Barbie movie award nominations: film has early award season success with Critics' Choice and Golden Globe nods

After dominating the box office this year, Barbie leads the way for the 2024 movie awards season, with a record breaking performance at the Critics' Choice Awards nominees announcement, and the most nods at the Golden Globes this year.

The fantasy film about a Barbie doll who enters the real world where she encounters sexism and cellulite topped the box office this year, making $1.44 billion worldwide, and becoming the highest-grossing film directed by a woman of all time.

The 2024 season properly begins with the Critics' Choice and Golden Globes awards ceremonies, followed by Bafta and SAG in February, and culminating with the Oscars in March.

The Golden Globes are typically the first indication of how well films will perform at the Oscars, the pinnacle of film awards, which means that Barbie could be set for a good year.

How many awards is Barbie nominated for?

Barbie looks set to be one of the big winners of the 2024 awards season, and it is already breaking records.

The Greta Gerwig-directed fantasy film received a staggering 18 nominations at the Critics' Choice Awards, smashing the all time record for the number of nominations by a single film. Oppenheimer, which was released in cinemas on the same day as Barbie, leading to the Barbenheimer phenomenon, trailed in joint second alongside Poor Things, with 13 nominations.

The previous record of 14 nominations was set by The Shape of Water in 2017, and matched by Everything Everywhere All at Once, both of which went on to win not only the Critics' Choice Award for Best Picture, but the Oscar for the same award.

Among the Critics' Choice Awards that the film is nominated for are Best Picture, Best Actress, Best Director, Best Acting Ensemble, and Best Original Screenplay.

Barbie also led the way in the Golden Globe nominations, announced on Monday, with nine nods, again besting Oppenheimer which received one fewer nomination. Barbie is nominated for Best Picture - Musical or Comedy, Best Director, Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy, and Best Screenplay, among others.

Could Barbie win the Best Picture Oscars?

Barbie looks to be in prime position to take the big prize at the Oscars in March, having done well at the nomination stage of two other big awards shows. However, nominations don’t always translate into wins, and Barbie is not a typical Best Picture Oscar winner.

Previous Best Picture winners tend to be the arthouse side of mainstream cinema that don’t tend to make as much as the box office, whereas Barbie is more of a ‘typical’ blockbuster. Last year’s winner, Everything Everywhere All at Once, made around a tenth of what Barbie made globally. In fact, if you combine the total global box office grosses of the last 10 Best Picture winners, they still wouldn’t surpass what Barbie made.

It may seem contradictory, but Barbie is probably too popular to win the Best Picture Oscar, though it will almost certainly be nominated.