The 2026 Golden Globe nominations dropped Monday, and if you look hard enough, Mississippi is written all over the list.
Delta-based “Sinners” is one of the leading blockbusters heading into the annual TV and film awards. While the Jim Crow-era vampire flick was actually filmed in Louisiana, it’s set in Clarksdale. Ryan Coogler, who is up for best director, drew from his family history to create the film’s plot. His uncle was born in Mississippi, and according to Coogler, would often tell the now-filmmaker when he was growing up about the history of blues music and what he experienced living in a racially divided South.
“He would get off work and all he’d want to do is listen to old blues records and drink Old Taylor Whiskey,” Coogler recounted in an interview on the Filmmaker Toolkit podcast. “And I would just sit there with my uncle, who was the oldest man I knew, listening to stories about Mississippi and talk to him about life and baseball.”
Another Mississippi connection to “Sinners” is the appearance of Buddy Guy and Christone “Kingfish” Ingram in the ending credits scene. Guy is honored on the Mississippi Blues Trail and Ingram is a Clarksdale-born guitarist who helped with the film’s soundtrack.
In total, “Sinners” was nominated for seven Golden Globes: best director (Coogler), best original score (Ludwig Göransson), best original song (“I Lied to You”), best screenplay (Coogler), best performance by a male actor in a motion picture (Michael B. Jordan), and cinematic box office achievement. “Sinners” earned around $367 million worldwide versus a roughly $100 million budget, making it one of the highest-grossing original horror films in history.
On the TV side, Parker Posey was nominated for best performance by a female actor in a supporting role on television. Acting as Victoria Ratliff in the third season of “The White Lotus,” Posey embodies a spacey Southern matriarch dependent on lorazepam that fans of the dark comedy quickly fell in love with.
Posey moved from Louisiana to Mississippi when she was a teenager and her family decided to settle in Laurel. During an interview on “Late Night with Seth Myers” earlier this year, she made sure to give a shoutout to Laurel, where her mother still lives.
“I grew up in Louisiana and Mississippi,” she told Myers. “My mom is in Laurel. Little shoutout to Laurel and my mother!”
Trammel Tillman, a Jackson State University graduate who recently became the first Black man to win an Emmy for outstanding supporting actor in a drama series, is looking to bring in another award with his Golden Globe nomination for best performance by a male actor in a supporting role on television. Acting as Seth Milchick in “Severance,” Tillman embodies a somewhat sympathetic antagonist who manages the severed floor in the unnerving, innie-outie world of Ben Stiller’s.
In the “Severance” season two finale, Tillman even channeled his HBCU experience when leading the Lumon Industries marching band inside the fictional company’s headquarters.
“I graduated from Jackson State University, and their band is the Sonic Boom of the South, the best marching band in the entire world,” he told TV Guide. “This was an opportunity to highlight my culture, to highlight the significance of HBCUs – the marching bands, the showmanship, the pageantry, the discipline, the excellence, the Black joy.”
Golden Globe winners will be announced during a live awards show on Sunday, Jan. 11, at 7 p.m. CT. It will be broadcast on CBS.