2021 BAFTA nominations predictions; new rules, new voting, expect the unexpected

What we could see happen at BAFTA this year could be wildly different than in seasons past. While the top category of Best Film and its five nominations slots are likely to remain closely in line with Oscar favorites and frontrunners, the rest of the categories could give us some unexpected names and films and here’s why.

When BAFTA announced its sweeping changes in both membership and voting for their awards back in September, it was largely met with positive response. Increasing membership diversity by over 1,000, ensuring a more diverse batch of nominees through the return of longlists and chapter voting. All sounds good, right? Well, it is, and then you get into the fine print of those new rules, fine print that most of us in the awards space overlooked.

While chapter voting (actors nominate actors, directors nominate directors, etc) created part of the longlists, 12 of the 15 nominees, an executive jury filled in the last three from all contenders in the 13-22 rankings. But here’s where it gets weird. For the actual nominations, these categories will then go to a jury of just 7-12 people, only 50% of whom (!!!) have to be BAFTA members, making the decision that thousands of members will then vote on.

This is a private meeting and the names of the jurors won’t be announced until nomination day, ostensibly to avoid lobbying and jury tampering. This covers directing and acting but when you get into the wording of the rules there’s a lot of phrases like “should contain” and “ideally” doing a considerable amount of heavy lifting. During these jury meetings, voting is confidential (on tablets) and automatically relayed to BAFTA’s scrutineers; jurors are not aware of final results with this process, again to avoid any type of collusion or tampering and sign an NDA to ensure that all discussions within the meeting remain confidential. What we don’t know is when these juries are meeting to vote. The day of the nomination announcement? The day before?

Let’s take a look at Minari as an example of how the juries, chapter and non-chapter voting impacted the film. It missed the longlists for Picture, Cinematography and Editing yet it made the lists for Director and three Acting categories, all of which have three “jury saves” in each category. The only two categories we can safely say the film is in the Top 15 for are Original Screenplay and Score as those were strictly chapter based voting, no juries.

So here’s the question: does the 7-12 person nominating jury, in charge of securing a diverse lineup, push the film into Director, Actor and Supporting Actress when it’s clear the membership as a whole was a little cold on it, or do they simply go safely with top contenders that got broader support (David Fincher, Emerald Fennell, Aaron Sorkin, Paul Greengrass, Florian Zeller, Regina King in Director etc.) with a British indie pick jury “save” like Sarah Gavron or Rose Glass?

While that seems like a lot of hand-wringing, BAFTA has used versions of this membership/jury type of voting in the past and in multiple categories. The Rising Star and British Film awards have been this way, as have the TV and Game awards, which sometimes lead to shocking snubs like Olivia Colman in The Crown missing out while the series and her co-stars got in.

The EE BAFTA Rising Star nominees are: Bukky Bakray, Kingsley Ben-Adir, Ṣọpẹ Dìrísù, Conrad Khan and Morfyyd Clark.

The 2021 BAFTA nominations will be announced on March 9, one day before the end of Oscar nomination voting. Expect some shocks, expect some snubs. We’ll see how things shake out. Here are my predictions.

Best Film

15 films made it through to the Round Two of voting, and five will be nominated. This is the only category voted for by all film voting members in all voting rounds. 244 films were submitted for consideration.

The Father
Mank
Nomadland
Promising Young Woman
The Trial of the Chicago 7

Watch out for: The Mauritanian

Director

20 films progressed to Round Two of voting, and six will be nominated. Round One is a chapter vote, Round Two is voted on by a jury (nominations) and Round Three is voted on by the general membership (winner). To determine this longlist, in Round One, the directing chapter voted; the top eight female and top eight male directed films were automatically longlisted. The remaining 2 female and 2 male directors were voted for by a Longlisting jury, who have considered the next 10 ranking female and male directed films. A jury will vote for the six nominations. 

David Fincher, Mank
Chloé Zhao, Nomadland
Emerald Fennell, Promising Young Woman
Sarah Gavron, Rocks
Aaron Sorkin, The Trial of the Chicago 7
Ramin Bahrani, The White Tiger

Watch out for: Rose Glass, Saint Maud

Leading Actor

15 performances progressed to Round Two of voting, and six will be nominated. To determine this longlist, in Round One the acting chapter voted; the top 12 were automatically longlisted. The remaining three places have been voted on by the Longlisting jury, who have considered the next 10 placed performances from the chapter vote. Round Two is voted on by a jury who will vote for the six nominations. 122 performances were submitted for consideration.

Riz Ahmed, Sound of Metal
Chadwick Boseman, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom
Adarsh Gourav, The White Tiger
Anthony Hopkins, The Father
Gary Oldman, Mank
Tahar Rahim, The Mauritanian

Watch out for: Mads Mikkelsen, Another Round

Leading Actress

15 performances progressed to Round Two of voting, and six will be nominated. To determine this longlist, in Round One the acting chapter voted; the top 12 were automatically longlisted. The remaining three places have been voted on by the Longlisting jury, who have considered the next 10 placed performances from the chapter vote. Round Two is voted on by a jury who will vote for the six nominations. 126 performances were submitted for consideration.

Bukky Bakray, Rocks
Morfydd Clark, Saint Maud
Viola Davis, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom
Vanessa Kirby, Pieces of a Woman
Frances McDormand, Nomadland
Carey Mulligan, Promising Young Woman

Watch out for: Amy Adams, Hillbilly Elegy

Supporting Actor

15 performances progressed to Round Two of voting, and six will be nominated. To determine this longlist, in Round One the acting chapter voted; the top 12 were automatically longlisted. The remaining three places have been voted on by the Longlisting jury, who have considered the next 10 placed performances from the chapter vote. Round Two is voted on by a jury who will vote for the six nominations. 298 performances were submitted for consideration.

Chadwick Boseman, Da 5 Bloods
Sacha Baron Cohen, The Trial of the Chicago 7
Daniel Kaluuya, Judas and the Black Messiah
Barry Keoghan, Calm with Horses
Leslie Odom Jr., One Night in Miami
David Strathairn, Nomadland

Watch out for: Paul Raci, Sound of Metal

Supporting Actress

15 performances progressed to Round Two of voting, and six will be nominated. To determine this longlist, in Round One the acting chapter voted; the top 12 were automatically longlisted. The remaining three places have been voted on by the Longlisting jury, who have considered the next 10 placed performances from the chapter vote. Round Two is voted on by a jury who will vote for the six nominations. 234 performances were submitted for consideration.

Kosar Ali, Rocks
Glenn Close, Hillbilly Elegy
Olivia Colman, The Father
Jennifer Ehle, Saint Maud
Jodie Foster, The Mauritanian
Youn Yuh-Jung, Minari

Watch out for: Amanda Seyfried, Mank

Casting

15 films progressed to Round Two of voting, and five will be nominated. Round Two is voted on by a jury (nominations). 112 films were submitted in this category. Casting Statements, written by the Casting Directors about the casting process, are provided by the entrants and shared with the jury in Round Two and published on BAFTA View.

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom
Mank
Promising Young Woman
Rocks
The Trial of the Chicago 7

Watch out for: Da 5 Bloods

Original Screenplay

15 films progressed to Round Two, and five will be nominated. Round Two is a chapter vote (nominations). 104 films were submitted for consideration.

Mank
Minari
Promising Young Woman
Rocks
The Trial of the Chicago 7

Watch out for: Soul

Adapted Screenplay

15 films progressed to Round Two, and five will be nominated. Round Two is a chapter vote (nominations). 61 films were submitted for consideration.

The Father
The Mauritanian
Nomadland
One Night in Miami
The White Tiger

Watch out for: I’m Thinking of Ending Things

Outstanding British Film

20 films made it through to Round Two of voting. The top five films from the opt-in chapter vote in Round One automatically receive a nomination. The next ranking 15 films will be considered by a jury, who will vote for five nominations. 10 films will be nominated in this category. 74 films were submitted for consideration, all of which passed the BFI Diversity Standards.

Ammonite
Calm With Horses
The Dig
Emma.
The Father
His House
The Mauritanian
Promising Young Woman
Rocks
Saint Maud

Watch out for: David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet

Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer

12 films were longlisted, and five will be nominated. The longlist, nominees and winner in this category are voted on by a jury. 49 films were submitted for consideration.

Calm with Horses
His House
Mogul Mowgli
Rocks
Saint Maud

Watch out for: Limbo

Original Music

15 films progressed to Round Two, and five will be nominated. Round Two is a chapter vote (nominations) . 133 films were submitted for consideration. Music cue sheets are provided by the entrants and published on BAFTA View for the music chapter in Rounds One and Two.

Mank
Minari
News of the World
Soul
Tenet

Watch out for: The Trial of the Chicago 7

Editing

15 films progressed to Round Two, and five will be nominated. Round Two is a chapter vote (nominations). 203 films were submitted for consideration.

The Father
Nomadland
Promising Young Woman
The Trial of the Chicago 7
The White Tiger

Watch out for: Tenet

Cinematography

15 films progressed to Round Two, and five will be nominated. Round Two is a chapter vote (nominations). 183 films were submitted for consideration.

Mank
News of the World
Nomadland
Tenet
The Trial of the Chicago 7

Watch out for: The Dig

Production Design

15 films progressed to Round Two, and five will be nominated. Round Two is a chapter vote (nominations). 146 films were submitted for consideration.

The Dig
Emma.
Mank
The Secret Garden
The Trial of the Chicago 7

Watch out for: Tenet

Costume Design

15 films progressed to Round Two, and five will be nominated. Round Two is a chapter vote (nominations). 133 films were submitted for consideration.

Ammonite
Emma.
Mank
Mulan
Rebecca

Watch out for: Promising Young Woman

Makeup & Hair

15 films progressed to Round Two, and five will be nominated. Round Two is a chapter vote (nominations). 131 films were submitted for consideration.

Emma.
Hillbilly Elegy
Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom
Mank
Pinocchio

Watch out for: Promising Young Woman

Sound

15 films progressed to Round Two, and five will be nominated. Round Two is a chapter vote (nominations). 170 films were submitted for consideration.

Greyhound
News of the World
Sound of Metal
Tenet
The Trial of the Chicago 7

Watch out for: Mank

Special Visual Effects

15 films progressed to Round Two, and five will be nominated. Round One was a chapter vote, Round Two is a chapter vote (nominations).

Mank
The Midnight Sky
Mulan
Soul
Tenet

Watch out for: Pinocchio

Animated Film

Six films will progress to Round Two of voting, and three will be nominated. This category is voted for in all three Rounds by an opt-in Chapter. 13 films were submitted for consideration.

Soul
The Willoughbys
Wolfwalkers

Watch out for: Onward

Documentary

15 films will progress to Round Two of voting and five will be nominated. This category is voted for in all three Rounds by an opt-in Chapter. 77 films were submitted for consideration.

Collective
David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet
The Dissident
I Am Greta
The Truffle Hunters

Watch out for: Dick Johnson is Dead

Film Not in the English Language

15 films will progress to Round Two of voting, and five will be nominated. This category is voted for in all three Rounds by an opt-in Chapter. 56 films were submitted for consideration.

Another Round
Bacurau
Collective
Minari
The Mole Agent

Watch out for: The Life Ahead