KPop Demon Hunters is going up, up, up to the Golden Globes
Clocking Toronto’s big scores and snubs ahead of the season’s first awards show
The most-watched English-language movie in Netflix history has been a popular Halloween costume, a ubiquitous birthday party theme and the soundtrack to millions of households with kids under 10. Now, KPop Demon Hunters is an awards-season darling, nominated in three separate categories for the 2026 Golden Globe Awards: best animated feature film, cinematic and box office achievement, and best original song for “Golden,” the Huntrix track that has spent 23 weeks on the Billboard 200 chart.
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This is, of course, a huge deal for the movie’s creator and director, Maggie Kang, who spent her childhood as a Korean immigrant in Toronto trying to hide her love of all things K-pop. That was long before the explosion of BTS and the mainstreaming of South Korean culture in North America over the last few years. Even still, the popularity of Demon Hunters is a phenomenon unto itself: a massive commercial success with a 95 per cent rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a kind of generational touchpoint not seen since Frozen.
The success of Demon Hunters sets up a friendly rivalry with fellow Toronto writer-director Domee Shi, whose film Elio is also in the running for best animated feature. Shi’s Bao won an Oscar for best animated short back in 2019.
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In other local Golden Globes news, Catherine O’Hara got a best supporting female TV actor nomination for her work on The Studio. But the bigger development may be the snubbing of Kevin O’Leary, the business tycoon turned thespian who has been getting big buzz for his first-ever acting role in Marty Supreme. The movie scored a Globe nomination for best motion picture, and star Timothée Chalamet got a nod for best performance by a male actor, but there was nothing for O’Leary.
Courtney Shea is a freelance journalist in Toronto. She started her career as an intern at Toronto Life and continues to contribute frequently to the publication, including her 2022 National Magazine Award–winning feature, “The Death Cheaters,” her regular Q&As and her recent investigation into whether Taylor Swift hung out at a Toronto dive bar (she did not). Courtney was a producer and writer on the 2022 documentary The Talented Mr. Rosenberg, based on her 2014 Toronto Life magazine feature “The Yorkville Swindler.”
