Golden Globe Nominations on Tom Cruise Control

Hollywood Foreign Press loads up on big names; Pitt's Benjamin Button, Doubt, Frost/Nixon lead films with five nods each

By Joal Ryan Dec 11, 2008 3:49 PMTags
Tropic Thunder, Tom CruiseMerie Weismiller/DreamWorks

Tom Cruise, Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie. Think the Golden Globes missed having movie stars around last year?

The A-plus-listers are all among the nominees for the 66th Annual Golden Globes, as announced this morning.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Frost/Nixon, The Reader, Revolutionary Road and Slumdog Millionaire will compete for Best Motion Picture, Drama.

Burn After Reading, Happy-Go-Lucky, In Bruges, Mamma Mia! and Vicky Cristina Barcelona are up for Best Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy.

Cruise scored a Supporting Actor nomination for his unbilled, unhinged Tropic Thunder cameo. Robert Downey Jr. is up in the same category for the same film.

DiCaprio finally got some awards-show love for the Mad Men-period drama Revolutionary Road—he's up for lead actor in a drama. His costar (and former Titanic shipmate) Kate Winslet was nominated in the lead actress category. Winslet's also nominated as a supporting actress for The Reader, the younger-man-older-woman-plus-Nazis drama.

Pitt and Jolie are up in the lead drama categories for the usual, Benjamin Button and Changeling, respectively.

Pitt's Benjamin Button tied with Frost/Nixon and Doubt, the 1960s-set Catholic priest sex scandal drama, with the most film nominations, five.

Other famous faces lauded with nominations by the famously star-friendly Globes include:

  • Meryl Streep, up for lead drama actress, for Proof, and lead comedy/musical actress, for Mamma Mia!
  • Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson, both up as lead actors for the romantic comedy Last Change Harvey
  • The late Heath Ledger, drawing his presumed supporting actor bearth for The Dark Knight
  • Clint Eastwood, in the game as neither an actor, for Gran Torino, nor as director, for either Gran Torino or Changeling, but as a composer, for Changeling, and as a tunesmith for the title track from Gran Torino (where he's facing off against Bruce Springsteen, Beyoncé, Peter Gabriel and someone called Miley Cyrus.)

Befitting a show run by members of the Hollywood Foreign Press, the Globes is especially taken by stars hailing from Europe, as the nominations for the following help demonstrate:

  • The U.K.'s Kristin Scott Thomas, up for lead drama actress for the France-set I've Loved You So Long
  • The U.K.'s Rebecca Hall and Sally Hawkins, up for lead comedy/musical actress for the Spain-set Vicky Cristina Barcelona and the London-set Happy-Go-Lucky, respectively
  • Ireland's Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson, both up for lead comedy/musical actor for the Belgium-set In Bruges
  • Spain's Javier Bardem, up for lead comedy/musical actor for Vicky Cristina Barcelona
  • Spain's Penélope Cruz, also up for Vicky Cristina Barcelona, in the supporting actress category
  • The U.K.'s Ralph Fiennes, up for supporting actor for the royality-observing period piece The Duchess.

Good thing Brooklyn's Anne Hathway, up for lead drama actress for Rachel Getting Married, had lots of momentum—and a rising profile—heading into the nominations.

The 66th Annual Golden Globes are to be presented by the stars, and to the stars—unlike last year's strike-stricken affair—on Jan. 11.

(Originally published Dec. 11, 2008, at 6:07 a.m. PT.)