treatment of Nomadland was a sharp and heavy portrait of American life, a poignant case study that resonated that much more under our current collective health crisis.

Pick: Chloé Zhao (Nomadland) (+200)

Best Film Actor Odds

The world mourned in unison last fall when Black Panther star Chadwick Boseman’s death was announced. For a year that felt like it couldn’t give us any more pain than it possibly had, Boseman’s passing was an extra jab in the ribs.

As a strong role model and source of inspiration to the Black community, Boseman’s loss was especially heavy in a year where Black Lives Matter was at the forefront of the social conversation.

So, does Boseman deserve to win acting awards simply because he passed away? Absolutely not. But he does deserve to win based on his own merits, living or dead. And his role in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom–his final appearance– is luckily a great one.

Boseman is heavily expected to receive posthumous honors for this performance, and it’s a well-deserved opportunity to honor the star.

Pick: Chadwick Boseman (Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom)  (+225)

Best Film Drama Actress Odds

As wonderful and gripping Viola Davis and Frances McDormand both were, you have to look a little bit further down the list to see the star who shone brightest.

Carey Mulligan’s anticipated performance in Promising Young Woman not only lived up to expectations, it shattered them. This startling Me Too-era film was one for the books and driven almost entirely by Mulligan as a one-woman show.

With Hollywood still cleaning up the pieces in its post-Weinstein state, awarding Mulligan for her raw feminist performance is going to be one hell of a statement.

Pick: Carey Mulligan (Promising Young Woman) (+400)