Golden Globes: RRR Has Tough Competition

S S Rajamouli's period action film RRR has scooped nominations in two categories at the Golden Globe Awards: Best Picture, Non-English, and Best Original Song, Motion Picture.

Rajamouli thanked the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, which conducts the Golden Globe Awards, for recognising the movie.

RRR follows a pre-Independence fictional story woven around two real-life Indian revolutionaries, Alluri Sitarama Raju and Komaram Bheem, in the 1920s.

Starring Ram Charan and Jr NTR in the lead, the film released worldwide in March in five languages, Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam, and Hindi. It also stars Alia Bhatt and Ajay Devgn in key roles.

A pan-India blockbuster, RRR will face off with Korean romantic mystery Decision To Leave, German anti-war drama All Quiet on the Western Front, Argentine historical drama Argentina, 1985 and French-Dutch coming-of-age drama Close in the Best Picture, Non-English, segment, formerly called Foreign Language Film category.

The Telugu track Naatu Naatu, composed by music director M M Keeravaani and penned by Kala Bhairava and Rahul Sipligunj, has been nominated in the Original Song, Motion Picture category.

Other nominees in the segment are Taylor Swift's Carolina (Where The Crawdads Sing), Ciao Papa (Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio), which has music by Alexandre Desplat and lyrics by Roeban Katz and del Toro, Hold My Hand from Top Gun: Maverick, a collaboration between Lady Gaga, BloodPop and Benjamin Rice, and Lift Me Up from Black Panther: Wakanda Forever by Tems, Rihanna, Ryan Coogler and Ludwig Goransson.

Rajamouli expressed his gratitude towards the jury and thanked viewers for their unwavering support on Twitter: 'Thanks to the jury at @goldenglobes for nominating #RRRMovie in two categories. Congratulations to the entire team... Thanks to all the fans and audience for your unconditional love and support through out.'

Jr NTR tweeted that he is happy that the film has received two nods at the Golden Globe Awards, the precursor to the Oscars: 'Delighted that #RRRMovie has been nominated in two categories at the Golden Globe Awards! Congratulations to all of us... Looking forward.'

Alia shared the news of the twin nominations for RRR on her Instagram Stories accompanied by heart emoticons.

RRR, which emerged as a massive box office success even overseas with reported earnings of Rs 1,200 crore (Rs 12 billion), has been praised for Rajamouli's grand vision, high-octane fight sequences and Keeravaani's rousing musical soundtrack.

The film received rave reviews from the who's who of Hollywood, including film-makers Russo Brothers (The Gray Man), Edgar Wright (Baby Driver), Scott Derrickson (Doctor Strange) and Guardians of the Galaxy franchise director James Gunn.

Rajamouli, who has attained global recognition post the success of the film, was recently declared the runner-up in the Best Director category by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association. Keeravaani received Best Music Score award from the the Los Angeles Film Critics Association.

Rajamouli also won the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Director.

One of the most successful Indian films of the year, RRR was a front-runner in the race for representing India at the Academy Awards next year in the Best International Film category, but Chhello Show (Last Film Show), a Gujarati film directed by Pan Nalin, was eventually selected as India's official entry.

In October, the makers of RRR announced they had sent an application to the Academy of Oscars for consideration in the general category.

The ceremony for Golden Globe Awards will be held in Los Angeles on January 10.

In 2009, music maestro A R Rahman became the first Indian to win the Golden Globe for Best Original Music Score for Danny Boyle's Slumdog Millionaire.

Previously, Indian films such as Salaam Bombay! (1988) and Monsoon Wedding (2001), both directed by Mira Nair, were nominated in the Best Foreign Language Film category.