Every Movie to Win Best Drama at the Golden Globes Since 1944

Four Golden Globes were awarded to “The Exorcist,” one of the most shocking movies ever made. Director William Friedkin won his second Golden Globe, and William Peter Blatty was honored for Best Screenplay – Motion Picture, for which he also won an Oscar.

Roman Polanski’s film noir about powerful interests trying to control the water supply of Los Angeles was one of the great films of the 1970s. Jack Nicholson won one of four Golden Globes the movie received. Nicholson won the Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama award for his role as the hard-boiled private detective. Faye Dunaway was the femme fatale harboring a terrible secret. Polanski, who made a cameo appearance, won his lone Golden Globe for “Chinatown.”

“One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” picked up six Golden Globes on its way to winning five Oscars. Jack Nicholson won the first of his six Golden Globes (he’s been nominated 17 times) as a criminal who pleads insanity, is institutionalized, and rebels against the oppressive mental health facility. Nicholson would win the first of his three Best Actor Oscars that year.

In a year that featured cinema stalwarts “All the President’s Men” and “Network,” “Rocky,” a boxing film about the ultimate underdog, won the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture – Drama. It would be a prelude to the film’s showing at the Academy Awards, where it won three Oscars.

After her daughter joins a ballet company, a former dancer (Ann Bancroft) confronts her decision to give up the stage to start a family. The film, featuring renowned dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov, won two Golden Globes, including for Best Director – Motion Picture. It was nominated for 11 Oscars but did not win.

The chilling film is based on a true story of an American college student who is apprehended while trying to smuggle drugs out of Turkey, and depicts the inhuman conditions in the Turkish jail. The film won seven Golden Globes, including for Giorgio Moroder’s icy, electronic score, which would earn him an Oscar. Oliver Stone won a Globe and Oscar for screenplay.

1980 was a strong year for best drama considerations as other nominees included “Apocalypse Now,” “The China Syndrome,” “Manhattan,” and “Norma Rae.” However, it was “Kramer vs. Kramer,” a story about a formerly married coupled battling over the custody of their child, that captured four Golden Globes, among them Best Actress and Actor awards for Meryl Streep and Dustin Hoffman, and Best Director for Robert Benton. All of the above would replicate at the Academy Awards. Streep won the first of her eight Globes, and Hoffman won the first of his five.

Television comedy legend Mary Tyler Moore took a notable dramatic turn as a remote, unfeeling mother whose family is haunted by the accidental death of the older son in the Robert Redford-directed film “Ordinary People.” Five Golden Globes honored the movie, including Best Director (Redford), Best Actress (Moore), and two to Timothy Hutton for Best Actor in a Supporting Role – Motion Picture and New Star of the Year in a Motion Picture – Drama. The film would win four Oscars.

“On Golden Pond,” a film about two eldery people dealing with family conflict, stars two actors from Hollywood’s golden era — Henry Fonda and Katharine Hepburn — in the twilight of their storied careers. It would be the final feature length movie for Fonda, who died in 1982. Fonda would go out a winner, taking the Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama and the Oscar for Best Actor.

Director Steven Spielberg’s “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial” captured the childlike wonder in encountering a visitor from another planet. The film won two Golden Globes, including Best Original Score – Motion Picture for composer John Williams, the third of his four Globes. Williams would also win the Oscar.