“Shōgun” proves triumphant, capping off an awards season run that includes wins for Outstanding Drama Series at the 2024 Primetime Emmy Awards, Program of the Year from the Television Critics Association, and now the Golden Globe for Best Television Series — Drama.
The FX/Hulu historical series based on the novel by James Clavell seized the top award on Sunday, beating out Netflix’s “The Diplomat” and “Squid Game,” as well as Amazon’s “Mr. and Mrs. Smith,” Peacock’s “The Day of the Jackal,” and Apple TV+’s “Slow Horses.”
“Shōgun” wins for its first season, with Seasons 2 and 3 now in early development. It was initially conceived as a miniseries, just as the 1980 adaptation featuring Richard Chamberlain and Toshiro Mifune had been, but as a result of the show’s strong critical reception and viewership around the globe, FX/Hulu decided to expand the narrative into at least two more seasons.
In addition to Best Drama Series, in 2025, “Shōgun” also won for Best Actor (Hiroyuki Sanada) Best Actress (Anna Sawai), and Best Supporting Actor (Tadanobu Asano).
Though a historical fiction, the show is based on the real story of English navigator William Adams (depicted by Cosmo Jarvis as John Blackthorne in the series) and his relationship to feudal lord Tokugawa Ieyasu (Sanada’s Lord Yoshii Toranaga), who would go on to become the military ruler of Japan and founder of the Tokugawa Shogunate. This government ruled for over 200 years during the Edo period in Japan and gave rise to the merchant class.
IndieWire previously named “Shōgun” among the best shows and performances of the year, with IndieWire critic Ben Travers writing, “As far as sweeping historical epics go, perhaps the highest compliment they can hope to receive is something along the lines of, ‘Hot damn, that was fun!’ OK, OK — ‘fun’ may not be the perfect word to describe a wartime saga with so many betrayals and so many severed heads it’s consistently compared to ‘Game of Thrones,’ but ‘Shōgun’ is still way more entertaining than any subtitled 17th century drama has any right to be.”
Before it was announced that “Shōgun” would continue as a multi-season series, the show’s co-creators, Justin Marks and Rachel Kondo discussed on IndieWire’s Filmmaker Toolkit podcast the difficulty of having such a brief amount of time to explore this world and history they put such effort into bringing back to life.
“I wish we could live in a world where we don’t have to build a factory just to pump out 10 cars and then close it up, you know?” Marks said. “I think right around Episode 5 is where there was this brief glimmer of like, ‘Gosh, we could just keep doing this.’”
Thankfully that glimmer of hope was rewarded, both by FX/Hulu when they decided to expand on the first season and now by the Golden Globes.
The 82nd Golden Globe Awards were held Sunday, January 5 at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Los Angeles, CA and hosted by Nikki Glaser.
Dick Clark Productions, which owns and produces the Golden Globes, is a Penske Media company. PMC is also IndieWire’s parent company.
