The 66th Golden Globe Awards, held on January 11, 2009, served up a very interesting cross-section of all kinds of work and talent.
Bruce Springsteen got his second Golden Globe for his same-named song The Wrestler. Mickey Rourke took home a Globe, too, for the same movie, beating both Brad Pitt (nominated for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) and Leonardo DiCaprio (nominated for Revolutionary Road). Kate Winslet got two Golden Globes for two pictures: Best Actress Drama for Revolutionary Road, and Best Supporting Actress, The Reader. The Best Animated Film winner was one of Pixar’s boldest works, Wall-E. And Colin Farrell won a Golden Globe for the first time, in the Best Actor – Musical or Comedy category, for In Bruges.

The debut decade of the new millennium was loaded with firsts and new ideas.
That explains the impact of a fresh film that put India on the front line of multi-cultural projects: Slumdog Millionaire.
Directed by Englishman Danny Boyle, adapted from Indian author Vikas Swarup’s novel “Q & A,” and starring an all-Indian cast — led by future stars Dev Patel and Freida Pinto — Slumdog Millionaire won each of the four Golden Globes for which it was nominated: Best Film – Drama; Best Director, for Boyle; Best Screenplay, for Simon BeaufoyA. R. Rahman.
India had long enjoyed a seat at the table in any discussion of the worldwide history of cinema, its notable presence marked by an estimable and prodigious domestic industry and the works of Satyajit Ray, as well as big Hollywood productions from Gunga Din (1939) to Gandhi (1982) and A Passage to India (1984).

Boyle’s movie, however, had a different tone — it was young, fresh and bold, fully embracing India’s culture, colors and lifestyle. It was based on the premise of the possibility of getting rich overnight thanks to a TV show, but its story goes beyond this.
“I don’t want to make a film about Who Wants to be a Millionaire? — nobody’s going to go and watch,” the director shared with the journalists of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association during a press conference in November 2008. “And Mumbai, it was my chance to go there. Mumbai is a sense of electricity.”
In an atmosphere full of surprises and cheer, the 2009 Golden Globes also had an important pause in the event — a unique moment brought about by the announcement of the Best Supporting Actor Golden Globe, which went to Heath Ledger for his formidable performance as the Joker in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight.
Ledger had died almost exactly a year earlier, on January 22, 2008, at the age of 28, leaving behind his companion Michelle Williams, their daughter Matilda Rose, and Best Actor Golden Globe and Oscar nominations for Brokeback Mountain amongst his 22 film and TV credits.

Nolan took the stage and accepted Ledger’s Golden Globe with an emotional speech. His colleagues in the room — many of whom had worked with Ledger — were visibly touched.
For a while, the Beverly Hilton Ballroom became a different place.