Nomadland,' 'Borat' and Chadwick Boseman win at a socially distant Golden Globes

A socially-distanced Golden Globe celebration kicked off this year's awards fall on Sunday with top signals going to "Nomadland," "Borat Subsequent Moviefilm," "Schitt's Creek" ,"The Crown,."

The 78th version of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association's Golden Globe Awards — hosted by Tina Fey and Amy Poehler on different two sides of the country — saw homebound candidates looking by far video. It also faced criticism over its lack of variety.

The night's top award, best in picture drama, went to Chloé Zhao's elegiac road movie "Nomadland," a Western set across financial change and personal grief. Zhao, a China-born filmmaker, converted the first woman of Asian origin to obtain the best producer. She's only the second woman in the Globes' history to win and the first-ever since Barbra Streisand won for "Yentl" in 1984.

"'Nomadland at its core for me is a journey through grief and healing," said Zhao, holding the awards remotely. "For everyone who is gone through this difficult and dangerous journey at some time in their lives, this is for you."

With a dropped red carpet and leads giving talks from the couch, Sunday's Globes had little of their typically frothy flavor. But they went on, nevertheless, with champs in sweats and dogs also in laps, in a pandemic that has sapped nearly all the beauty out of Hollywood.

Facing scant romantic studio opposition, meaning services dominated the Globes like never before — even if the top award belonged to a simple if renamed source: Searchlight Pictures, formerly the Fox job label of "12 Years a Slave" and "The Shape of Water" now too owned by the Walt Disney Co.