Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster biopic Oppenheimer dominated the 81st Golden Globes, winning five awards including best drama, while Yorgos Lanthimos’ Frankenstein riff Poor Things pulled off an upset victory over Barbie to triumph in the best comedy or musical category.

If awards season has been building toward a second match-up of Barbenheimer, this round went to Oppenheimer. The film also won best director for Nolan, best drama actor for Cillian Murphy, best supporting actor for Robert Downey Jr and for Ludwig Göransson’s score.

“I don’t think it was a no-brainer by any stretch of the imagination to make a three-hour talky movie — R-rated by the way — about one of the darkest developments in our history,” said producer Emma Thomas accepting the night’s final award and thanking Universal chief Donna Langley.

Along with best comedy or musical, Poor Things also won for Emma Stone’s performance as Bella, a Victorian-era woman experiencing a surreal sexual awakening.

“I see this as a rom-com,” said Stone. “But in the sense that Bella falls in love with life itself, rather than a person. She accepts the good and the bad in equal measure, and that really made me look at life differently.”

Lily Gladstone won best actress in a dramatic film for Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon. Gladstone, who began her speech speaking the language of her native tribe, Blackfeet Nation, is the first Indigenous winner in the category.

“This is a historic win,” said Gladstone. “It doesn’t just belong to me.”

The Globes were in their ninth decade but facing a new and uncertain chapter. After a tumultuous few years of scandal, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association was dissolved, leaving a new Globes, on a new network (CBS), to try to regain its perch as the third biggest award show of the year, after the Oscars and Grammys. Even the menu (sushi from Nobu) was remade.

“Golden Globes journalists, thank you for changing your game, therefore changing your name,” said Downey in his acceptance speech.

It got off to a rocky start. Host Jo Koy took the stage at the Beverly Hilton International Ballroom in Beverly Hills, California . The Filipino American stand-up hit on some expected topics: Ozempic, Meryl Streep’s knack for winning awards and the long-running Oppenheimer.

After one joke flubbed, Koy, who was named host after some bigger names reportedly passed, also noted how fast he was thrust into the job.

Downey’s win, his third Globe, denied one to Kenergy. Ryan Gosling had been seen as his stiffest competition, just one of the many head-to-head contests between Oppenheimer and Greta Gerwig’s Barbie. The film-makers faced each other in the best director category, where Nolan triumphed.

It was two hours before Barbie, the year’s biggest hit with more than US$1.4 billion in ticket sales, won an award Sunday. Billie Eilish’s What Was I Made For? took best song, and swiftly after, Barbie took the Globes’ new honour for “cinematic and box office achievement”. Some thought that award might go to Taylor Swift, whose Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour also set box-office records. Swift, though, remains winless in five Globe nods.

Margot Robbie, star and producer of Barbie, accepted the award in a pink gown modelled after 1977’s Superstar Barbie.

“We’d like to dedicate this to every single person on the planet who dressed up and went to the greatest place on Earth: the movie theaters,” said Robbie.

Barbie and Oppenheimer, two blockbusters brought together by a common release date, also faced off in the best screenplay category. But in an upset, Justine Triet and Arthur Harari won for the script to the French courtroom drama Anatomy of a Fall. Later, Triet’s film picked up best international film, too.

Though the Globes have no direct correlation with the Academy Awards, they can boost campaigns at a crucial juncture. Oscar nomination voting starts Thursday, and the twin sensations of Barbenheimer remain front-runners.

Questions still remain about the Globes’ long-term future, but their value to Hollywood studios remains providing a marketing boost to awards contenders.

The Oscars won’t be held until March 10.