The 2026 awards season is underway and, alongside the usual crop of award-worthy movies and TV shows, it brings with it a wealth of dystopian topical events for hosts to potentially reference in their opening monologues. Last year, the shadows of the Hollywood wildfires loomed large over the various proceedings, which led to several hosts awkwardly attempting to justify holding awards shows in a city still ravaged by a natural disaster. This year, hosts have to contend with an even longer list of somber and troubling news, including ICE’s murder of Renee Good in Minnesota, Donald Trump’s illegal war in Venezuela, the declassified-ish Epstein files, and the prospect of Netflix buying Warner Bros.
Or not. MCs can also choose to ignore the world outside and make the same overused jokes about Leonardo DiCaprio’s dating history they’ve been making for years. It’s part of why awards-show monologues are so compelling. They can be full of incisive jokes or pun-heavy songs. They can swing from disastrous to legendary. They can cast an uncomfortable haze over an entire ceremony or set the tone for a jubilant evening. And even when they fall into the middle ground between these extremes, they still offer some quotable lines along the way.
This year, returning hosts Nikki Glaser and Conan O’Brien will get their chance to cement their legacies as stellar hosts of the Golden Globes and Oscars, respectively, while first-timers like Ego Nwodim (the Film Independent Spirit Awards) and Atsuko Okatsuka (the Writers Guild Awards, West) will get the chance to make their mark. Here’s every monologue from the 2026 awards season so far.
Chelsea Handler at the Critics Choice Awards (January 4)
“This is the first awards show of the season, so we are going to kick things off with the right vibes,” Chelsea Handler said at the top of her Critics Choice Awards monologue. For her fourth consecutive year as host, the comedian proved herself a practiced hand by delivering on this promise. “You guys are all going to be spending the next three months together, so whoever wins tonight, get used to seeing them win. And whoever doesn’t win, Quentin Tarantino will come up here and tell you what you did wrong,” she continued, referencing the director’s December 2025 comments about Paul Dano.
The remainder of Handler’s monologue featured a healthy blend of biting and perfunctory jokes about the year’s most talked-about entertainment, without ever tipping too far to either side to alienate or bore the audience. Of the former, she offered a non sequitur about the plot of Sinners: “Sinners is the story of brothers who start this really fun place for entertainment and then vampires show up, suck the life out of everybody, and burn it all to the ground. Fun fact: The original name of the main vampire was David Zaslav.” Of the latter, she delivered a tepid joke about Marty Supreme improbably making ping-pong look sexy: “Now get to work on Pickleball.”
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The most impactful part of the monologue was the ending, when Handler switched into a sincere register to pay tribute to the late Rob and Michele Reiner. “Rob and Michele were tireless in their efforts to so many important causes, all stemming from one basic idea: decency. Let’s use tonight as a reminder of that decency, and as a reminder of everything Rob and Michele represented and fought so hard for. And on that note, let’s get this show started.”
Nikki Glaser at the Golden Globe Awards (January 11)
After Jo Koy’s historic bomb at the 2024 Golden Globes, Nikki Glaser set a high bar for herself in 2025, and she did an admirable job of meeting it this year by more or less pulling from the same playbook. She began with a dose of self-deprecation to win over the celebrity audience: “I’m Nikki Glaser, and just like Wicked, I’m back for a sequel. Just like Frankenstein, I’ve been pieced together by an unlicensed European surgeon. And just like the podcasters nominated tonight, I should not be allowed to be this close to Julia Roberts.” Then she channeled that goodwill into a series of rapid-fire jokes that touched on everything from the Epstein files to Heated Rivalry. Many of her jokes relied heavily on wordplay, like one about how the Rock might win a Globe because The Paper wasn’t nominated, but even sweaty double entendres like this landed well because Glaser moved on so quickly that there was no time for groans.
Glaser was at her best when needling awards-show tropes. At one point, after making a hack awards-show joke about DiCaprio dating young women, she followed it up with an apology. “I’m sorry for making that joke. It’s cheap,” she said. “I tried not to. But, like, we don’t know anything else about you, man. Open up! I’m serious. I looked. The most in-depth interview you’ve ever given was in Teen Beat magazine in 1991. Is your favorite food still ‘pasta, pasta, and more pasta’?” It’s the joke of someone who watches awards shows religiously and cares enough about them to want them to be better, and just like in 2025, Glaser proved herself a successful host by maintaining this tone throughout.
