6th November 2023
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On Sunday night, the BAFTA’s returned to our screens, complete with plenty of famous faces and hosted by (in my not-so-humble opinion) the best Doctor of them all, David Tennant.
Striding into the audience, kilt-clad and singing along to The Proclaimers of whom he has long been a fan. Tennant demonstrated to the gathered stars (including the usual cohort of stunned-looking Americans – welcome to the BAFTA’s) why he is a certified national treasure.
With stellar performances from Take That and Jeff Goldblum, the BAFTA’s showed the Oscars you don’t have to drag the ceremony out for hours to have a good show (being just 2 hours and half the length of the Oscars, as about half of the awards are filmed pre-broadcast with the highlights edited in).
Take That sang their iconic 2008 hit Greatest Day, which was used in Anora, showing they’ve still got it after 35 years. Jeff Goldblum played the piano in accompaniment to the In Memoriam, which included James Earl Jones, Shelley Duvall, Donald Sutherland, Dame Joan Plowright DBE, David Lynch, and Dame Maggie Smith DBE.
Going into the evening, the films with the most nominations were Conclave (12), Emilia Pérez (11) and The Brutalist (9). Anora, Dune: Part Two and Wicked all received 7 nominations; 6 for A Complete Unknown and Kneecap; and Nosferatu and The Substance received 5 each.
On the night itself, The Brutalist won the most (4) but ultimately missed out on the best film to Conclave, which won 3 awards overall.
Anora, A Real Pain, Dune: Part Two, Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl and Wicked all won 2 awards a piece; and of the remaining films that had the most nominations, Kneecap and The Substance only won 1, with A Complete Unknown and Nosferatu failing to win any.
In addition to the awards for the films, BAFTA also awarded MediCinema (a charity that brings cinema to hospital patients) the award for outstanding British contribution to cinema and bequeathed legendary actor Warwick Davis with a BAFTA fellowship.
The ceremony may have gone without a hitch, but it wouldn’t be awards season without some form of scandal, with Emilia Pérez and The Brutalist both making headlines for their controversial use of AI.
Sadly, for the Emilia Pérez team, this was far from the end of their woes, with the film being described as having had ‘the awards season from hell.’
For a campaign that had been going so well, with the film receiving the most Oscar nominations this year (but also being the worst-rated best picture contender in history on both Rotten Tomatoes and Letterboxd) and lead actress Karla Sofía Gascón becoming the first trans person to be nominated in an Oscars acting category, it quickly unravelled when Gascón’s past Twitter/X posts resurfaced.
It was not just Gascón’s derogatory comments about Islam, George Floyd and, somewhat ironically, diversity at the Oscars (to name a few) that proved controversial. Many Mexicans and trans people have taken issue with how the film portrayed them, made worse by French director Jacques Audiard admitting that his research of Mexico was minimal.
Ultimately, however, Emilia Perez did win a couple of awards, including for best film not in the English language, a category in which it faced strong competition from I’m Still Here and Kneecap. Kneecap has been hailed as ‘more than a film, it’s a movement’ by director and writer Rich Peppiatt for its promotion of the Irish language.
The Belfast hip hop trio the film is about made headlines in recent months as they won their court case against the UK government, after Kemi Badenoch, whilst business and trade minister, blocked them from receiving a grant of almost £15,000. They have since been awarded the money and donated it to youth groups committed to developing cross-community relations in Northern Ireland. There has been outrage online from their fans who argued they had been snubbed by the Oscars; but whilst Kneecap only won 1 award, it has been said the film ‘won this year’s BAFTA’s ceremony’ because of its importance.
Speaking of surprises for predictors, Mikey Madison may have won best actress but David Jonsson beat her out for the EE Rising Star award, the only award of the night voted for by the public. From Marvel stars to an alumna of The Dumping Ground, Jonsson joins a prestigious list of actors, including James McAvoy (the first recipient in 2006), Kristen Stewart (2010), Tom Hardy (2011), John Boyega (2016), Tom Holland (2017), Daniel Kaluuya (2018), Lashana Lynch (2022) and many more.
Whilst I could ramble on about the ceremony for a while, I know anyone still reading just wants to know who won what, so without further ado, the winners were:
Adapted screenplay:
Animated film:
Best film:
British short animation:
British short film:
Casting:
Children’s and family film:
Cinematography:
Costume design:
Director:
Documentary:
Editing:
EE rising star award:
Film not in the English language:
Leading actor:
Leading actress:
Make up and hair:
Original score:
Original screenplay:
Outstanding British film:
Outstanding debut by a British writer, director or producer:
Production design:
Sound:
Special visual effects:
Supporting actor:
Supporting actress:
Viewers in the UK can watch the Oscars on Monday 3 March at 12am GMT (Sunday 2 March at 4pm PST) on ITV. For information on how to watch the nominated films nominated, see Glamour’s article.
The BAFTA Film Awards are still available to watch on BBC iPlayer, and the BAFTA Television Awards are expected to take place later in the year.
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Header Image — Photo by Avel Chuklanov on Unsplash
