NEW YORK (AP) - With homebound nominees appearing by remote video and hosts Tina Fey and Amy Poehler on different sides of the country, a very socially distanced 78th Golden Globe Awards trudged on in the midst of the pandemic and amid a storm of criticism for the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, with top awards going to "Nomadland," "Borat Subsequent Moviefilm," "The Crown" and "Schitt's Creek."
The night's top award, best picture drama, went to Chloé Zhao's elegiac road movie "Nomadland," a Western set across economic upheaval and personal grief. Zhao, the China-born filmmaker, became the first woman of Asian descent to win best director. She's only the second woman in the history of the Globes to win, and the first since Barbra Streisand won for "Yentl" in 1984.
"'Nomadland' at its core for me is a pilgrimage through grief and healing," Zhao said, accepting the awards remotely. "For everyone who has gone through this difficult and beautiful journey at some point in their lives. We don't say goodbye. We say: See you down the road."
With a canceled red carpet and stars giving speeches from the couch, Sunday's Globes had little of their typically frothy flavor.
Facing scant traditional studio competition, streaming services dominated the Globes like never before - even if the top award went to a familiar if renamed source: Searchlight Pictures, formerly the Fox specialty label of "12 Years a Slave" and "The Shape of Water" now owned by the Walt Disney Co.
Amazon's "Borat Subsequent Moviefilm" - one of the few nominated films shot partly during the pandemic - won best film, comedy or musical. Its star guerilla comedian, Sacha Baron Cohen, won best actor in a comedy. Referring to Rudy Giuliani's infamous cameo, Cohen thanked "a fresh new talent who came from nowhere and turned out to be a comedy genius."
"I mean, who could get more laughs from one unzipping," Cohen said.
Netflix, which came in with a commanding 42 nominations, won the top TV awards. "The Crown" took best drama series, along with acting wins for Josh O'Connor (Prince Charles), Emma Corrin (Princess Diana) and Gillian Anderson (Margaret Thatcher). "The Queen's Gambit" won best limited series, and best actress in the category for Anya Taylor-Joy. "Schitt's Creek," the Pop TV series that found a wider audience on Netflix, won best comedy series for its final season. Catherine O'Hara also took best actress in a comedy series.
Chadwick Boseman, as expected, posthumously won best actor in a drama film for his final performance, in the August Wilson adaptation "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom" - a Netflix release. Boseman's wife, Taylor Simone Ledward, tearfully, emotionally accepted the award.
"He would thank God. He would thank his parents. He would thank his ancestors for their guidance and their sacrifices," Ledward said. "He would say something beautiful, something inspiring."
Apple TV+ scored its first major award when a sweatshirt-clad Jason Sudeikis won best actor in a comedy series for the streamer's "Ted Lasso."
Fey took the stage at New York's Rainbow Room while Poehler remained at the Globes' usual home at the Beverly Hilton. In their opening remarks, they managed their typically well-timed back-and-forth despite being almost 3,000 miles from each other.
"I always knew my career would end with me wandering around the Rainbow Room pretending to talk to Amy," Fey said. "I just thought it would be later."
They appeared before masked attendees but no stars. Instead, the sparse tables - where Hollywood royalty are usually crammed together and plied with alcohol during the show - were occupied by "smoking-hot first responders and essential workers," as Fey said.
Pandemic improvising was only part of the damage control for the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, which puts on the Globes. After the Los Angeles Times revealed there are no Black members in the 87-person voting body of the HFPA, the press association came under mounting pressure to overhaul itself and better reflect the industry it holds sway in.
This year, none of the most acclaimed Black-led films - "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom," "One Night in Miami," "Judas and the Black Messiah," "Da 5 Bloods" - were nominated for the Globes' best picture award. With the HFPA potentially fighting for its Hollywood life, Sunday's Globes were part apology tour. Fey and Poehler started in quickly on the issue.
"Look, a lot of flashy garbage got nominated but that happens," Poehler said. "That's like their thing. But a number of Black actors and Black-led projects were overlooked."
Within the first half hour of the NBC telecast, members of the press association also appeared on stage to pledge change.
"We recognize we have our own work to do," vice president Helen Hoehne said. "We must have Black journalists in our organization."
When attendees would normally be streaming down the red carpet on Sunday evening, many stars were instead posing virtually. Regina King, resplendent in a dazzling dress, stood before her yawning dog. Carey Mulligan, nominated for "Promising Young Woman," said from a London hotel room that she was wearing heels for the first time in more than a year.
Lee Isaac Chung, writer-director of the tender Korean-American family drama "Minari" (a movie the HFPA was criticized for ruling ineligible for its top award because of its non-English dialogue), accepted the award for best foreign language film while his young daughter embraced him.
"She's the reason I made this film," Chung said.
"'Minari' is about a family. It's a family trying to learn a language of its own. It goes deeper than any American language and any foreign language. It's a language of the heart," Chung said. "I'm trying to learn it myself and to pass it on."
John Boyega, supporting actor winner for his performance in Steve McQueen's "Small Axe" anthology, raised his leg to show he was wearing track pants below his more elegant white jacket. Jodie Foster ("The Mauritanian") won one of the biggest surprise Globes, for best supporting actress in a film, while, sitting on the couch next her wife, Alexandra Hedison, and with her dog, Ziggy on her lap.
The Globes took place on the original date of the Academy Awards. Those will instead be held April 25.