The Golden Globes can be a tricky award show to predict, if only because they so often go their own way.

The Hollywood Foreign Press Association is made up of about 90 foreign journalists and also happen to throw one of the biggest parties in Hollywood every year: the Golden Globes. While often considered a precursor to the Oscars, the Globes tend to like who they like and considering there's no overlap with Academy voters, many years have differing winners.

Similarly, the Golden Globes have very little influence on the Emmys, especially if you look at how many Golden Globe winning TV stars didn't even get nominated at that year's Emmys (looking at you, Lady Gaga, Oscar Isaac, Rachel Bloom and Christian Slater).

While it can be extremely difficult to predict every winner correctly, there are some unofficial tips and patterns you can follow to at least do decently in your predicting ballot.

Here are five tips to keep in mind before predicting winners at this year's Golden Globes:

1. The HFPA loves major celebrities

Just looking at the last 10 years of Golden Globe winners, you begin to see a pattern with the group continuing to reward stars over lesser known actors. We've seen the likes of Leonardo DiCaprio, Amy Adams, Jennifer Lawrence and Kate Winslet winning multiple awards, plus all kinds of music stars winning in Best Original Song, including Madonna, Prince, Bruce Springsteen, U2 and Mick Jagger. Generally speaking, if you're a hot, buzzed-about star, there's a good chance the HFPA will want you up on that stage.

2. The Globes also love anointing promising newcomers

At the Globes, winners are usually a mix of well-established stars and new stars with great potential. From the aforementioned Bloom to Jane the Virgin's Gina Rodriguez to Girls' Lena Dunham, many of the TV awards are given to young stars just breaking in a big way. This year, there are many new stars who could benefit from this, including Atlanta's Donald Glover, Insecure's Issa Rae and The Night Of's Riz Ahmed.

3. They like to spread the wealth

While we often see sweeps at the Oscars (like the year Titanic won 11 trophies), the Golden Globes like to reward many different shows and movies (and their corresponding networks and studios). It may be tempting to predict a La La Land sweep, but it's been a very long time since a movie has taken 5-7 trophies, so it's better to predict the definite wins and then reconsider some of the shakier contenders. For example, Emma Stone is practically locked to win Best Comedy/Musical Actress, but do they also want to give an award to co-star Ryan Gosling in Best Comedy/Musical Actor?

4. Critics Awards can be predictive, but not always

The glut of critics awards before the Golden Globes can often indicate who the frontrunner is in each category, as seen in the 2014 film year when J.K. Simmons and Patricia Arquette swept just about every award, including the Golden Globes. Generally speaking, you should be predicting movies and actors that have won multiple critics awards this year, which includes Casey Affleck, Natalie Portman, Mahershala Ali and Viola Davis, but it's always possible that the race could change here. After all, the Argo train mostly started at the Golden Globes in early 2013, despite not winning with too many critics groups beforehand.

5. They're not that tied down by labels

The Golden Globes may separate Picture, and Lead Actor and Lead Actress into Drama and Comedy/Musical, but such labels haven't prevented questionable movies/stars from winning in the past. For example, The Martian won Best Comedy/Musical Picture last year despite being the least funny of that whole category (The Big Short, Joy, Spy, Trainwreck). Even in the TV categories it hasn't bothered them. Transparent is a mostly serious show but it won two Emmys in the comedy categories for its first season. So if something doesn't feel like the best comedy movie or show, that doesn't mean they won't vote for it.

The 2017 Golden Globes will air live from coast to coast Sunday at 8 p.m. ET / 5 p.m. PT on NBC.

Read more
Tags
Golden globes