The big winner of the 2024 Golden Globes was definitely Oppenheimer, which took home five trophies including Best Motion Picture Drama, Best Director for Christopher Nolan and acting trophies for stars Cillian Murphy and Robert Downey Jr. But the biggest shock of the night came when Anatomy of a Fall beat not only Oppenheimer but Barbie and Poor Things for Best Screenplay.
Another surprising detail soon followed when director/co-writer Justine Triet was giving her acceptance speech for the award. Describing the process she and her life partner Arthur Harari went through writing the screenplay in the early days of the pandemic, she let spill the answer to the biggest mystery of Anatomy of a Fall: did Sandra (played by Sandra Hüller) kill her husband or was it a suicide? (SPOILER ALERT, as we're going to discuss details of the Anatomy of a Fall ending.)
The movie chronicles an intense investigation into the husband's death, followed by an even more intense courtroom battle as they dig into the couple's troubled relationship, as well as how their son Daniel (Milo Machado Graner) copes with the revelations he learns about his parents. But at the end of the movie, Sandra is found not guilty of murder and allowed to go home, but audiences can't help but have lingering questions on what really happened, as the movie never definitively shows us.
Triet seemingly put the question to bed though with her acceptance speech, which you can watch right here:
The key bit of info is this:
"I remember we kept on saying, 'OK, well, we are having a lot of fun, but… no one is going to see this movie. It's too long, they talk all the time, there's no score, a couple fighting, suicide, a dog vomiting. I mean come on.”
She specifically says "suicide," which we cannot take but to mean that the co-writer and director of the movie clarified Sandra’s husband did indeed kill himself and that she was truly innocent in his death.
While Anatomy of a Fall is one of the best reviewed movies of the year and made What to Watch's top 10 movies of 2023 list, it was definitely seen as an underdog against its fellow nominees made up of Hollywood behemoths in the Best Screenplay category. But the Golden Globe Journalists (renamed from the Hollywood Foreign Press), which is made up of primarily international film journalists and critics, chose to honor the Cannes-winning movie that made by international artists with this award.
They did so again later in the night, awarding it Best Motion Picture, Non-English language, even though much of the dialogue is spoken in English, though French is also used throughout.
The big question now for fans of awards shows is can Anatomy of a Fall repeat this success at the Oscars in March?
You can watch Anatomy of a Fall in select movie theaters in the US and UK, as well as via digital on-demand in the US.
