The papal drama “Conclave” has been named the best film of 2024 at the EE BAFTA Film Awards, which took place on Sunday in London.
Voters from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts spread the wealth, giving “Conclave” and “The Brutalist” four awards each and giving two to “Dune: Part Two,” “Wicked,” “Emilia Perez,” “A Real Pain,” “Anora” and “Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl.”
The win for “Conclave” is the most significant for the film in a season in which “Anora” has been winning most of the major awards. It also gave director Edward Berger two BAFTA Best Film wins in the last three years, following his first for “All Quiet on the Western Front” two years ago.
The only other directors to have two films win the top BAFTA award in a span of three years are Mike Nichols (“Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” and “The Graduate”), John Schlesinger (“Midnight Cowboy” and “Sunday Bloody Sunday”), Woody Allen (“Annie Hall” and “Manhattan”) and Peter Jackson (“The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring” and “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King”).
Brady Corbet was named best director for “The Brutalist” over a field that included fellow Oscar nominees Sean Baker for “Anora,” Jacques Audiard for “Emilia Perez” and Coralie Fargeat for “The Substance.”
Adrien Brody also won the Best Actor award for “The Brutalist,” which gave that film a leading four awards going into the last category of the night.
Mikey Madison won the Best Actress award for “Anora,” halting a streak for Demi Moore and “The Substance” that had begun at the Golden Globe Awards in early January.
Zoe Saldaña won in the supporting actress category for “Emilia Pérez.” In its first major awards since the backlash over the exposure of racist and anti-Muslim tweets by the film’s star, Karla Sofía Gascón, the film also won the award for Best Film Not in the English Language. Other finalists in its category included the Oscar Best International Feature Film nominees “I’m Still Here” and “The Seed of the Sacred Fig.”
Kieran Culkin, who went into the show as the prohibitive favorite for his performance in “A Real Pain,” won in the supporting actor category. His writer-director for that film, Jesse Eisenberg, won for his original screenplay, halting the winning streak that “Anora” writer-director Sean Baker had been on through the Critics Choice, Directors Guild and Producers Guild Awards.
“Conclave” won for adapted screenplay and film editing and was also named the year’s best British film.
“Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl” won in a new category, Children’s and Family Film. The British-made “Wallace & Gromit” also won in the animated feature category after “The Wild Robot” had swept most of the previous awards shows.
“Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story” won in the documentary category over Oscar nominees “Black Box Diaries” and “No Other Land.”
Rich Peppiat, who set a BAFTA record for a debut film with six separate nominations for “Kneecap,” won the Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer for that film.
In below-the-line categories that were spread out among a number of films, “Wicked” won for production design and costume, “The Brutalist” won for score and for cinematography, “Dune: Part Two” won for visual effects and sound, “The Substance” won for makeup and “Anora” won for casting.
In the EE Rising Star Award, which is voted on by the British public and almost never goes to the nominee with the highest profile in the U.S., David Jonsson won over a field that included American actors Mikey Madison and Jharell Jerome.
“Anora” came into the ceremony with awards-season momentum with its Critics Choice, DGA, PGA and WGA wins. At BAFTA, though, it clearly faced a formidable competitor in “Conclave.”
“Emilia Pérez” was second with 11 nominations. Its chances may well have been hurt by the Gascón’s past tweets, but BAFTA members had been voting for a full week before her past comments were actively circulated on social media. (Voting continued for 12 days afterwards.)
Of the 19 categories that BAFTA and the Oscars have in common, about 75% of the BAFTA nominees are also nominated for Oscars. Last year, the BAFTA and Oscar winners matched in a remarkable 18 of the 19 categories, with the only disagreement coming in Best Visual Effects.
Overall, though, the BAFTA award for Best Film is not a particularly accurate predictor of the Oscar for Best Picture. Over the first 77 years of the BAFTAs, the two groups agreed 29 times, only about 38% of the time. Between 2009 and 2014, BAFTA and the Oscars matched for six years in a row – but in the 10 years since then, they have only agreed twice, on “Nomadland” in 2021 and “Oppenheimer” last year.
The ceremony took place at the Southbank Centre in London and was hosted by David Tennant. Also at the show, Warwick Davis was honored with the BAFTA Fellowship, while the Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema Award went to MediCinema.
Here is the full list of nominees. Winners are indicated by *WINNER.
Best film
“Anora”
“The Brutalist”
“A Complete Unknown”
“Conclave” * WINNER
“Emilia Pérez”
Outstanding British film
“Bird”
“Blitz”
“Conclave” * WINNER
“Gladiator II”
“Hard Truths”
“Kneecap”
“Lee”
“Love Lies Bleeding”
“The Outrun”
“Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl”
Leading actress
Cynthia Erivo – “Wicked”
Karla Sofía Gascón – “Emilia Pérez”
Marianne Jean-Baptiste – “Hard Truths”
Mikey Madison – “Anora” * WINNER
Demi Moore – “The Substance”
Saoirse Ronan – “The Outrun”
Leading actor
Adrien Brody – “The Brutalist” * WINNER
Timothée Chalamet – “A Complete Unknown”
Colman Domingo – “Sing Sing”
Ralph Fiennes – “Conclave”
Hugh Grant – “Heretic”
Sebastian Stan – “The Apprentice”
Supporting actress
Selena Gomez – “Emilia Pérez”
Ariana Grande – “Wicked”
Felicity Jones – “The Brutalist”
Jamie Lee Curtis – “The Last Showgirl”
Isabella Rossellini – “Conclave”
Zoe Saldaña – “Emilia Pérez” * WINNER
Supporting actor
Yura Borisov – “Anora”
Kieran Culkin – “A Real Pain” * WINNER
Clarence Maclin – “Sing Sing”
Edward Norton – “A Complete Unknown”
Guy Pearce – “The Brutalist”
Jeremy Strong – The Apprentice
Director
“Anora” – Sean Baker
“The Brutalist” – Brady Corbet * WINNER
“Conclave” – Edward Berger
“Dune: Part Two” – Denis Villeneuve
“Emilia Pérez” – Jacques Audiard
“The Substance” – Coralie Fargeat
Outstanding debut by a British writer, director or producer
“Hoard”
“Kneecap,” Rich Peppiat * WINNER
“Monkey Man”
“Santosh”
“Sister Midnight”
Film not in the English language
“All We Imagine As Light”
“Emilia Pérez” * WINNER
“I’m Still Here”
“Kneecap”
“The Seed of the Sacred Fig”
Documentary
“Black Box Diaries”
“Daughters”
“No Other Land”
“Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story” * WINNER
“Will & Harper”
Animated film
“Flow”
“Inside Out 2”
“Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl” * WINNER
“The Wild Robot”
Children’s and family film
“Flow”
“Kensuke’s Kingdom”
“Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl” *WINNER
“The Wild Robot”
Original screenplay
“Anora”
“The Brutalist”
“Kneecap”
“A Real Pain” * WINNER
“The Substance”
Adapted screenplay
“A Complete Unknown
“Conclave” * WINNER
“Emilia Pérez”
“Nickel Boys”
“Sing Sing”
EE Bafta rising star award (voted for by the public)
Marisa Abela
Jharrel Jerome
David Jonsson *WINNER
Mikey Madison
Nabhaan Rizwan
Original score
“The Brutalist” – Daniel Blumberg * WINNER
“Conclave” – Volker Bertelmann
“Emilia Pérez” – Camille, Clément Ducol
“Nosferatu” – Robin Carolan
“The Wild Robot” – Kris Bowers
Casting
“Anora” * WINNER
“The Apprentice”
“A Complete Unknown”
“Conclave”
“Kneecap”
Cinematography
“The Brutalist” * WINNER
“Conclave”
“Dune: Part Two”
“Emilia Pérez”
“Nosferatu”
Costume design
“Blitz”
“A Complete Unknown”
“Conclave”
“Nosferatu”
“Wicked” * WINNER
Editing
“Anora”
“Conclave” * WINNER
“Dune: Part Two”
“Emilia Pérez”
“Kneecap”
Production design
“The Brutalist”
“Conclave”
“Dune: Part Two”
“Nosferatu”
“Wicked” * WINNER
Make-up and hair
“Dune: Part Two”
“Emilia Pérez”
“Nosferatu”
“The Substance” * WINNER
“Wicked”
Sound
“Blitz”
“Dune: Part Two” *WINNER
“Gladiator II”
“The Substance”
“Wicked”
Special visual effects
“Better Man”
“Dune: Part Two” * WINNER
“Gladiator II”
“Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes”
“Wicked”
British short film
“The Flowers Stand Silently, Witnessing”
“Marion”
“Milk”
“Rock, Paper, Scissors” * WINNER
“Stomach Bug”
British short animation
“Adiós”
“Mog’s Christmas”
“Wander to Wonder” * WINNER