"Conclave" leads the BAFTA nominations
Wednesday, January 15, 2025 at 11:30AM
Cláudio Alves in A Complete Unknown, Anora, BAFTA, Conclave, Dune: Part Two, Emilia Perez, Jharrel Jerome, Kneecap, The Apprentice, The Brutalist, The Substance, precursor awards

by Cláudio Alves

Isabella Rossellini and Ralph Fiennes are both nominated for CONCLAVE. | © Focus Features

The BAFTAs are upon us, and this year's nominations are a return to the institution's 2000s penchant for precursor-ism. By that I mean that its choices are keeping in tune with the Oscar favorites in most races. That's unsurprising considering that, for the first time since 2020, the British Academy did away with juries and committees in the acting and directing categories. Many may rejoice at this populist comeback, but I miss the more unexpected choices we enjoyed during those years. In any case, Conclave leads the nomination tally with 12 mentions, while Emilia Pérez is a close runner-up with 11, including a Supporting Actress double dip. Next comes The Brutalist with nine nods, Dune: Part Two, Wicked and Anora have seven, A Complete Unknown six, while The Substance and Nosferatu each nab five…

 

Best Film

As A Complete Unknown rises to the top, Wicked gets the short end of the stick. When discussing the Best Picture category in the Oscar volleys, Ben Miller and I posited that Anora, The Brutalist, Conclave, Emilia Pérez, and Wicked would likely be nominees in the year of a five-wide lineup. We should rethink that since the Bob Dylan biopic keeps receiving love from the industry. Indeed, after only getting the Box Office Achievement Globe, it feels as if the mega musical's momentum has lost steam. And at the most critical time of all.

 

Best Director

Interestingly, while this category still has one more nominee than Film, two of its nominees were absent from that most important category. One wonders how close Dune: Part Two and The Substance came to the top honor. As it stands, this almost feels like a three-way race between Audiard, Berger, and Corbet.

 

Best Actress 

So, we arrive at a sad predicament – it's time to put Nicole Kidman's Oscar hopes to rest. If she couldn't make it here with Babygirl, the Oscar nomination is probably out of reach. Nevertheless, one should acknowledge that Jean-Baptiste and Ronan have some home advantage. Even with the juries out, that factor must have surely helped. Then again, did Jean-Baptiste need that boost, or would she have been in anyway? Currently, she feels like the biggest contender for the BAFTA victory besides the season frontrunner – Demi Moore.

 

Best Actor

Speaking of home advantage, it seems that did not affect Daniel Craig. The Queer star is snubbed by BAFTA, a strong signal of vulnerability in his bid for an Oscar nod. For a long time, I've suspected he'd be left out of the race at the last minute, and this absence seems to prove it. Moreover, he lost his spot to Grant and Stan, who've been doing remarkably well with precursors. At this point, the latter might have pulled ahead of the erstwhile James Bond, with The Apprentice consolidated as his best bet over the Golden Globe-winning turn in A Different Man.

 

Best Supporting Actress

The season's most volatile race keeps surprising. This time, it's with Curtis and the Gomez resurgence, hitting at just the right time to remind Oscar voters of their competitiveness. The former seems better poised to get an afterglow nod from the Academy, keeping strong even in the absence of her leading lady in the other category. As weird as it might sound, Jamie Lee Curtis wouldn't be riding the coattails of Pamela Anderson in the case of an Oscar nomination. Indeed, the reverse might be true.

 

Best Supporting Actor

Sure, the BAFTAs hate Denzel Washington for some reason, but his absence here still feels critical after he also missed SAG. It seems he's done with this race, having been surpassed by Jeremy Strong and Clarence Maclin. Both The Apprentice and Sing Sing did well with the British Academy, but their nominations still mean a lot, especially when some folks were predicting a surprise showing by Stanley Tucci. But if even the most Conclave-loving awards body won't go for him, does he stand a chance with AMPAS? Time will tell, but the battle for the final slot doesn't involve him. In the meantime, Borisov, Culkin, Norton, and Pearce seem solid. Though, I wouldn't call the Brutalist's actor a shoo-in yet. That SAG snub was an ill omen if I ever saw one.

 

Best Casting  

Curious that neither The Brutalist nor Emilia Pérez made it here, considering they each got three individual acting nominations. If anything, it shows how much BAFTAs liked The Apprentice despite leaving it out of their Best Film lineup. The same could be said for Kneecap, which already proved a hit with the British film industry at the BIFAs.

 

Best Original Screenplay  

Though the BAFTAs lost a lot of the edge and identity they built over the past few years by dismissing the juries, it's nice to see some remnants of their individuality like this Kneecap nomination.

 

Best Adapted Screenplay 

Though it was only longlisted here, Nickel Boys still made it. I'm starting to think Ross' narrative feature debut might end the season with a Screenplay Oscar nomination and nothing else. In other news, Wicked keeps getting trumped by A Complete Unknown, while Sing Sing performs better with the British Academy than expected. Considering Villneuve's nomination, Dune's absence is also worth considering.

 

Best Editing

That nomination for Kneecap is so well-deserved that it makes me giddy. Indeed, apart from a particular musical, this is a solid lineup. Now, the question is – who will replace Ireland's Oscar submission in the AMPAS ballot? The Brutalist has been campaigning hard lately, but the wave of love for A Complete Unknown may just land it here.

 

Best Cinematography 

Can Robert Eggers' vampire flick translate its critical acclaim to actual industry support? That's what I've been asking myself all season. In this case, whatever concern I had wasn't warranted. As things are, if Blaschke misses the Oscar lineup, it'll be a Top Gun: Maverick-size snub.

 

Best Production Design 

Is this our Oscar lineup, or will AMPAS go to bat for Gladiator II? The "eye candy" branches responded very positively to Ridley Scott's Napoleon last season, so it might be wise to presume a similar thing this year. But in that case, who's dropped from this quintet? It's hard to imagine any of them missing out at this point.

 

Best Costume Design

Don't count on Durran repeating this feat with AMPAS, though it's true the Costume branch loves her like few other voting bodies. I am also skeptical about Christl's chances, though she's a previous Oscar nominee for Anonymous. At the end of the day, though the catholic finery may mislead, this is a contemporary-set narrative, and we all know how rare those are in this particular race. The Beetlejuice and Dune sequels are still in the running.

 

Best Make Up & Hair  

Karla Sofía Gascón's pre-transition male drag and Zoë Saldaña's pre-riches brows are really doing it for these voters, uh? It's also good to note that Dune's submission in this category is rather bizarre. This season, the desert epic's team is represented solely by the team that worked on Stellan Skarsgård and Austin Butler. None of the other work in the film, including Ferguson's face tattoos, the wounds, wear and tear, are technically up for consideration. In a normal year, when VFX and Make Up would have formal presentations for Academy members, that would mean a disadvantage. But I'm not sure if it'll matter in such an atypical race like the one we're living through.

 

Best Special Visual Effects

This is neither here nor there, but it would be hilarious if Dune: Part Two, the only film that doesn't include digital apes, was the runaway winner. What an odd simian trend. Anyway, it's nice to see Better Man get some flowers even as it bombs at the American box office.

 

Best Original Score 

Nosferatu's inclusion is a smidge surprising, but not by much. Could the bloodsucker triumph over the bisexual tennis players when it comes to the Oscars? Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross have been dominating the Best Original Score critics awards but we know the press and the industry are two very different things.

 

Best Sound 

It's so nice seeing The Substance get Sound honors even though it didn't make it into the Academy's shortlist. Also, congratulations to Blitz for securing this well-deserved honor. Despite a lukewarm reception, it should be impossible to deny the quality of its sonic landscapes.

 

Best Animated Film 

Unlike AMPAS, BAFTA only has four nominees in this category. What's curious is that Inside Out 2 manages to sneak into this lineup but failed to the same with the near identical Children's & Family Film category. As far as the Brits are concerned, the Pixar movie is more vulnerable than most folks imagined.

 

Best Documentary

At this point, AMPAS not acknowledging No Other Land would be the shocker to end all shockers, a seismic upset. Especially when the Documentary branch already had their big snub of the year when they left Super/Man outside their shortlist.

 

Best Film Not in the English Language 

Once again, the choice for India to submit Lost Ladies is the season's most outrageous own goal. Had they gone with All We Imagine As Light, they would likely be a lock for the Oscar nomination – the first for India since 2001.

 

Best Children's & Family Film

In the collective Team Experience predictions, Nathaniel was the only one to bring up Kensuke's Kingdom in the Best Animated Feature race. I guess he was on to something, judging from these results. Also, if this new category is going to be exclusively populated with animation, wouldn't it have been better to expand the animation race and leave it at that? Right now, the prize feels extraneous and more than a little bit redundant.

 

Outstanding British Film 

Damn, Better Man can't catch a break. Still, it's hard to mourn its absence when it made space for something like that lovely Bird nomination or the ongoing celebration of Hard Truths. It's still wild to me that Cannes, Venice, and Telluride all passed on Mike Leigh's new triumph.

 

Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer 

Despite the category's name opening itself to lone writer or producer honors, it continues to privilege directors to the point one must ask if they should change the name to Debut Director or Breakthrough Director. Anyway, this is Dev Patel's third BAFTA nomination. He won the Best Supporting Actor award in for Lion.

 

Outstanding British Short Animation  

Nina Gantz's Wander to Wonder is also shortlisted for the Oscar and is the frontrunner here, having already won the BIFA for short animation.

 

Outstanding British Short Film 

It's slightly shocking that Clodagh failed to secure a BAFTA nomination since it was the only contender to be included in the Oscar shortlist. Can the Irish drama still make it into the Academy Award quintet?

 

EE Rising Star Award 

This is the only category where the public votes for the winner rather than the British film industry. One wonders who'll come out triumphant, though perhaps Mikey Madison has the advantage of also being nominated in one of the main acting categories. As ever, I'm baffled by the criteria they use to select their rising stars. Jharrel Jerome starred in a Best Picture Oscar winner eight years ago, which he followed with an Emmy-winning lead role in a prestige miniseries. He was also recently the lead in Boots Riley's first big TV production. How is he a rising star? Is Unstoppable that major in comparison to all those previous projects?

 

Looking at these nominees, who do you think will win at the BAFTAs this year? And how will that affect the Oscar race?

Article originally appeared on The Film Experience (http://thefilmexperience.net/).
See website for complete article licensing information.