Lily Gladstone made history by winning the Golden Globe Award in 2024. She won the Best Actress Motion Picture – Drama for her role as Mollie Burkhart in “Killers of the Flower Moon.”
Her victory marked Lily Gladstone as the first Native American actress to win a Golden Globe Award. Onstage, she emotionally spoke in an Indigenous language.
“The beautiful community that raised me, that pushed me forward, kept me going,” said Lily Gladstone, later explaining in English.
She expressed gratitude to the director, co-stars, including Leonardo DiCaprio, and dedicated the award to “every little kid” with dreams.
The first trophy came to Lily Gladstone in her debut nomination at the Golden Globe Awards.
Before Lily, Irene Bedard, the first Native American actress, received a nomination in 1995 for the Best Actress Limited Series, Anthology Series, or a Motion Picture Made for Television category for “Lakota Woman: Siege at Wounded Knee.”
The New York Times noted singer Buffy Sainte-Marie, who claimed Native heritage, won a Golden Globe in 1983 for the song “Up Where We Belong” from the film “An Officer and a Gentleman.” However, there have been recent debates about her lineage.
Other Native artists were nominees as well. This year, the late musician Robbie Robertson, who was Mohawk and Cayuga, was nominated for the original score for “Killers of the Flower Moon.”
Long before, Chief Dan George was nominated for “Little Big Man” in 1970 and Adam Beach for the television adaptation of “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee” in 2007.
However, ultimately, Lily Gladstone’s win became the only award brought home by the “Killers of the Flower Moon” team after receiving seven nominations across several prestigious categories.
“Killers of the Flower Moon” is a film adaptation of David Grann’s non-fiction book, restructured to focus on the relationship between Mollie and her husband, Ernest (played by Leonardo DiCaprio), embroiled in a conspiracy to kill their relatives.
