The 2026 Golden Globes kicked off the night with a historic win everyone was waiting for: Teyana Taylor being named Best Supporting Actress for her performance in “One Battle After Another.” 

The deserving thespian tearfully delivered an emotional acceptance speech dedicated to “our brown sisters and little brown girls,” saying “our softness is not a liability… our voices matter and our dreams deserve space.” Her win was one of the ceremony’s standout moments and a rare acting trophy for a Black female performer at the Globes. 

Ryan Coogler’s “Sinners” won the Golden Globe for Cinematic and Box Office Achievement, a category honoring breakout commercial and cultural impact that was added to the awards show lineup in 2024, with “Barbie” taking home the trophy. “Sinners’” wins didn’t stop there. Ludwig Göransson won Best Original Score for the film’s music. While the composer isn’t Black, this particular “Sinners” win matters because it’s a Black filmmaker’s movie and a mainstream horror title that also performed strongly at the box office, and that’s putting it lightly. “Sinners” smashed a box office milestone that no original film has achieved in eight years: $200 million in the U.S. and Canada. 

Coogler joins the ranks of Jordan Peele and Barry Jenkins, Black directors who both won Best Screenplay Golden Globes for their films “Get Out” and “Moonlight,” respectively. And the legendary icon Spike Lee was given an honorary Golden Globe, aka the Cecil B. DeMille Award, in 2019 and he also won a Globe for Best Screenplay for “Blackkklansman.”

Although the number is limited, Taylor now joins a lineage of Black women who have won Golden Globes over the decades. From early TV trailblazers like Diahann Carroll and Gail Fisher (the first Black actress to win a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – TV Series Drama) to film icons such as Diana Ross and Halle Berry, and more recent winners including Whoopi Goldberg, Jennifer Hudson, Octavia Spencer, Viola Davis, Regina King, Andra Day, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Zoe Saldaña, and Angela Bassett. 

Historically, Black winners at the Globes have been few and far between. Sidney Poitier’s Best Actor win in 1964 was the first time a Black man won a Globe, and although stars like Angela Bassett and Don Cheadle later won acting Globes, such milestones have remained the exception. 

The Globes, despite their controversies and recent reforms, remain an early industry thermometer. Winners here often gain awards-season momentum that can ripple into producers’ campaigns, critics’ playlists, and voter attention in later guild and Academy rounds. Taylor and Coogler’s wins matter because they do two things at once: they celebrate excellence now and they widen the lens for what mainstream success can look like next. 

That said, a handful of trophies doesn’t finish the work. These victories are cause for celebration and for renewed pressure for equal access: more roles, more greenlights, more decision-makers, more award-winners who look like Taylor and Coogler.