So, it turns out that when a comedian has sufficient time to prepare, and previous experience joking about celebrities on high-profile platforms, their odds of opening the Golden Globes successfully improve dramatically. Who could have imagined? After 2024’s disastrous Golden Globes hosting performance by Jo Koy, the Golden Globe Foundation turned hosting duties over to Nikki Glaser this year based on her standout performance on The Roast of Tom Brady. The comedian brought the same killer joke-writing sensibility and penchant for ruthlessness she displayed live on Netflix to the stage at the Beverly Hilton.
After ingratiating herself to the audience with a savvy self-deprecating joke (“I’ve got to say: This feels like I finally made it. I’m in a room full of producers at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, and this time all of my clothes are on”), Glaser proceeded to deliver a monologue pulling no punches about the year in TV and movies, and gushing over attendees to win the audience back each time they groaned. Among the most memorable jokes: A bit about how the year’s nominated TV shows The Bear, The Penguin, and Baby Reindeer are not “just things found in RFK’s freezer” and a memorable run about how Timothée Chalamet’s name sounds like something Adam Sandler would say in his signature Sandman voice. Cut to: Sandler in the crowd doing a flawless “Chalamet” in real time.
“Tonight we celebrate the best of film and hold space for television,” Glaser began before proceeding to pick off targets including Paramount+, the Hollywood democratic establishment, Ariana Grande, Ben Affleck, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Peacock, Martin Short, Stanley Tucci, Dune 2, Tilda Swinton, Chalamet, Wicked, Joker: Folie à Deux, Harrison Ford, Babygirl, Keith Urban, Benny Blanco, Netflix’s autoplay, Hollywood predators, and the Golden Globes’ (largely male) Best Director category. With snappy one-liners featuring the right amount of edge and a carefully calibrated approach about which hot-button topics to joke about (Diddy, the possible end of democracy, etc.) and which to avoid (the Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni legal battle), Glaser killed. Watch her full monologue performance below.
With the toughest part of her job out of the way, Glaser could have spent the remainder of the show on autopilot, but instead she used the goodwill she earned from her monologue to pull off a series of other ambitious bits. Most notably, she remarked that Wicked and Conclave were both Zeitgeist-y movies, which she used as an excuse to launch into an elaborately costumed parody of the former’s “Popular” complete with remixed lyrics about the head of the Catholic Church. She stopped singing not long after the song began to pantomime getting a note in an earpiece from a producer offstage. “Wait, this sucks?” she asked the imaginary producer. “This whole thing sucks? I’m embarrassing myself in front of Elton John?”
Elsewhere during the evening, Glaser kept things brisk with expedient jokes between segments that displayed her understanding of the most important duty of an awards-show host: to move things along. “I don’t really know what these next two presenters have in common, but they’re hot and talented, so who cares?,” she said at one point before introducing Colman Domingo and Salma Hayek Pinault. With bits like this and her “Pope-ular” song, Glaser demonstrated her studied admiration for awards shows, even as she was irreverently poking fun at their artifice and spectacle. As much as her jokes were well written and delivered, this was her biggest victory of the night. In one bit, while standing in the crowd, Glaser introduced a segment by saying, “I’m here on the floor with all of my peers. Just go with it …” By that point in the show, the audience didn’t need that instruction to feel that she belonged.
This post has been updated.