Just a day after the dust has settled following the start of this year’s awards season at the Golden Globes, this year’s BAFTA nominations have been announced.
This year’s ceremony is on February 2nd, just a week before the Oscars, so it will certainly be interesting to see how the two match up in terms of nominees and winners with such a short space between them.
Without further ado, here are the BAFTA nominations from some of the key categories:
Best Film
1917
The Irishman
Joker
Once Upon A Time… In Hollywood
Parasite
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
Outstanding British Film
1917
Bait
For Sama
Rocketman
Sorry We Missed You
The Two Popes
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
For Sama
Pain And Glory
Parasite
Portrait Of A Lady On Fire
Documentary
American Factory
Apollo 11
Diego Maradona
For Sama
The Great Hack
Animated Film
Frozen 2
Klaus
A Shaun The Sheep Movie: Farmageddon
Toy Story 4
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 and Katie Silberman
Knives Out- Rian Johnson
Marriage Story- Noah Baumbach
Once Upon A Time… In Hollywood- Quentin Tarantino
Parasite- Han Jin Won and Bong Joon-Ho,
Adapted Screenplay
The Irishman- Steven Zaillian
Jojo Rabbit- Taika Waititi
Joker- Todd Phillips and Scott Silver
Little Women- Greta Gerwig
The Two Popes- Anthony McCarten
Original Score
1917- Thomas Newman
Jojo Rabbit- Michael Giacchino
Joker- Hildur Guđnadóttir
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- Nina Gold
Cinematography
1917- Roger Deakins
The Irishman- Rodrigo Prieto
Joker- Lawrence Sher
Le Mans ’66- Phedon Papamichael
The Lighthouse- Jarin Blaschke
Rising Star Award
Awkwafina
Jack Lowden
Kaitlyn Dever
Kelvin Harrison Jr.
Micheal Ward
Amazingly, Joker leads the way with 11 nominations, closely followed by The Irishman and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, each with 10 nominations. However, this list of nominations by the British Academy is utterly disappointing, as it is almost entirely devoid of any diversity whatsoever.
There isn’t a single non-white acting nomination despite phenomenal performances by people like Eddie Murphy, Lupita Nyong’o, Awkwafina, Song Kang-Ho and Jennifer Lopez. This is certainly made worse by the fact that Scarlett Johansson and Margot Robbie have been awarded two nominations each, with Robbie being awarded 2 nominations in the Best Supporting Actress category, which frankly makes no sense at all. This is not to take away from her performances, but these are things that have to be scrutinized if awards bodies are to be rightly held accountable for a consistent lack of diversity.
Equally, for yet another year there is no female nominee in the Best Director category, which considering the dazzling work by Greta Gerwig and Lulu Wang on Little Women and The Farewell respectively seems to be a colossal snub on that front, especially with Joker director Todd Phillips being nominated ahead of them. It’s nice, however, to see female-led films like Booksmart and Little Women receiving screenplay nominations. That said, it’s a real surprise not to see Little Women or Marriage Story competing for Best Film, but a category that important that only allows for 5 nominees is pretty much flawed from conception anyways.
One of the only saving graces is the multiple nominations for Bong Joon-Ho’s Korean-language masterpiece Parasite, which is rightly competing in most of the major film categories and provides at least a little bit of diversity in the mostly male-centric, whitewashed list of nominations. Strangely, the most diverse category is actually the Rising Star Award, where it is great to see such an interesting and thoroughly deserved list of nominees competing for the prize.
We’ll have to wait and see who the big winners are come February 2nd, but for now, BAFTA needs to do better.
Words by Elliott Jones