77th EE BAFTA Film Awards: ‘Oppenheimer’ Wins 7 including Best Film, Director, Actor; ‘Poor Things’ Next with 5 including Best Actress for Emma Stone

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The 77th EE BAFTA Film Awards have named Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer the Best Film of 2023, also awarding the film six other prizes including Best Director, Best Actor for Cillian Murphy and Best Supporting Actor to Robert Downey Jr.

The story of the father of the atomic bomb story came in with a field-best 13 nominations and a box office haul of nearly $1B worldwide and also nabbed wins for score, editing and cinematography. “I have so many people to thank for this,” Christopher Nolan said, accepting his Best Director award. “An incredible cast, led by the peerless Cillian Murphy. To Emma Thomas, our producer; I love you.” Murphy’s win was one of some historic value as he is the first Irish actor to ever win Best Actor at the BAFTAs.

As the first major industry awards body to hand out trophies in acting categories as well as above and below the line, the BAFTAs set the stage for next weekend’s Screen Actors Guild and Producers Guild awards. Oscar winner voting kicks off in four days, on February 22.

Right behind Oppenheimer was Yorgos Lanthimos’s Poor Things with five wins, including Best Actress for Emma Stone and sharing most of the tech awards with Oppenheimer. In her speech Stone said, “Our incredible cast and crew, I cannot imagine this film with anyone else. What you brought to life every single day, I am in awe of all of you. Yorgos, thank you for our friendship, and the gift of Bella. I am thankful for her, and for you, always.”

The Zone of Interest came in with three wins: Sound, Film Not in the English Language and Outstanding British Film, which producer James Wilson quipped, “From foreign film to British film… stunned! This was a coming together of people in the UK, it was shot entirely in Poland, and with a largely German cast.”

Da’Vine Joy Randolph continued her dominance, winning Best Supporting Actress for The Holdovers, which also won the BAFTA for Best Casting, an award announced last week that will be joining the Oscars lineup in two years. Upon receiving her award from presenter and BAFTA winner Chiwetel Ejiofor, Randolph said “You are SO handsome!” before getting down to her speech. “This is a movie we made in Boston about three people that came together to form a little family,” she said. “Mary shows us what is possible when we look beyond our differences.”

A major win came in Adapted Screenplay where Cord Jefferson’s American Fiction – the film’s only nomination here – bested big BAFTA winners Oppenheimer, Poor Things and The Zone of Interest. Original Screenplay went to Justine Triet and Arthur Harari for Anatomy of a Fall. Both screenplays are now well positioned for their respective Oscar categories where American Fiction comes in with the TIFF People’s Choice Award (where a film almost always wins at least one Academy Award) and Anatomy with the Cannes Palme d’Dor and its Oscar nominations for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actress.

The EE BAFTA Rising Star Award, voted on by the public, went to Mia McKenna-Bruce, star of Molly Manning Walker’s How to Have Sex besting the likes of Jacob Elordi and Ayo Edebiri, while the award for Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer went to Savanah Leaf (Writer, Director, Producer), Shirley O’Connor (Producer), Medb Riordan (Producer) for Earth Mama.

Several films with multiple nominations went home empty-handed including Killers of the Flower Moon, which had nine. Maestro with seven, All of Us Strangers with six nods and both Barbie and Saltburn with five.

Hannah Waddingham performed Cyndi Lauper’s 1984 hit “Time After Time” for the BAFTA In Memoriam and Sophie Ellis-Bextor belted her 2002 UK hit “Murder on the Dancefloor,” which was given new chart life thanks to its use in the final sequence of Emerald Fennell’s Saltburn, which was nominated for five BAFTAs.

Award-winning British actor, writer and director Samantha Morton was awarded the BAFTA Fellowship, the arts charity’s highest accolade bestowed by BAFTA in recognition of an outstanding and exceptional contribution to film, games or television. 

June Givanni, the pioneering film curator, writer and programmer of African and African diaspora cinema, and founder of The June Givanni PanAfrican Archive, was presented with BAFTA’s Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema award.

The ceremony was held at Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall in London and hosted by David Tennant for the first time.

Here is the complete list of winners of the 77th EE BAFTA Film Awards.

Best Film

Anatomy of a Fall
The Holdovers
Killers of the Flower Moon
Oppenheimer – WINNER
Poor Things

Best Director

Bradley Cooper, Maestro
Jonathan Glazer, The Zone of Interest
Andrew Haigh, All of Us Strangers
Christopher Nolan, Oppenheimer – WINNER
Alexander Payne, The Holdovers
Justine Triet, Anatomy of a Fall

Leading Actor

Bradley Cooper, Maestro
Colman Domingo, Rustin
Paul Giamatti, The Holdovers
Barry Keoghan, Saltburn
Cillian Murphy, Oppenheimer – WINNER
Teo Yoo, Past Lives

Leading Actress

Fantasia Barrino, The Color Purple
Sandra Hüller, Anatomy of a Fall
Carey Mulligan, Maestro
Vivian Oparah, Rye Lane
Margot Robbie, Barbie
Emma Stone, Poor Things – WINNER

Supporting Actor

Robert De Niro, Killers of the Flower Moon
Robert Downey Jr., Oppenheimer – WINNER
Jacob Elordi, Saltburn
Ryan Gosling, Barbie
Paul Mescal, All of Us Strangers
Dominic Sessa, The Holdovers

Supporting Actress

Emily Blunt, Oppenheimer
Danielle Brooks, The Color Purple
Claire Foy, All of Us Strangers
Sandra Hüller, The Zone of Interest
Rosamund Pike, Saltburn
Da’Vine Joy Randolph, The Holdovers – WINNER

Original Screenplay

Anatomy of a Fall (Justine Triet and Arthur Harari) – WINNER
Barbie (Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach)
The Holdovers (David Hemingson)
Maestro (Bradley Cooper and Josh Singer)
Past Lives (Celine Song)

Adapted Screenplay

(All of Us Strangers Andrew Haigh)
American Fiction (Cord Jefferson) – WINNER
Oppenheimer (Christopher Nolan)
Poor Things (Tony McNamara)
The Zone of Interest (Jonathan Glazer)

Outstanding British Film

All of Us Strangers
How to Have Sex
Napoleon
The Old Oak
Poor Things
Rye Lane
Saltburn
Scrapper
Wonka
The Zone of Interest – WINNER

Animated Film

The Boy and the Heron – WINNER
Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget
Elemental
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

Documentary

20 Days in Mariupol – WINNER
American Symphony
Beyond Utopia
Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie
Wham!

Film Not in the English Language

20 Days in Mariupol
Anatomy of a Fall
Past Lives
Society of the Snow
The Zone of Interest – WINNER

Casting

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

Cinematography

Killers of the Flower Moon (Rodrigo Prieto)
Maestro (Matthew Libatique)
Oppenheimer (Hoyte van Hoytema) – WINNER
Poor Things (Robbie Ryan)
The Zone of Interest (Łukasz Żal)

Editing

Anatomy of a Fall (Laurent Sénéchal)
Killers of the Flower Moon (Thelma Schoonmaker)
Oppenheimer (Jennifer Lame) – WINNER
Poor Things (Yorgos Mavropsaridis)
The Zone of Interest (Paul Watts)

Production Design

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

Costume Design

Barbie (Jacqueline Durran)
Killers of the Flower Moon (Jacqueline West)
Napoleon (Dave Crossman and Janty Yates)
Oppenheimer (Ellen Mirojnick)
Poor Things (Holly Waddington) – WINNER

Make Up & Hair

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

Original Score

Killers of the Flower Moon (Robbie Robertson)
Oppenheimer (Ludwig Göransson) – WINNER
Poor Things (Jerskin Fendrix)
Saltburn (Anthony Willis)
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (Daniel Pemberton)

Sound

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

Special Visual Effects

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

British Short Animation

Crab Day (Ross Stringer, Bartosz Stanislawek, Aleksandra Sykulak) – WINNER
Visible Mending (Samantha Moore, Tilley Bancroft)
Wild Summon (Karni Arieli, Saul Freed, Jay Woolley)

British Short Film

Festival of Slaps (Abdou Cissé, Cheri Darbon, George Telfer)
Gorka (Joe Weiland, Alex Jefferson)
Jellyfish and Lobster (Yasmin Afifi, Elizabeth Rufai) – WINNER
Such a Lovely Day (Simon Woods, Polly Stokes, Emma Norton, Kate Phibbs)
Yellow (Elham Ehsas, Dina Mousawi, Azeem Bhati, Yiannis Manolopoulos)

Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer

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

BAFTA Rising Star

Phoebe Dynevor
Ayo Edebiri
Jacob Elordi
Mia McKenna-Bruce – WINNER
Sophie Wilde