Who’s up and down in the Oscar race after Sunday’s BAFTA Awards shockers?
BAFTA Awards voters often go by the beat of their own drums, and that independence was fully displayed during Sunday’s ceremony. After winning top awards from the Producers Guild, Directors Guild, and Writers Guild, Best Picture frontrunner Anora won only two awards on Sunday — but its victory for Mikey Madison in Best Actress was significant. Meanwhile, after flopping with the major guilds, The Brutalist rebounded with four wins, including Best Actor for Adrien Brody and Best Director for Brady Corbet. However, The Brutalist couldn’t win Best Film, falling to Conclave, which also won three other awards. Ahead, the biggest takeaways from the BAFTA Awards results and what it all might mean for the Oscars race as winner voting continues until Tuesday.
Best Actress will come down to the wire
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To steal from Anne Hathaway: It came true. After speculating for the last week about whether Mikey Madison could ride the wave of support for Anora to an upset Best Actress win over presumed frontrunner Demi Moore at the BAFTA Awards, Madison indeed pulled off the victory. The win is significant: It’s not only the first time Madison has defeated Moore during a televised awards ceremony this season but also the first time the industry has weighed in on the Best Actress race. Previously, Moore won non-industry honors from the Golden Globe and Critics Choice Awards. The Substance star remains the category favorite for now — and some will likely argue that her status as a Hollywood veteran will keep her out in front at the Oscars since Madison is a relative newcomer. However, in recent years, the BAFTA Awards have an impressive track record of signaling when the “narrative” favorite — like Lily Gladstone, Chadwick Boseman, and Glenn Close — lacks genuine support. It’s possible that, in hindsight, we’ll view Madison’s win as a red herring. She could be Austin Butler, who won for Elvis, to Moore’s Brendan Fraser, the eventual Oscar winner for The Whale (and Moore, like Fraser did, might win at the Screen Actors Guild Awards next weekend, reshaping the Best Actress race one last time before the Oscars). However, with the industry’s strong support for Anora, Madison might follow in the footsteps of Frances McDormand, who was underestimated in the 2021 Best Actress field but won while leading the Best Picture-winning Nomadland.
Best Original Screenplay is a three-film race
Not to pile on The Substance, but the unlikely Oscar contender won only a single BAFTA Award on Sunday in the hair and makeup category. Moore’s loss was tough, but arguably, the Best Original Screenplay defeat was worse. Heading into the BAFTA Awards, Sean Baker led in the odds for Anora with Coralie Fargeat in second — and it felt like if Fargeat could pull off the win on Oscar night in the original screenplay category, her march to victory would start at BAFTA. However, Fargeat lost at the BAFTA Awards, not to Baker but to Jesse Eisenberg for A Real Pain. The win was a moderate shock: A Real Pain had only one other nomination at the BAFTA Awards (its win for Kieran Culkin in Best Supporting Actor; more on that one below) and isn’t a Best Picture Oscar nominee. It’s counterintuitive, but that The Substance lost here and lost to A Real Pain instead of Anora probably puts Baker in a solid position to win at the Oscars, with Eisenberg as the potential upset winner and Fargeat as the spoiler. (Baker beat Eisenberg head-to-head at the Writers Guild Awards on Saturday, where Fargeat was not nominated due to eligibility rules.)
The other acting races might be over
While Best Actress is full of intrigue, the other three acting races have stabilized. In the supporting categories at the BAFTA Awards, Culkin and Zoe Salda?a won expected honors, putting each on the verge of a sweep heading into Oscar night. At this point, if either performer lost at the SAG Awards next week, it would be a significant surprise. In Best Actor, many have underestimated Adrien Brody for The Brutalist, hoping that Timothée Chalamet could pull off the Oscar win for A Complete Unknown. Maybe that was wishful thinking because Brody won at the BAFTA Awards on Sunday. While that doesn’t guarantee he’ll win next weekend at the SAG Awards (the SAG Awards nominating committee blanked The Brutalist outside of Brody but widely embraced A Complete Unknown), it puts him in a great spot.
Conclave is the alternate to Anora
As noted, Anora only won two awards on Sunday: Best Actress and Best Casting. However, it wasn’t predicted that it would win Best Film or Best Director at the BAFTA Awards, so it’s not like the movie took a step back after dominating the industry guilds over the last week. Instead, Sunday’s results did well in illustrating which movie might be running second to Anora in the Best Picture race. So, while The Brutalist earned four wins (including Best Director), Conclave left the BAFTA ceremony in a great spot. Edward Berger’s film also won four awards, including Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Editing — two categories it is predicted to win at the Oscars. But it also won Best Film and Best British Film, and it heads into next weekend’s SAG Awards as a strong contender in the Best Ensemble category (where The Brutalist was snubbed). If Conclave — a consensus movie not considered all that polarizing — can pull off the win there over Anora and current favorite Wicked, it will head into the Oscars as a prime Best Picture upset choice. That’s a spot Berger is familiar with: two years ago, his film All Quiet on the Western Front was the BAFTA Best Film winner over Everything Everywhere All at Once and emerged as the runner-up contender.
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