The Golden Globes Snubbed ‘Malcolm X,’ ‘Selma and Now ‘Sinners.’ Here’s Why

Let’s just be honest. Sinners had a disappointing night at the Golden Globes.

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Ryan Coogler’s unapologetically Black and unquestionably brilliant horror film that was one of the most talked about movies of 2025, received seven Golden Globe nominations for the 2026 awards. It was nominated for Best Motion Picture – Drama, Best Director and Best Screenplay for Coogler, Best Actor for Michael B. Jordan, Cinematic and Box Office Achievement, Best Original Score and Best Song for Ludwig Göransson.

That’s seven nominations. How many golden statues did it win? Two. That’s it. It won for Cinematic and Box Office Achievement and Best Original Score but was shut out for the rest.

It’s not surprising that it did not win for best director or best screenplay. The momentum that Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another has garnered on the awards circuit is real, and it will take a miracle for anything to beat it in those categories when the Academy Awards come around in March. (Sidenote: big ups to Teyana Taylor. She won Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Once Battle After Another. She has a real chance to take home the Oscar for her performance in that film.)

But for Sinners to not win Best Actor or Best Picture- Drama is not just disappointing. It’s almost criminal.

The Golden Globes have a long and illustrious history of not recognizing Black films. Malcolm X didn’t win one. Nor did Selma, Boyz N The Hood, Do The Right Thing or Black Panther. So Sinners losing last night at the Globes should not be surprising…but that doesn’t make it any less disappointing.

Hamnet beat it for Best Picture, and aside from director Chloé Zhao, that film is one of the whitest films to be nominated this year. And yeah, it’s good. But it does not have the depth and cinematic bravado that Sinners has in spades.

And Michael B. Jordan losing to Wagner Moura? Laughable. Nothing Wagner does in The Secret Agent touches the complexity of Jordan playing two characters with two distinctly different personalities.

So, yeah, Sinners did not win much at the Golden Globes last night. This is but another example of why we should not be surprised when white awards shows do not recognize Black art. They have always marginalized us. We play ourselves when we expect anything different.