BAFTA Predictions: Will the Brits Ride Ocean Waves or Be in Love with Shakespeare?
With DGA under our belts, BAFTA is right around the corner, putting us in the full swing of the real awards season.
Despite Sinners’ record-setting 13 nominations here (the most for any film from a Black director), I’d be hard-pressed to find a lot of places that I think it will win here. Score is a given, it’s proven unbeatable everywhere so far. Cinematography is the interesting one here; the British Society of Cinematographers went for One Battle After Another and BAFTA doesn’t really care much about historical context to wins like the Oscars do sometimes. Wunmi Mosaku, Manchester denizen and previous BAFTA TV winner is probably the film’s best above the line shot outside of Original Screenplay. But, lack of BAFTA success might be totally indicative of an Oscar outcome. Only twice in the last 10 years has BAFTA and Oscar aligned on Best Picture, with some years swinging wildly in the opposite direction, like 2022 when they went hard for All Quiet on the Western Front while the Oscars went deep for Everything Everywhere All At Once. The next year both did align, with Oppenheimer the dominant leader all season. Then last year, Conclave (which managed a single Oscar win) took the top BAFTA prize over The Brutalist and eventual Best Picture Oscar winner Anora. If Sinners is able to prevail here, of all places, it would certainly signal likely Oscar success as well.
My bet is that Hamnet is closer to being the runner-up here, with One Battle After Another on its way to collecting more trophies after Critics Choice, the Golden Globes and DGA. Jessie Buckley should be an easy win for Hamnet, as the overwhelming frontrunner in Best Actress and Outstanding British Film should be a lay up for the 11-time BAFTA nominated film from Chloé Zhao. I also expect Timothée Chalamet to continue his run in Best Actor and that this is where we’ll find answers in the very split supporting races so far. I’m leaning Teyana Taylor and Stellan Skarsgård here.
Casting is a key category at BAFTA, as its found itself directly linked to an individual acting win in five of its six years of existence. Anora last year over Conclave was a particularly telling race, with Mikey Madison also taking Best Actress here and then at the Oscars. Hamnet‘s bizarre miss here aside, I have to go with one of the films I have attached to a predicted acting winner, all Best Film nominees too: Marty Supreme, One Battle After Another or Sentimental Value. I Swear is the outlier here, and while its star, Robert Aramayo, is nominated for lead actor, BAFTA hasn’t gone for a non-Best Actor Oscar nominee for 25 years, since Jamie Bell won for 2000’s Billy Elliot. One thing BAFTA has yet to do, however, is match Best Film and Best Casting. While One Battle could be the first I think I’m going to predict Marty Supreme here but it’s an interestingly open race.
Here are my full winner and spoiler predictions for the 79th EE BAFTA Awards, which will air this Sunday, February 22 and hosted by Alan Cumming.
Best Film
Predicted winner: One Battle After Another
Spoiler: Hamnet
Other nominees: Marty Supreme, Sentimental Value, Sinners
Best Director
Predicted winner: Paul Thomas Anderson, –One Battle After Another
Spoiler: Chloé Zhao – Hamnet
Other nominees: Yorgos Lanthimos – Bugonia; Josh Safdie, Marty Supreme; Joachim Trier, Sentimental Value; Ryan Coogler, Sinners
Best Leading Actor
Predicted winner: Timothée Chalamet – Marty Supreme
Alternate: Leonardo DiCaprio – One Battle After Another
Other nominees: Robert Aramayo – I Swear, Ethan Hawke – Blue Moon, Michael B. Jordan – Sinners, Jesse Plemons – Bugonia
Best Leading Actress
Predicted winner: Jessie Buckley – Hamnet
Spoiler: Renate Reinsve – Sentimental Value
Other nominees: Rose Byrne – If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, Kate Hudson – Song Sung Blue, Chase Infiniti – One Battle After Another, Emma Stone – Bugonia
Best Supporting Actor
Predicted winner: Stellan Skarsgaard, –Sentimental Value
Spoiler: Sean Penn – One Battle After Another
Other nominees: Benicio del Toro – One Battle After Another, Jacob Elordi – Frankenstein, Paul Mescal – Hamnet, Peter Mullan – I Swear
Best Supporting Actress
Predicted winner: Teyana Taylor – One Battle After Another
Spoiler: Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas – Sentimental Value
Other nominees: Odessa A’zion – Marty Supreme, Wunmi Mosaku – Sinners, Carey Mulligan – The Ballad of Wallis Island, Emily Watson – Hamnet
Best Casting
Predicted winner: Marty Supreme
Spoiler: One Battle After Another
Other nominees: I Swear, Sentimental Value, Sinners
Best Original Screenplay
Predicted winner: Sinners
Spoiler: Sentimental Value
Other nominees: I Swear, Marty Supreme, The Secret Agent
Best Adapted Screenplay
Predicted winner: One Battle After Another
Spoiler: Hamnet
Other nominees: The Ballad of Wallis Island, Bugonia, Pillion
Outstanding British Film
Predicted winner: Hamnet
Spoiler: I Swear
Other nominees: 28 Years Later, The Ballad of Wallis Island, Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy, Die My Love, H for Hawk, Mr Burton, Pillion, Steve
Outstanding British Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer
Predicted winner: My Father’s Shadow – Akinola Davies Jr. (writer/director) and Wale Davies (writer)
Spoiler: Pillion – Harry Lighton (writer/director)
Other nominees: The Ceremony – Jack King (writer/director) Hollie Bryan (producer) and Lucy Meer (producer); A Want in Her – Myrid Carten (writer/director), Wasteman – Cal McMau (director), Hunter Andrews (writer), and Eoin Doran (writer)
Best Film Not in the English Language
Predicted winner: Sentimental Value
Spoiler: The Secret Agent
Other nominees: It Was Just an Accident, Sirāt, The Voice of Hind Rajab
Best Animated Film
Predicted winner: Zootropolis 2
Spoiler: Little Amélie or the Character of Rain
Other nominee: Elio
Best Documentary
Predicted winner: 2000 Meters to Andriivka
Spoiler: The Perfect Neighbor
Other nominees: Apocalypse in the Tropics, Cover-Up, Nobody Against Mr Putin
Best Original Music
Predicted winner: Sinners
Spoiler: Hamnet
Other nominees: Bugonia, Frankenstein, One Battle After Another
Best Editing
Predicted winner: F1
Spoiler: One Battle After Another
Other nominees: A House of Dynamite, Marty Supreme, Sinners
Best Cinematography
Predicted winner: One Battle After Another
Spoiler: Sinners
Other nominees: Frankenstein, Marty Supreme, Train Dreams
Best Production Design
Predicted winner: Frankenstein
Spoiler: Hamnet
Other nominees: Marty Supreme, One Battle After Another, Sinners
Best Costume Design
Predicted winner: Frankenstein
Spoiler: Hamnet
Other nominees: Marty Supreme, Sinners, Wicked: For Good
Best Make Up & Hair
Predicted winner: Frankenstein
Spoiler: Sinners
Other nominees: Hamnet, Marty Supreme, Wicked: For Good
Best Sound
Predicted winner: F1
Spoiler: Sinners
Other nominees: Frankenstein, One Battle After Another, Warfare
Best Special Visual Effects
Predicted winner: Avatar: Fire and Ash
Spoiler: F1
Other nominees: Frankenstein, How to Train Your Dragon, The Lost Bus
BAFTA Rising Star (voted on by the public)
Predicted winner: Robert Aramayo
Spoiler: Chase Infiniti
Other nominees: Miles Caton, Archie Madekwe, Posy Sterling
He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Critics Choice Association (CCA), San Francisco Bay Area Film Critics Circle (SFBAFCC) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.
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