And the award for existential angst goes to…

And they’re off! The runners and riders have now started on the annual horse race known as movie awards season, that three-month stretch when Hollywood pats itself on the back for what it accomplished in the previous year. But awards season will be more muted this year, as though reflecting the anxieties gripping Tinseltown as it faces a bleak future.

The race traditionally begins with the Golden Globes, which occurred last Sunday. Veteran observers of awards season might have been puzzled to see this year’s Globes being taken seriously, a huge change from previous years. Once famously corrupt, they’ve recently cleaned up their act—a #GoldenGlobesSoWhite protest did what decades of ridicule could not, persuading them to mend their ways, and they’re now almost legitimate.

Accordingly, they’re being treated with more respect: pictures on the front pages, generous reporting of what the winners wore, and so on. All publicity is good publicity, of course, but even so, the movie studios won’t necessarily be grateful: the Globes reward not just films but television too, and it was this last that dominated coverage, especially Adolescence, which—to make matters even worse for film people—was made by Netflix, an entity that’s done so much to disrupt Hollywood.

Netflix has been a presence in awards season for nearly a decade now, splashing the cash to win prizes to promote its service. This year, it will be dominating conversations more than ever, although not for any film it produced—it doesn’t seem to have a big awards title in the mould of Roma, Alfonso Cuarón’s 2018 memory palace, or The Irishman from a year later, the Martin Scorsese masterpiece no one else would touch.

However, who cares about that when Netflix is currently trying to buy an actual movie studio? Their proposed takeover of the venerable Warner Brothers—not a done deal just yet but looking awfully close to one—is putting the fear of God into Hollywood, which is terrified about what it means. At its most apocalyptic, it could result in the end of cinemas (the streaming model has no need for those). No wonder there’s panic in the industry.

None of this will be allowed to derail awards season, of course. The shows will go on—the Critics’ Choice Awards, the various guilds (Screen Actors, Directors, etc) and even a brief trip over the Atlantic for the Baftas, briefly allowing the British Academy to pretend it’s important. All leading up to the grand climax, the final hurdle and—let’s be honest here—the only event in the entire awards calendar that actually matters, the Oscars. (Sorry, “Oscars®”)

Or at least that’s the theory. In reality, the Oscars® no longer hold the same place in the public imagination as they did throughout the 20th century. TV audiences have turned away, and this year, for the first time, the awards will be broadcast not on a US television network but on YouTube. There’s actually some logic in the switch—YouTube is a bigger platform than any TV station now, one with a global reach and a greater attraction to the young folk who, so the data says, have less interest in awards ceremonies—but it’s still going to hurt many in Hollywood who’ll see it as a loss of prestige.

And you can bet that at least one formerly devoted viewer of the ceremony will need little prompting to rub salt into the wound. That would be Donald Trump, a keen observer of all things showbiz and a man who perhaps embodies just how far Hollywood has been eclipsed.

Trump will hover over this year’s Oscar ceremony much as the smoke from the California wildfires did in 2025 (no jokes about “another noxious pall”, please). The current favourite—leading the pack in the horse race—is One Battle After Another. With its focus on immigration crackdowns and domestic resistance, many have taken it as direct comment on the American present. The overwhelming critic’s favourite, it would be an easy way for the Oscars electorate to register their displeasure at the current regime, perhaps in hope of provoking an angry dispatch on Truth Social, where President Trump fulminates about their low ratings.

Others may make different calculations. The Netflix-Warner Brothers deal will ultimately need presidential say-so. Trump is known to be close to the top brass at Paramount studios, which offered a rival bid and hasn’t given up on it yet. Within Hollywood circles, Paramount would certainly be the preferred winner, offering far greater stability to a troubled industry. And it is far from impossible that this will impact Oscar voting: is this really a good time to poke the bear—awarding a film perceived as anti-Trump when he has the power to respond in potentially devastating kind? Maybe Wicked: For Good is a safer choice.

Predicting the Oscars has always been a mug’s game. Who knows what will happen on 15th March, when the winners are due to get their little gold statues? But this will be no ordinary awards season: right now, Hollywood has very little to celebrate.