2024 EE BAFTA Film Awards Predictions: Expect a Fight Between ‘Poor Things’ and ‘Oppenheimer’ Down the Line

The BAFTAs are this Sunday and in so many categories it feels like a fight between Poor Things and Oppenheimer, at least in the ones where Christopher Nolan’s near billion dollar blockbuster isn’t already the runaway frontrunner.

Whether it’s Best Film, Adapted Screenplay or Original Score, the two films seem in lockstep with each other. Were it not for the director snub of PT‘s Yorgos Lanthimos it might be even more competitive between the two films. But where Oppenheimer has a clear path in several below the categories (like Editing, Sound, Cinematography, Score), Poor Things not only has it to contend with but Barbie in categories like Production Design and Costume Design and unless we’re in for an unprecedented sweep for Oppy (not impossible), those are close races, especially the former, which has seen all three win at least one precursor so far.

Unsurprisingly, Oppenheimer and Poor Things also factor in three of the four acting races with the top two a real fight, just not with each other. Leading Actor is between Oppenheimer’s Cillian Murphy (who has the Golden Globe for Drama) and The Holdovers‘ Paul Giamatti (who has the Golden Globe for Comedy and Critics Choice). BAFTA, even with its voting structure merry-go-round, has seen fit to award the eventual Best Actor Oscar winner 15 times out of the last 20 years, only two of those time in the last 10 years. Of course, that includes just last year when Austin Butler (Elvis) bested Brendan Fraser (The Whale) and is really the only 1:1 comparison we have in the modern era with Fraser going on to win the Oscar. Both Murphy and Giamatti have hit everywhere and are the critics’ leaders with Murphy having the edge there in overall wins. But will Murphy ride the wave of his film’s potential awards blowout or is Giamatti poised to take full control of the race?

With Lily Gladstone (Killers of the Flower Moon) not nominated at BAFTA, Leading Actress is between Emma Stone (Poor Things) and Sandra Hüller (Anatomy of a Fall) and on one side it would seem to make this an even easier win for Stone without what is/might be her biggest competition. But Hüller is also a nominee in supporting for The Zone of Interest and support for both of her films here (and at the Oscars) is substantial. The domination of Anatomy of a Fall at this year’s European Film Awards also gives her a point on her side but misses at the Golden Globes and with London Critics (to Stone, no less) and the lack of a Screen Actors Guild nomination brings those point back down. A win for Hüller here will definitely cause a stir in Oscar predictions circles until SAG has its say on the 24th and if Gladstone were to win there then we’d really have a race. One unlike we’ve really seen in a while; the 2020 and 2021 Best Actress races aren’t the best comparisons as the BAFTA voting changes and nominations went far outside the SAG and Oscar lineups. 2012 is probably the best comparison, when Emmanuelle Riva (Amour) bested Jennifer Lawrence (Silver Linings Playbook) with the former not SAG-nominated and the latter going on to win the Oscar.

One category Poor Things and Oppenheimer aren’t competing in, very surprisingly, is Best Casting. Only in its fifth year, there are no real trends or patterns to go off from, especially with the two top films left off the list completely. This category has seen Joker beat Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Rocks beating Best Film nominee Promising Young Woman and Elvis winning last year over All Quiet on the Western Front, Everything Everywhere All At Once, Triangle of Sadness and Aftersun. This year, three of the five nominees are also Best Film nominees: Anatomy of a Fall, The Holdovers and Killers of the Flower Moon. Then we have All of Us Strangers, which has six nominations including two acting nods and Best Director, and How to Have Sex, which is also nominated for Outstanding British Debut and Outstanding British Film (where AOUS is as well). Twice in those four years the winner was not nominated for Best Film but in the case of 2021’s West Side Story that film also had a Supporting Actress win with Ariana DeBose. Cast size doesn’t seem to be an overriding factor here either and four of the five nominees this year having small casts of just four or fives primary performers. While Anatomy and Holdovers seem like the safest bets here if voters want to vote for Strangers this is definitely its best shot at a win.

The 2024 EE BAFTA Film Awards will be held live on Sunday, February 18 from the Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall in London and hosted by David Tennant. The EE BAFTA Film Awards will be broadcast on BBC One and iPlayer in the UK, with a two-hour delay in the U.S. on BritBox International in USA, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Norway and South Africa, as well as BBC Australia and Britbox in Australia, NOVA Bulgaria, NOVA Greece, Turner Spain, and Canal Plus. 

Here are my ranked winner predictions for the 2024 EE BAFTA Film Awards.

Best Film

1. Oppenheimer
2. Poor Things
3. Anatomy of a Fall
4. The Holdovers
5. Killers of the Flower Moon

Best Director

1. Christopher Nolan, Oppenheimer
2. Justine Triet, Anatomy of a Fall
3. Jonathan Glazer, The Zone of Interest
4. Alexander Payne, The Holdovers
5. Bradley Cooper, Maestro
6. Andrew Haigh, All of Us Strangers

Leading Actor

1. Cillian Murphy, Oppenheimer
2. Paul Giamatti, The Holdovers
3. Bradley Cooper, Maestro
4. Colman Domingo, Rustin
5. Barry Keoghan, Saltburn
6. Teo Yoo, Past Lives

Leading Actress

1. Emma Stone, Poor Things
2. Sandra Hüller, Anatomy of a Fall
3. Carey Mulligan, Maestro
4. Margot Robbie, Barbie
5. Fantasia Barrino, The Color Purple
6. Vivian Oparah, Rye Lane

Supporting Actor

1. Robert Downey Jr., Oppenheimer
2. Ryan Gosling, Barbie
3. Robert De Niro, Killers of the Flower Moon
4. Paul Mescal, All of Us Strangers
5. Dominic Sessa, The Holdovers
6. Jacob Elordi, Saltburn

Supporting Actress

1. Da’Vine Joy Randolph, The Holdovers
2. Emily Blunt, Oppenheimer
3. Sandra Hüller, The Zone of Interest
4. Claire Foy, All of Us Strangers
5. Rosamund Pike, Saltburn
6. Danielle Brooks, The Color Purple

Casting

1. The Holdovers (Susan Shopmaker)
2. All of Us Strangers (Kahleen Crawford)
3. Anatomy of a Fall (Cynthia Arra)
4. Killers of the Flower Moon (Ellen Lewis and Rene Haynes)
5. How to Have Sex (Isabella Odoffin)

Original Screenplay

1. Justine Triet and Arthur Harari, Anatomy of a Fall
2. David Hemingson, The Holdovers
3. Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach, Barbie
4. Bradley Cooper and Josh Singer, Maestro
5. Celine Song, Past Lives

Adapted Screenplay

1. Christopher Nolan, Oppenheimer
2. Tony McNamara, Poor Things
3. Andrew Haigh, All of Us Strangers
4. Jonathan Glazer, The Zone of Interest
5. Cord Jefferson, American Fiction

Outstanding British Film

1. Poor Things
2. The Zone of Interest
3. All of Us Strangers
4. Napoleon
5. How to Have Sex
6. Saltburn
7. Wonka
8. Rye Lane
9. Scrapper
10. The Old Oak

Animated Film

1. The Boy and the Heron
2. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
3. Elemental
4. Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget

Documentary

1. 20 Days in Mariupol
2. Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie
3. American Symphony
4. Beyond Utopia
5. Wham!

Film Not in the English Language

1. Anatomy of a Fall
2. The Zone of Interest
3. Society of the Snow
4. Past Lives
5. 20 Days in Mariupol

Cinematography

1. Oppenheimer (Hoyte van Hoytema)
2. Poor Things (Robbie Ryan)
3. The Zone of Interest (Łukasz Żal)
4. Maestro (Matthew Libatique)
5. Killers of the Flower Moon (Rodrigo Prieto)

Editing

1. Oppenheimer (Jennifer Lame)
2. Anatomy of a Fall (Laurent Sénéchal)
3. Poor Things (Yorgos Mavropsaridis)
4. The Zone of Interest (Paul Watts)
5. Killers of the Flower Moon (Thelma Schoonmaker)

Production Design

1. Poor Things (Shona Heath, James Price, & Zsuzsa Mihalek)
2. Barbie (Sarah Greenwood and Katie Spencer)
3. Oppenheimer (Ruth De Jong and Claire Kaufman)
4. Killers of the Flower Moon (Jack Fisk and Adam Willis)
5. The Zone of Interest (Chris Oddy, Joanna Maria Kuś, & Katarzyna Sikora)

Costume Design

1. Poor Things (Holly Waddington)
2. Barbie (Jacqueline Durran)
3. Napoleon (Dave Crossman and Janty Yates)
4. Killers of the Flower Moon (Jacqueline West)
5. Oppenheimer (Ellen Mirojnick)

Make Up & Hair

1. Maestro (Sian Grigg, Kay Georgiou, Kazu Hiro, Lori McCoy-Bell
2. Poor Things (Nadia Stacey, Mark Coulier, Josh Weston)
3. Oppenheimer (Luisa Abel, Jaime Leigh McIntosh, Jason Hamer, Ahou Mofid)
4. Napoleon (Jana Carboni, Francesco Pegoretti, Satinder Chumber, Julia Vernon)
5. Killers of the Flower Moon (Kay Georgiou, Thomas Nellen)

Original Score

1. Oppenheimer (Ludwig Göransson)
2. Poor Things (Jerskin Fendrix)
3. Killers of the Flower Moon (Robbie Robertson)
4. Saltburn (Anthony Willis)
5. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (Daniel Pemberton)

Sound

1. Oppenheimer (Willie Burton, Richard King, Kevin O’Connell, Gary A. Rizzo)
2. The Zone of Interest (Johnnie Burn, Tarn Willers)
3. Maestro (Richard King, Steve Morrow, Tom Ozanich, Jason Ruder, Dean Zupancic)
4. Ferrari (Angelo Bonanni, Tony Lamberti, Andy Nelson, Lee Orloff, Bernard Weiser)
5. Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One (Chris Burdon, James H. Mather, Chris Munro, Mark Taylor)

Special Visual Effects

1. Napoleon (Henry Badgett, Neil Corbould, Charley Henley, Luc-Ewen Martin-Fenouillet)
2. Poor Things (Simon Hughes)
3. The Creator (Jonathan Bullock, Charmaine Chan, Ian Comley, Jay Cooper)
4. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (Theo Bialek, Stephane Ceretti, Alexis Wajsbrot, Guy Williams)
5. Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One (Neil Corbould, Simone Coco, Jeff Sutherland, Alex Wuttke)

Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer

1. How to Have Sex – Molly Manning Walker (Writer, Director)
2. Earth Mama – Savanah Leaf (Writer, Director, Producer), Shirley O’Connor (Producer), Medb Riordan (Producer)
3. Blue Bag Life – Lisa Selby (Director), Rebecca Lloyd-Evans (Director, Producer), Alex Fry (Producer)
4. Bobi Wine: The People’s President – Christopher Sharp (Director) [also directed by Moses Bwayo]
5. Is There Anybody Out There? – Ella Glendining (Director)
   

BAFTA Rising Star (voted on by the public)

1. Jacob Elordi
2. Mia McKenna-Bruce
3. Ayo Edebiri
4. Phoebe Dynevor
5. Sophie Wilde