Golden Globe time

The Golden Globe awards will be broadcast live on NBC on Sunday, Jan. 11, at 5 p.m. Here are the Jewish nominees. For film, best actor, drama: Jake Gyllenhaal, 34, “Nightcrawler”; best actor, comedy/musical: Joaquin Phoenix, 40, “Inherent Vice”; best supporting actress, drama, comedy or musical: Patricia Arquette, 46, “Boyhood.”

Jeffrey Tambor

For TV, best actor, drama: Liev Schreiber, 47, “Ray Donovan”; best actress, drama: Julianna Margulies, 48, “The Good Wife”; best actor, comedy/musical: Jeffrey Tambor, 70, “Transparent.” San Francisco native Tambor plays a transsexual Jewish character, Mort/Maura Pfefferman. Best actress, comedy/musical: Lena Dunham, 28, “Girls”; best actress, mini-series/TV movie: Maggie Gyllenhaal, 37, who plays the Jewish character Baroness Nessa Stein in “The Honourable Woman.”

Best film screenplay: Graham Moore, 32, “The Imitation Game,” which features as an important character code-breaker Peter Hilton. Moore is the son of Susan Steiner Sher, 63, Michelle Obama’s chief-of-staff from 2009 to 2011.

Best original score: Hans Zimmer, 57, “Interstellar.” One of the most honored film composers of our time, Zimmer was born and raised in Germany, the son of a non-Jewish father and a German Jewish mother who escaped to England in 1939 and returned after the war. He “outed” himself as Jewish on German TV in 1999, and told the Los Angeles Jewish Journal last May, “The Jews are my people.” Best original film song: “Mercy Is” (“Noah”), Patti Smith and Lenny Kaye, 67; and “Opportunity” (“Annie”), Greg Kurstin, 45, Sia Furler, and Will Gluck, 42. Gluck directed “Annie” and co-wrote the screenplay.

Ronit Elkabetz

Best foreign language film: “Ida” (Denmark/Poland). Quick recap: During the 1960s, Anna, a novice nun, finds out from a relative that her parents were Jewish and died in the Holocaust. She sets out to learn more. The film, available on Netflix streaming, was directed and co-written by Pawel Pawlikowski, a Pole who learned as an adult that his paternal grandmother was Jewish and that she died in the camps. Also nominated in this category is “Gett: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem.” Variety calls the Israeli film “expertly written [and] brilliantly acted.” It was co-written and co-directed by Ronit Elkabetz, 50, and her brother, Shlomi Elkabetz, 46. They are Israelis of Moroccan Jewish ancestry.

The best film and TV series awards go to the principal producers. Here are “best of” nominees with strong Jewish connections. Best film, drama: “Foxcatcher,” directed by Bennett Miller and co-written by Dan Futterman, both 47. Also “The Imitation Game” (Moore). Best film, comedy or musical: “Into the Woods,” music by Stephen Sondheim, 84, and screenplay by James Lapine, 65. Best TV drama: “Affair,” co-created/written by Hagai Levi, 51; and “Games of Thrones,” co-created and written by David Benioff, 44, and D.B. Weiss, 43; and “The Good Wife,” co-created and written by Michelle King, 52. Best TV series, musical or comedy: “Girls” (Dunham); and “Transparent,” created/written by Jill Soloway, 49. Best mini-series/TV movie: “The Normal Heart,” screenplay by Larry Kramer, 79; and “Olive Kitteridge,” directed by S.F. State grad Lisa Cholodenko, 50.

Ye olde fun

I was amused and impressed by the long trailer for the special four-part ABC series “Galavant” (starts 8 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 4). It’s set in medieval England and follows the adventures of a handsome knight. Really, though, the show is part Monty Python “Holy Grail” shtick and part Mel Brooks’ “Robin Hood: Men in Tights.” It was created and written by Dan Fogelman, 50 (“Crazy, Stupid Love”) and he even manages to work in some explicitly Jewish humor. The really funny songs were penned by the top Disney songwriting team of composer Alan Menken, 65, and lyricist Glenn Slater, 46.

Columnist  Nate Bloom , an Oaklander, can be reached at mid[email protected]