[Source: Reuters]

Hollywood stars are preparing to dance the night away as box office smash “Barbie” leads nominees for Sunday’s Golden Globes, the kickoff to the industry’s glitzy awards season.

The first big party in Tinseltown since contentious labor disputes last year, the Globes will honor the best of film and television according to roughly 300 entertainment journalists from around the world. That is a change from the past, when about 80 people chose the winners.

“Barbie,” the female-empowering doll adventure, tops the field with nine nominations. The movie directed by Greta Gerwig and starring Margot Robbie is expected to claim the trophy for best film musical or comedy over “The Holdovers,” “Poor Things” and others, according to experts polled by the Gold Derby website.

Historical drama “Oppenheimer,” with eight nominations, is the favorite for best movie drama. The story about the man behind the atomic bomb had competed with “Barbie” over the summer in a box office clash dubbed “Barbenheimer.”

“Barbie” reigned as the highest-grossing film of 2023 with $1.4 billion in ticket sales. “Oppenheimer” finished third with $952 million.

“I can see both of them doing really well on Sunday night,” said Joyce Eng, senior editor at Gold Derby.

Robbie and Ryan Gosling, who played Barbie’s boyfriend Ken, are nominated in acting categories, as is Cillian Murphy, who portrayed J. Robert Oppenheimer, and co-star Robert Downey Jr.