Political drama Argo and the musical Les Miserables took the top film honours, while Homeland and Game Change picked up the major television awards at the 70th annual presentation at the Beverly Hilton Hotel.
Actor-director Ben Affleck emerged triumphant in the 70th Golden Globes, widely viewed as a warm-up for next month's Oscars, by taking both the best film and best director honours.
The top acting awards for dramatic filmes went to Jessica Chastain in the Bin Laden thriller Zero Dark Thirty and Daniel Day-Lewis for his portayal of Abraham Lincoln in Lincoln.
In the comedy or musical section, Les Miserables took top honours and its star, Hugh Jackman, was named best actor. The Hunger Games star Jennifer Lawrence was best actress for Silver Linings Playbook.
While some of the top films are yet to hit New Zealand cinmea screens, though they will in the next week or so, this was not the case with the television section of the awards.
Sky’s Soho drama Game Change, made by HBO, won best mini-series or movie made for TV.
Game Change also gave Julianne Moore the award for best actress in a miniseries or TV movie with her performance as Republican candidate Sarah Palin in the 2008 US presidential election, while Ed Harris, who played John McCain, was best supporting actor.
Dame Maggie Smith won best supporting actress in a TV series, miniseries or movie for her role in Prime TV's Downton Abbey.
TV3's Homeland picked up the best drama series again while Damian Lewis won the lead-actor trophy and his co-star Clare Danes was best actress.
In a comeback, Kevin Costner was best actor in a miniseries or TV movie for Hatfield & McCoys.
SoHo's Girls was best TV comedy series, with its creator-star Lena Dunham taking best actress. Don Cheadle was best actor in a TV comedy series for House of Lies.
Austrian director Michael Haneke's French production Amour was named best foreign language film.
In other awards, Christoph Waltz won for supporting actor in a film for playing a bounty hunter in Django Unchained.
Anne Hathaway's performance as the doomed Fantine in the musical Les Miserables won her best supporting actress.
Quentin Tarantino was a surprise screenplay winner for Django Unchained, his controversial spaghetti Western set during the slavery era,
Mychael Danny won for writing the score for Ang Lee’s Life of Pi. Original song went to British pop singer Adele and Paul Epworth for Skyfall, the latest James Bond thriller.
