The EE British Academy Film Awards—or BAFTAs—were held this past weekend, and it was nearly a clean sweep for Sam Mendes’ one-shot World War I drama 1917, which won all but two awards it was nominated for. That included Best Film, Best Director, and of course Best Cinematography, but the film's success in other below-the-line categories like Best Production Design, Sound, and Special Visual Effects has many wondering if we just got a preview of what Oscars night might have in store on Sunday, February 9th.
Mendes’ technically stunning film was a late-comer to this year’s awards season, but that has actually worked in its favor as the Oscars are operating on an extremely shortened schedule this year. The window of time between nominations and the actual ceremony is shorter than usual, which means there’s less time for a new narrative to take hold.
1917 won the PGA and DGA awards, which are usually solid predictors of success in the Best Picture and Best Director categories at the Oscars, and its BAFTAs domination lends further credence to the theory that this is the one to beat on Sunday night. There is a possibility that something like Parasite or Jojo Rabbit could play the spoiler, and indeed those two films somewhat surprised this past weekend by taking screenplay wins from both the BAFTAs and the Writers Guild Awards over competitors like Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and The Irishman, respectively.
The Oscars voting body is decidedly more diverse than the BAFTAs, and a film like 1917—a triumphant WWI story from the British POV—is basically BAFTAs bait, so I think the love will be spread around a bit more during Sunday’s Oscars. Still, there’s every reason to believe 1917 is your frontrunner to take both Best Picture and Best Director at the Oscars, in addition to other technical awards.
Elsewhere at the BAFTAs, the acting categories continued to be downright boring as the same four people have won basically every award under the sun. Joaquin Phoenix, Renee Zellweger, Brad Pitt, and Laura Dern will repeat at the Oscars, otherwise one of the biggest upsets in history will have occurred. Joker took home Best Original Score, while Ford v Ferrari won Best Editing, and Klaus and For Sama won the Animated Feature and Documentary Feature awards, respectively.
Check out the full list of BAFTAs winners below:
FELLOWSHIP
KATHLEEN KENNEDY
OUTSTANDING BRITISH CONTRIBUTION TO CINEMA
ANDY SERKIS
BEST FILM
1917 Pippa Harris, Callum McDougall, Sam Mendes, Jayne-Ann Tenggren
THE IRISHMAN Robert De Niro, Jane Rosenthal, Martin Scorsese, Emma Tillinger Koskoff
JOKER Bradley Cooper, Todd Phillips, Emma Tillinger Koskoff
ONCE UPON A TIME… IN HOLLYWOOD David Heyman, Shannon McIntosh, Quentin Tarantino
PARASITE Bong Joon Ho, Kwak Sin Ae
OUTSTANDING BRITISH FILM
1917 Sam Mendes, Pippa Harris, Callum McDougall, Jayne-Ann Tenggren, Krysty Wilson-Cairns
BAIT Mark Jenkin, Kate Byers, Linn Waite
FOR SAMA Waad al-Kateab, Edward Watts
ROCKETMAN Dexter Fletcher, Adam Bohling, David Furnish, David Reid, Matthew Vaughn, Lee Hall
SORRY WE MISSED YOU Ken Loach, Rebecca O’Brien, Paul Laverty
THE TWO POPES Fernando Meirelles, Jonathan Eirich, Dan Lin, Tracey Seaward, Anthony McCarten
OUTSTANDING DEBUT BY A BRITISH WRITER, DIRECTOR OR PRODUCER
BAIT Mark Jenkin (Writer/Director), Kate Byers, Linn Waite (Producers)
FOR SAMA Waad al-Kateab (Director/Producer), Edward Watts (Director)
MAIDEN Alex Holmes (Director)
ONLY YOU Harry Wootliff (Writer/Director)
RETABLO Álvaro Delgado-Aparicio (Writer/Director)*
FILM NOT IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE
THE FAREWELL Lulu Wang, Daniele Melia
FOR SAMA Waad al-Kateab, Edward Watts
PAIN AND GLORY Pedro Almodóvar, Agustín Almodóvar
PARASITE Bong Joon Ho
PORTRAIT OF A LADY ON FIRE Céline Sciamma, Bénédicte Couvreur
DOCUMENTARY
AMERICAN FACTORY Steven Bognar, Julia Reichert
APOLLO 11 Todd Douglas Miller
DIEGO MARADONA Asif Kapadia, James Gay-Rees, Paul Martin
FOR SAMA Waad al-Kateab, Edward Watts
THE GREAT HACK Karim Amer, Jehane Noujaim
ANIMATED FILM
FROZEN 2 Chris Buck, Jennifer Lee, Peter Del Vecho
KLAUS Sergio Pablos, Jinko Gotoh
A SHAUN THE SHEEP MOVIE: FARMAGEDDON Will Becher, Richard Phelan, Paul Kewley
TOY STORY 4 Josh Cooley, Mark Nielsen
DIRECTOR
1917 Sam Mendes
THE IRISHMAN Martin Scorsese
JOKER Todd Phillips
ONCE UPON A TIME… IN HOLLYWOOD Quentin Tarantino
PARASITE Bong Joon Ho
ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
BOOKSMART Susanna Fogel, Emily Halpern, Sarah Haskins, Katie Silberman
KNIVES OUT Rian Johnson
MARRIAGE STORY Noah Baumbach
ONCE UPON A TIME… IN HOLLYWOOD Quentin Tarantino
PARASITE Han Jin Won, Bong Joon Ho
ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
THE IRISHMAN Steven Zaillian
JOJO RABBIT Taika Waititi
JOKER Todd Phillips, Scott Silver
LITTLE WOMEN Greta Gerwig
THE TWO POPES Anthony McCarten
LEADING ACTRESS
JESSIE BUCKLEY Wild Rose
SCARLETT JOHANSSON Marriage Story
SAOIRSE RONAN Little Women
CHARLIZE THERON Bombshell
RENÉE ZELLWEGER Judy
LEADING ACTOR
LEONARDO DICAPRIO Once Upon a Time… In Hollywood
ADAM DRIVER Marriage Story
TARON EGERTON Rocketman
JOAQUIN PHOENIX Joker
JONATHAN PRYCE The Two Popes
SUPPORTING ACTRESS
LAURA DERN Marriage Story
SCARLETT JOHANSSON Jojo Rabbit
FLORENCE PUGH Little Women
MARGOT ROBBIE Bombshell
MARGOT ROBBIE Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood
SUPPORTING ACTOR
TOM HANKS A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
ANTHONY HOPKINS The Two Popes
AL PACINO The Irishman
JOE PESCI The Irishman
BRAD PITT Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood
ORIGINAL SCORE
1917 Thomas Newman
JOJO RABBIT Michael Giacchino
JOKER Hildur Guðnadóttir
LITTLE WOMEN Alexandre Desplat
STAR WARS: THE RISE OF SKYWALKER John Williams
CASTING
JOKER Shayna Markowitz
MARRIAGE STORY Douglas Aibel, Francine Maisler
ONCE UPON A TIME… IN HOLLYWOOD Victoria Thomas
THE PERSONAL HISTORY OF DAVID COPPERFIELD Sarah Crowe
THE TWO POPES Javier Braier, Barbara Giordani, Nina Gold, Francesco Vedovati, Gabriel Villegas
CINEMATOGRAPHY
1917 Roger Deakins
THE IRISHMAN Rodrigo Prieto
JOKER Lawrence Sher
LE MANS ’66 Phedon Papamichael
THE LIGHTHOUSE Jarin Blaschke
EDITING
THE IRISHMAN Thelma Schoonmaker
JOJO RABBIT Tom Eagles
JOKER Jeff Groth
LE MANS ’66 Andrew Buckland, Michael McCusker
ONCE UPON A TIME… IN HOLLYWOOD Fred Raskin
PRODUCTION DESIGN
1917 Dennis Gassner, Lee Sandales
THE IRISHMAN Bob Shaw, Regina Graves
JOJO RABBIT Ra Vincent, Nora Sopková
JOKER Mark Friedberg, Kris Moran
ONCE UPON A TIME… IN HOLLYWOOD Barbara Ling, Nancy Haigh
COSTUME DESIGN
THE IRISHMAN Christopher Peterson, Sandy Powell
JOJO RABBIT Mayes C. Rubeo
JUDY Jany Temime
LITTLE WOMEN Jacqueline Durran
ONCE UPON A TIME… IN HOLLYWOOD Arianne Phillips
MAKE UP & HAIR
1917 Naomi Donne, Tristan Versluis
BOMBSHELL Vivian Baker, Kazu Hiro, Anne Morgan
JOKER Kay Georgiou, Nicki Ledermann
JUDY Jeremy Woodhead
ROCKETMAN Lizzie Yianni Georgiou, Barrie Gower, Tapio Salmi
SOUND
1917 Scott Millan, Oliver Tarney, Rachael Tate, Mark Taylor, Stuart Wilson
JOKER Tod Maitland, Alan Robert Murray, Tom Ozanich, Dean Zupancic
LE MANS ’66 David Giammarco, Paul Massey, Steven A. Morrow, Donald Sylvester
ROCKETMAN Matthew Collinge, John Hayes, Mike Prestwood Smith, Danny Sheehan
STAR WARS: THE RISE OF SKYWALKER David Acord, Andy Nelson, Christopher Scarabosio, Stuart Wilson, Matthew Wood
SPECIAL VISUAL EFFECTS
1917 Greg Butler, Guillaume Rocheron, Dominic Tuohy
AVENGERS: ENDGAME Matt Aitken, Dan Deleeuw, Russell Earl, Dan Sudick
THE IRISHMAN Ivan Busquets, Leandro Estebecorena, Stephane Grabli, Pablo Helman
THE LION KING Andrew R. Jones, Robert Legato, Elliot Newman, Adam Valdez
STAR WARS: THE RISE OF SKYWALKER Roger Guyett, Paul Kavanagh, Neal Scanlan, Dominic Tuohy
BRITISH SHORT ANIMATION
GRANDAD WAS A ROMANTIC Maryam Mohajer
IN HER BOOTS Kathrin Steinbacher
THE MAGIC BOAT Naaman Azhari, Lilia Laurel
BRITISH SHORT FILM
AZAAR Myriam Raja, Nathanael Baring
GOLDFISH Hector Dockrill, Harri Kamalanathan, Benedict Turnbull, Laura Dockrill
KAMALI Sasha Rainbow, Rosalind Croad
LEARNING TO SKATEBOARD IN A WARZONE (IF YOU’RE A GIRL) Carol Dysinger, Elena Andreicheva
THE TRAP Lena Headey, Anthony Fitzgerald
EE RISING STAR AWARD (voted for by the public)
AWKWAFINA
KAITLYN DEVER
KELVIN HARRISON JR.
JACK LOWDEN
MICHEAL WARD