When the 76th annual Golden Globe Awards get underway Sunday night, who takes home statuettes is only a small part of the intrigue.

What the Hollywood Foreign Press Association's Beverly Hills, California, ceremony lacks in gravitas it usually makes up for in freewheeling frivolity and fun. The free-flowing booze helps.

This year's show, which will be broadcast Monday at 7:30 am following an hour of red-carpet pre-show coverage, likely has awards in store for Bradley Cooper's Oscar front-runner A Star Is Born, Yorgos Lanthimos' period romp The Favourite, the Amazon comedy series The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and Ryan Murphy's anthology series The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story.

US actor and filmmaker Bradley Cooper pose on the red carpet upon arrival for the UK premiere of the film A Star is Born in central London. (AFP)

Lady Gaga is poised to win not just one but two awards, for best actress in a drama and for the song Shallow, from A Star Is Born. (Gaga, who won a Globe in 2016 for her American Horror Story: Hotel performance, would still fall short of the three Globes won by Barbra Streisand for the 1976 version of A Star Is Born.)

Workers and staff prepare the red carpet area for Sunday's the 76th Golden Globe Awards, at the Beverly Hilton hotel in Beverly Hills. (AFP)

But the ceremony might hinge most on just what kind of party the Globes can muster this year. Last year's ceremony, atypically serious for the Globes, was the first major awards show after the birth of the #MeToo movement following the Harvey Weinstein revelations. Female attendees wore black in solidarity. Presenter Natalie Portman pointedly introduced the "all male" directing nominees.

A year later, little dust has settled. Hollywood remains consumed with gender inequality and highly placed men have continued to fall. This year's best director nominees are also all male again.

How much these subjects will be discussed in the broadcast, to be hosted by the unexpected pairing of Andy Samberg and Sandra Oh, is unknown. Samberg and Oh have said they're hoping to set a lively and carefree tone . Oh, the star of the BBC America drama series Killing Eve, is also a nominee.

Last year's show, like a lot of recent awards shows, saw ratings decline. Some 19 million tuned in to the Seth Meyers-hosted broadcast, an 11% decline in viewership.

This year, NBC has one thing in its favour: an NFL lead in. Ahead of the Globes, NBC is broadcasting the late afternoon Wild Card game between the Chicago Bears and the Philadelphia Eagles.

The array of nominees that have been sizable box office hits may potentially help the Globes, none more than Ryan Coogler's Black Panther, up for best picture (drama) and score. A Star is Born, which is expected to dominate the drama side of the movie awards, recently passed $200 million in domestic ticket sales.

This image released by Annapurna Pictures shows Christian Bale as Dick Cheney, left, and Amy Adams as Lynne Cheney in a scene from Vice. (AP)

Adam McKay's highly critical Dick Cheney portrait Vice, starring Christian Bale, comes in with a leading six nominations. While music-heavy films A Star Is Born and Bohemian Rhapsody opted to contend in the Globes' drama categories, Vice tops the comedy-musical nominees, though it's closely trailed by multiple nominees, including The Favourite and Green Book, Peter Farrelly's interracial road trip tale starring Viggo Mortensen and Mahershala Ali.

At stake are not just Golden Globes awards but Oscar momentum. Voting for the Academy Awards nominations begins Monday.

Jeff Bridges will receive the Globes' honorary Cecil B DeMille Award. A similar television achievement award is also being launched, dubbed the Carol Burnett Award. Its first honoree will be Burnett, herself.

Follow @htshowbiz for more

First Published: Jan 06, 2019 18:23 IST