The first movie to win five Golden Globes
Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer was the biggest feature-length winner at the 2023 Golden Globes after winning five trophies, and while that doesn’t sound particularly remarkable in microcosm, it’s actually a very rare achievement relative to how long the awards have been running.
Since the very first ceremony in 1944, only nine films prior to Nolan’s biographical drama had taken home five trophies, but anything beyond that has proven to be even rarer still. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Midnight Express are the only six-time victors, with La La Land the one and only seven-time Golden Globe-winning movie.
That being said, it didn’t take too long for the maiden septet to be claimed, with Robert Rossen’s political thriller All the King’s Men – which would go on to scoop the Academy Award for ‘Best Picture’ – breaking new ground after being bestowed with five statues.
In addition to Rossen’s ‘Best Director’ win, the riveting literary adaptation won ‘Best Picture’, secured Broderick Crawford ‘Best Actor’, and celebrated Mercedes McCambridge as ‘Best Supporting Actress’, with All the King’s Men ultimately winning Oscars in the corresponding categories.
On top of that, McCambridge was named ‘New Star of the Year – Actress’ for her big screen debut, rounding out a trailblazing Golden Globes performance. It would be another 13 years before another title came along and matched that feat when David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia emerged as the second five-time winner.
Three years later, David Lean’s Doctor Zhivago became the third at the 1966 edition, creating an interesting caveat. Whereas McCambridge won ‘New Star of the Year – Actress’ and Peter O’Toole was named ‘New Star of the Year – Actor’ for playing the title role in Lean’s other sweeping epic, both of those categories in their various iterations were permanently retired in 1983.
As a result, Doctor Zhivago is technically the first movie to win five Golden Globes that remain active to this day. In an even more ironic twist, the only award it was nominated for but didn’t win came in the now-defunct ‘Most Promising Newcomer – Female’ category, which saw Geraldine Chaplin leave empty-handed.
The film would scoop ‘Best Motion Picture – Drama’, ‘Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama’ for Omar Sharif, ‘Best Director’ for Lean, ‘Best Screenplay’ for writer Robert Bolt, and ‘Best Original Score’ for composer Maurice Jarre.
Doctor Zhivago might be regarded as the third feature to have won five Golden Globes, but for the purpose of splitting hairs, it can also be called the first to have landed a quintet of prizes that have been a part of the line-up from its very first iteration right through to the present day, although defenders of All the King’s Men and Lawrence of Arabia are within their rights to contest that point.
